Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 11.djvu/449

 11 8. XI. JUNE 5, 1915.;

NOTES AND QUERIES.

439

Admiralty House, Plymouth, where during dinner news was brought to the Admiral that the Bellero- l>hon. with Napoleon on board, had arrived in the Sound. The Admiral presently remarked that every one would be making excursions to the ship on the morrow to see the great man, 'and I shall be happy to place one of the boats belonging to my ship at your disposal, Mr. Lethbridge.'

"Accordingly the next day my father took a party of friends in a boat of the flagship to see Napoleon. Amongst them was Mr. Charles East- lake (afterwards Sir Charles Eastlake), and my father, seeing Mr. Eastlake take out his sketch- book, brought the boat round to a good position ; and I have heard my father say that in ten minutes Mr. Eastlake made his sketch from which he eventually made his picture of ' Napoleon standing at the gangway of H.M.S. Bellerophon in Plymouth Sound.' It sold for one thousand guineas. My father used to add that he felt assured that Napoleon with his eagle eye detected an artist making a sketch, for Napoleon stood as immovable as a rock."

JOHN PAKENHAM STILWELL.

Hilfield, Yateley, Hants.

' Napoleon on, board the Bellerophon,' by

the late W. Q. Orchardson, B.A., is one of

the Chantrey Beq uest pictures in the Tate

Gallery, and has been frequently reproduced.

JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT. *

THE FLAG OF THE KNIGHTS OF MALTA (US. xi. 359). The Order of St. John of Jerusalem, at one time known as the Knights of Rhodes and at another as the Knights of Malta, always bore as their arms and flag the plain white cross on red Gules, a cross argent. The badge was the eight-pointed white cross ; it was usually worn on a black or red robe or cloak, or might be painted or engraved upon a steel breastplate, but there was no proper colour for it to be borne on, since badges, like crests, can have no field.

Old pictures of the ships of the Order show the Order's flag flying, sometimes to- gether with the flag of the Grand Master : The Order first and fourth, the Grand Master s arms second and third.

What can MB. WAINEWRIGHT mean by "Majtese corsairs'" ? Surely not the Order of St. John, who policed the Mediterranean for more than 200 years, and constantly fought the corsairs of the African coast.

The flag flying over Messrs. Christie's re- cently is the flag of the Order of St. John, now more than 800 years old, with the addition of two lions and two unicorns in the principal angles of the cross an addition made by royal charter in 1888 for the English Order, to distinguish it from, those branches on the Continent which also use their national emblems in a similar manner. There is good reason to assume that the

flag of Denmark the Dannebrog and the royal flag of Italy, are both derived from the standard of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. H. W. FINCHAM.

St. John's Gate, E.C.

The naval flag flown by the Knights of St. John while they were still in possession of Rhodes was a white cross on a red ground. In the Cotton Collection there is an early sixteenth -century drawing in colour, depict- ing the burning of Brighton in 1514 by the French under their admiral Pregent de Bidoulx, otherwise Prior John, himself a Knight of St. John. The drawing is Augustus I. i. 18, and the flag of the Order is shown on several ships, flying side by side with the King of France's flag.

MAN OF SUSSEX.

In ' Lieutenant Gradon's Collection of Naval Flags and Colours, 1686' ('A De- scriptive Catalogue of the Library of Samuel Pepys,' Part I., ' Sea ' Manuscripts, by J. R. Tanner, Litt. D., 1914, p. 5), the following three flags of Malta are given :

(1) "Malta": Gules, a cross argent.

(2) "Malta Streamer": differing from (1) only in the shape of the flag. (3) " Malta Prattig": Quarterly, first and fourth, Gules, a cross argent ; second and third, Gules, three bars argent, a bend raguly vert. S. G.

GERMAN SOLDIERS' AMULETS (11 S. xi. 187, 256). What has there been in the way of recent publications concerning current be- liefs as to ways of securing immunity from war wounds by shot and steel ? Silence on the subject seems improbable, the material as to similar immunity in the past being abundant. The following have been noted casually, as conferring invulnerability :

(1) Divine favour, as in the case of Wel- lington at Waterloo, George Washington at Braddock's defeat, &c.

(2) Blood (of Fafnir on Horn-Siegfried, &c.).

(3) An unbreakable coat of mail born on Kama, of divine parentage.

(4) A caul. This, the one use in British folk-lore, seems to have been worn thread- bare (cf. editorial notice at 11 S. x. 460).

(5) A cross (such as Count Niepperg's).

(6) The Garter -insignia (most easily dis- proved of this whole lot).

(7) The recitation of the ' Genealogy of Brigid.'

(8) Carrying the Labarum. The late discoveries as to this emblem tempt going beyond my limits of space here.