As most of you no doubt, I was following the recent vote for Scottish independence with a lot of interest. There is just one thing that I can’t figure out and that bothers me.
Maybe my attention to detail seems unnecessary to some. But in the news clips on tv, they showed some people waving the multi-national British union jack (England, Scotland and N. Ireland) . And some people waving the Scottish flag, with the cross of St. Andrew (a simple X, by any other name) white, in a blue field.
The colors were not the same. The Scottish flag blue was kind of an aquamarine. And the British union jack was a dark, kind of royal blue.
Shouldn’t they be the same color? The exact same color, in fact?
And while I’m at it, something else I always wanted to ask: What do the colors of the US flag (red, white and blue) have to do, if anything, with the British union jack? (Is our blue from the Scottish flag, specifically?) Yes, I agree I should know. But most history books I own, at least, only go into the matter briefly, if at all.
Citations in the articles, although the latter is vague.
Probably related to nothing, but the US gained independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain, not the United Kingdom. The flag is similar without the red satire flag of St. Patrick,
A) No it isn’t.
B) The Union Jack is a combination of the flags of England and Scotland, and (later) a flag that was decided could represent Ireland. It’s curious that the shade most commonly used for one is not used for the other. (But heraldically, they are the same color. The exact shade is a matter of artistic license, and historically, whatever dye was available and how long the flag had been in the sun.)
Historically, there was no official shade of blue for the Scottish flag (or indeed for the Union Jack), and legally this is still the case. However in relatively recent times both the Scottish and UK governments have issued non-binding recommendations as to the shades suggested, and flag manufacturers tend to follow these. For blue, the UK government recommends Pantone 280, the Scottish government recommends Pantone 300. I have no idea why the recommendations are different.
As for the US flag, the earliest flags flown by the Continental Congress had the then British flag in the canton, and presumably the use of red, white and blue was influenced by this. I don’t know if there are officially prescribed shades for the US flag. But red, white and blue are generally popular choices for flags; they make a clearly discernible contrast which aids in recognition at a distance which is, after all, the point of a flag.
Read 4 USC 1 for a description of the flag. Interestingly both Cornell Law and gpo.gov show Chapter 1 as saying there are 48 stars on the flag with the two extra stars being added by executive order which I find strange. No reference as to shade of colors.
It’s quite common to see Scottish flags in a darker, navy blue, and indeed if you look at the Scottish national football or rugby teams that is the colour they wear. Meanwhile, the lighter blue is sometimes used in the Union Jack, although in official use they tend to stick to the proper colour.
The Union flag is an *artistic interpretation *of the superimposition of the component nation flags anyway. You can’t get to it by simply putting them all together.
