AN HISTORICAL ERROR.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 19, 5 January 1912, Page 4

AN HISTORICAL ERROR.

According to an English paper,- a ridiculous historical error in a House of Commons fresco lias stared members’ in the face for forty, years, and has just been discovered for the first time. Au unmistakable Union Jack appears at a date 110 years before the Hag was adopted or even designed. The subject of the p : cture is the lauding of Charles If., when invited by Parliament to mount the throne after the death of Cromwell. The cliffs rf Dover show in the background cf the painting, and in the foreground Charles and his suite are stepping up the beach. On the extreme right of the fresco is portrayed a, standardbearer, and here is the ludicrous incongruity. The flag he bears, f illing hi heavy folds unstirred by the breeze, is a boldly painted Union Jack. The fresco is one of eight exe-

• sited L>y the Royal Academician, E. .M. Ward, that cover the sides ot the corridor connecting the great octagonal chamber with the House of Commons lohhv. It was not because the

picture was out of sight in some shadowy, unfrequented corner that the anomaly has passed so long unnoticed. On the contrary, the bril-liantly-lit corridor m which the picture is displayed is the most used in the building. Members are constantly passing through it to go to other parts of the House, and to meet visitors, who crowd the octagonal chamber. Times out of number a member lias invited a constituent to seat himself on the bench with h'm right opposite the Charles 11. painting while tliev converse. It w.’.s at lirst thought that the flag might have been the “Jack” of James 1., vho was ruler .A England and Scotland. But the flag ol James I. has the red cross of St George and the white diagonal cross of St. Andrew only, on a blue ground, while the flag shown in the painting has the red diagonal cross of St. Patrick that was never so added till the Act'of Union.