Technically, the Jubilee was last week (at least the official festivities were) but as Queen Elizabeth II celebrates 70 years on the Throne, I thought it might be fun to look at some of the Royal Standards of the UK and see what kind of variants there are out there. First up: the rules.
The Royal Standard is flown when the Queen is in residence in one of the royal palaces and on her car, ship, or airplane.
Can be flown on any building, official or private during a visit by the Queen if requested.
It replaces the Union Flag over Westminister when the Queen visits for the State Opening of Parliament.
It’s never flown at half-mast since even if the Queen dies, there’s always a sovereign on the throne. (I didn’t actually know this!)
Second up: the Royal Standard(s).
This is the most common variant you’ll see— it’s used in England, Northern Ireland, Wales, the Crown Dependencies, and all British Overseas Territories. The first and fourth quadrants feature the three gold lions passant of England. The second quadrant with the Red Lion rampant is for Scotland and the third quadrant features a version of the gold harp from the coat of arms of Ireland on a blue field.
This is the Scottish version— as you can see, England’s double representation is replaced by Scotland’s red lion on the first and fourth quadrants. England’s gold lions and Ireland’s harp also remain.
(Mild and totally random speculation: I don’t understand why Wales is given short shrift here- I mean, I do and I don’t— Wales fell under English domination in about 1283 and wasn’t fully annexed until the 1500s— so it’s… been awhile? But I don’t understand Ireland being there- especially with it being a symbol so associated with Eire as a posed to Northern Ireland. I know people don’t really have high hopes for Charles and the Monarchy, but I do think he’s being underestimated a bit and might surprise people with some relatively forward-thinking changes to the Monarchy. One of which might be the Royal Standard: I don’t mind harps, but let’s be real here: Dragons are fucking cool. It’s time for Wales to get a slot on the Royal Standard.
Similarly, while there are Royal Standards for Canada, Australia, and New Zealand which we’ll get to in a second, just for variety’s sake, it would not surprise me if Australia became a Republic in my lifetime and I think there’s an outside chance Canada could follow suit.)
Let’s talk about Canada, Australia, and New Zealand— these have similar design structures as the UK Royal Standards but are more personalized specifically to the Queen. I would imagine when Charles takes over these would change somewhat, but for now— Canada:
You can see what I mean by a similar design structure here— England’s three gold lions, Scotland’s Red Lion are joined by an Irish harp (again, weird), and three French Fleur-du-Lis (presumably for Quebec), and three maple leaves on the bottom. E is for Elizabeth. (Obviously.)
If there’s a favorite of mine out of all of these four, I’d say it’s probably Australia:
God bless Oz. I don’t know who designed this or who thought this up, but they got this right. Each of the sic sections represents a heraldic badge of the Australian States and the border (ermine) stands for the Federation of states as a whole.
The upper left— is New South Wales, with St. George’s Cross with a gold lion and gold stars, the upper middle is Victoria with a Crown and white stars, upper right is Queensland with a blue Maltese cross and a crown on a white field.
Lower left )and the coolest, imo is South Australia— a piping shrike on a gold field, lower middle is Western Australia with a black swan on a gold field and lower right is Tasmania with a red lion on a white field.
In the middle is a gold pointed star (the Commonwealth Star) that stands for the states and territories— the blue disc comes from the Queen’s personal flag used for duties within the Commonwealth.
Love this. So unique to Australia itself.
This one is just as unique as its larger neighbor- but is lifted more or less directly from the escutcheon of the Coat of Arms of New Zealand— in fact, if you take out the Queen’s emblem, add a third ship and shrink it down into a shield shape and you’ve got the shield. The nods to agriculture are a nice touch- especially the fleece- and the red stars of the Southern Cross are similar to those seen on the national flag.
It was adopted for the Queen’s tour of New Zealand in 1963 and for use thereafter.
I’ll admit to something: heraldry isn’t really my thing. As a discipline, it’s got a lot of cross-over with vexillology because… history, but I’ve never bothered to get into the rules and structures of heraldric design, so there’s a lot I probably don’t know and hopefully haven’t missed with all of this.
The Queen’s Jubilee was a hell of a thing to see— and it’s probably the only Platinum Jubilee we’re ever going to get to see. I would be extremely surprised if she makes it to 80 years on the throne (the occasional jokes about supernatural abilities and immortality might get a bit more credible if she does so) but there’s an outside chance she can get to 75 years- and what that Jubilee is, I don’t even know.
Do I think the Monarchy as an institution will persist? I think so. It’ll shrink over the next few decades— you’ll see more and more countries ditch the British monarchy as their Head of State. It’ll be smaller— Charles has already made some indications in that direction— and I think it’ll evolve over time to resemble something like the Scandanavian monarchies, where the Monarch is just some person that might have a job and career and just pops in now and again to open Parliament, wave and do other ceremonial things.
Could the UK ditch the Monarchy entirely? Maybe. The thing is that under a Parliamentary system, any President will be weak and largely ceremonial in nature- not much different from the purpose the monarchy serves now. (Seriously: who is the President of Israel? Or Germany? You don’t know—but you probably know the Chancellor or Prime Minister.) So unless you’re going to radically change your government to invest your head of state with some power, it’s essentially about the principle to select your own (largely ceremonial) head of state— and while public opinion might one day demand that, in the end, a smaller, more cost-effective Monarchy might prove The Sex Pistols’ cynicism right once and for all: tourists are money.