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Serjeant Knight's Discourse on the Cross and Flags of St George (1678)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 April 2011

C S Knighton  and
Timothy Wilson
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Abstract

In January 1678 John Knight, the Serjeant Surgeon of Charles II, sent to Samuel Pepys a ‘Discourse containing the History of the Cross of St. George, and its becoming the Sole Distinction = Flag, Badge or Cognizance of England, by Sea and Land’. Knight argued that St George's cross should become the dominant feature in English flags and supported his argument with a history of the cross.

A manuscript copy of this discourse, with Knight's original drawings, survives in the Pepys Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge, and is published here. A brief biography of Knight is presented and an account of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century controversies about St George. The latter was an issue which caused acrimony between Royalists and Puritans. An Appendix reconstructs Knight's library, principally consisting of books concerning heraldry, topography and history.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 81 , September 2001 , pp. 351 - 390
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 2001

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