Flag Challenge 231: GB = Gallo-Britannic
Design a flag for a polity evolved from the equal union of a state based in "Gallic" Europe and that in the British Isles.
Restrictions & definitions:
Gallic Europe is defined as the lands between the Pyrenees, the Juras, the Weser River, and the Channel.
The British Isles is defined as those islands between the Atlantic, Channel, and North Sea.
The POD must be between Roman Britain and WW2.
The union must originally have been between equal sovereign states.
The Entries:
Design a flag for a polity evolved from the equal union of a state based in "Gallic" Europe and that in the British Isles.
Restrictions & definitions:
Gallic Europe is defined as the lands between the Pyrenees, the Juras, the Weser River, and the Channel.
The British Isles is defined as those islands between the Atlantic, Channel, and North Sea.
The POD must be between Roman Britain and WW2.
The union must originally have been between equal sovereign states.
The Entries:
ONE said:Flag of the early 16th century union between Scotland and (Lower) Navarre. Seeking to avoid being absorbed by France or conquered by Aragon, Navarre allies itself with Scotland. No doubt this annoys France to no end.
TWO said:The Union of Brittany and Wales
Known as the Ermine Dragon flag, this flag was created to represent the union of Brittany and Wales. After the Great War, the Celtic countries got their first taste of independence in centuries. While Ireland and Scotland formed their own independent nations, Brittany and Wales saw themselves as too small to be alone. Their solution was the creation of a union between the two.
The flag combined the tradition ermine field of Brittany with the Welsh dragon.
GwenofGwened. Flag of the Province of Brittany. 6 May 2010. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Drapeau_de_la_province_de_Bretagne_(1532).svg. Accessed 31 August 2020.
Jakobs, Tobias. Flag of Wales. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_Wales_(1959–present).svg. Accessed 31 August 2020.
Zscouts370. Kroaz Du. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kroaz_Du.svg. Accessed 31 August 2020.
THREE said:United Duchies of Cornwall and Cornwall
The United Duchies of Cornwall and Cornwall, commonly known as the Two Cornwalls, came about following the death of Mark V of Insular Cornwall (Sx: Cornweallas) without surviving issue and so the territories passed to Alan IV of Continental Cornwall (Gl: Cornouaille).
The Two Cornwalls consisted of Insular Cornwall on South West Peninsula of Great Britain and Continental Cornwall on the Lesser Britain Peninsula of Gaul, both linguistically distinct from their neighbours - Saxon-speaking Wessex in Great Britain and Gallo-speaking Normandy in Gaul - but speaking two dialects of the same Cornish language.
FOUR said:The Flag of the Kingdom of Northumbria-Flanders
In the 8th and 9th centuries, Viking raids were a fact of life for coastal communities round the North Sea. In the British Isles, the landing of the Great Heathen Army in 865 led to large swathes of the southern half of Britain coming under Danish control. In the low countries, the margraves of Frisia, Holland and Flanders struggled against the raiders.
In the absence of military support from the Frankish realms, which were preoccupied with their own problems including civil wars as well as Viking raids elsewhere, the Margrave of Flanders sought assistance from other lands under attack by the Danes and Norse.
The rump Kingdom of Northumbria, having lost the southern half of its lands to the Danes, agreed to an alliance, which was sealed by the marriage of the king's son to the margrave's daughter, Adelina.
Over the next century or so, both lands benefitted from the alliance. The Flemish started to attack Danish shipping heading both for their own coast and for the east coast of Britain, whilst seasoned Northumbrian troops were sent to Flanders to help repel raids and give advice on effective fortifications.
Flanders, now a County, expanded to the north by union with Holland and, later, Frisia. Northumbria managed to re-conquer its previous territory as far south as the River Ribble in the west and nearly to the Humber in the east, helped by the Danish being tied up with the occupation of the lands further south in Britain, having finally defeated the forces of Wessex.
Towards the end of the 10th century, a formal alliance was signed. No copies of the treaty remain for public viewing, though the Vatican acknowledged in 2013 that it holds a copy in its archives, since the treaty was witnessed by a papal envoy.
The alliance remained active for the next few hundred years, with trade enhancing the links between the two lands, though it was mutual military assistance which remained the basis of the pact. It was this which led to the union of the two lands. A combined Northumbrian-Flemish army, led by both the King of Northumbria and the Duke of Flanders (the County had become a Duchy some years before), was ambushed by an Anglo-Danish force whilst marching to the relief of a besieged city. Although the allied army won the ensuing battle, it paid a heavy price. Fully half of the men lay dead on the field, including the Northumbrian king, his son and the Flemish duke.
None of the dead leaders had surviving male children, which could easily have led to civil war in either or both lands, but each land was blessed at the time with sensible leaders, who managed to agree on an heir to inherit both the kingdom and the duchy.
King Herman of Northumbria-Flanders (Koning Hermen van Vlaanderen-Noordhumbrië) was the grandson of the Northumbrian king's father's sister, who had married the brother of the first Duke of Flanders (or last Count, depending on how you look at it).
The flag of Northumbria-Flanders combines the ancient 'Oswald's Stripes' of Northumbria with the Lion Rampant of Flanders.
The stripes, which had often been rendered as red over the centuries, were re-coloured as purple again, in recognition of the semi-imperial nature of the new nation.
Modern interpretations cite the red eye and teeth of the lion as symbolic of the blood shed in defence of the allied lands and the blue claws and tongue as symbolic of the sea joining them, but heraldic authorities note that these colours are commonly used on lions rampant; notwithstanding this, these 'reasons' for the colours are quoted in many publications, both online and hard-copy.
Image(s) created by FriendlyGhost using paint.net.
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The lion rampant in this image was amended from this image in the public domain:
Black upright lion (lion rampant sable) by Wikimandia, free for use and adaptation under the the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) licence.
The rest of the image was created by me.
Edit: the first thing that came to mind for this challenge was a union of the villages in Gaul and Kent featured in Asterix in Britain - something involving symbols of herbs/cauldron/teacup or similar, maybe, just for a bit of fun- but since the PoD had to be after Roman Britain, that was out!
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