The Case for St Edmund

The English today are unaware of the significance behind the symbols they identify with and also the masked history that had iconised them. It is because the English have been discredited over their nationality; being told it’s just a language, how we are a mongrel race (made up of Romans, Celts, Germanics, Danes and later Normans) that we desperately embrace anything that might symbolise our people. It’s also because of this derision alongside our present government’s oversight towards anything English that we now have a defensive display of St George’s flags on windows, t-shirts, car bumpers and just about everywhere. During the 2006 World Cup a journalist had commented on the birth of an empty patriotism from people who seem to have no interest in anything. Although these symbols have a different significance to what they did hundreds of years ago, it seems sad how the modern working classes drape themselves in imagery that once represented an elitism that would have oppressed them.

If we revert to a different patron saint it would mean changing the national flag too. St Edmund was the original patron saint of England in an age where flags weren’t used to represent a nation. There were however runes and heraldry that symbolised England at that time which could be incorporated into a flag, something which would owe significance to a less tyrannical and less elitist age. Although the Anglo Saxons were far from liberal and had originally plundered their way across Britain during the 4th century, they had at least developed into an established region of kingdoms that allowed for Celtic neighbours to also develop as kingdoms. St Edmund lived during this time as an East Anglian king who later became a martyr and saint. St Edmund Association is for the renaissance of that period of late Saxon Christianity and not the Heathenism that went generations before it. The late Saxon period became less Germanic and more a period of developing English origins up until the Norman Conquest when a new heraldic era of lions and crosses were introduced.

The Case for a National Flag

The origins of the Cross of St George are not entirely known but a flag very similar to it was brought to these shores by William of Normandy at the beginning of the 1066 invasion. A banner with a red cross on a white background was the papal cross awarded to him by the Pope as his ‘holy’ banner to invade England that year. This emblem was seen again over a century later during the Crusades, again as a holy banner for invasion. It could be argued that because the Normans wanted to eradicate the Anglo Saxon heroism which had gone before them such as Alfred the Great and St Edmund, they tried to champion pre-Saxon heroes such as Roman/British King Arthur. The Norman king Edward I once wanted to revive that chivalric period of King Arthur where the red cross used by Arthur’s knights might have also influenced the later Crusades. This symbol was always in the psyche at the time as Richard the Lionheart leading the Crusades was supposed to have had a vision where St George came to him in an image of red and white. It came as no surprise that St George, a pre-Saxon hero who lived and died before England had even been heard of, years later became favoured over St Edmund as the patron saint.

It is also worth noting that an additional lion was added to William the Conqueror’s personal crest of 2 lions giving us the 3 lions emblem that we use today. These were the images that symbolised the post 1066 conquest where the original English were slaughtered or enslaved as the new Norman inhabitants lived in castles handing down their estates to the generations of landowners of England’s nobility. These went on to become the knights and archers invading and subjugating other nations which is why England had this historical reputation of elitism and conquest known today. Nearly a millennium later we still wave their ‘unintended’ flag with pride with “3 lions on our shirt”! Dare we tell our football fans they are sporting hand-me-downs of a French ruling class that once tried to eradicate England? Or is it time to embrace a SAINT and FLAG that represents our true yet hidden identity?

When you examine history, there is no saint who could realistically represent English people other than St Edmund. If England is to gain its own parliament and national independence in the future, we will need a saint and a flag to represent the people instead of their ancient conquerors.