A History of the Sparrowhawk Flag

Ships of the Honorable East India Company flew several different red and white striped ensigns with a St. George's cross in the canton during the period 1674 to 1707. After 1707 the cross was replaced with the British Union. The 13-striped version was the basis of the Sparrowhawk flag.


The original ensign was owned by Steven Safford the proprietor of the King's Arms Tavern on Queen Anne Street in Caxton. Safford, originally from Massachusetts, had been one of several thousand colonial volunteers who fought in the siege of Fortress Louisbourg in 1745. Louisbourg was a French fortified town, located in present day Nova Scotia. It was an important commercial hub between France and her colonies.

“Among the few souvenirs Safford brought back from Louisbourg... was an old jack of the Honorable East India Company, given to him by a drunken British marine in exchange for a half gallon of Jamaican rum. Safford supposed that...the flag [was] taken from a French warehouse in the town, and that [it was] the forgotten booty of a past engagement between armed merchantmen of the French and English East India Companies....”

Safford, a member of a philosophical discussion group known as the Attic Society, contributed the jack for use as a tablecloth during their meetings in the King's Arms Tavern. “The Attic Society had been Hugh Kenrick's idea, and, although it was a less formal version of the Society of the Pippin in London, he was happy that it existed and was welcomed by many of his neighbors with an eagerness and literacy that matched his own.”

During discussions of the Stamp Act, the Society adopted a resolution that the “Act was unconstitutional in principle, extortionate in practice and likely to 'provoke invidious and vigorous sentiments against Parliament and the Crown.'” At this point, Jack Frake proposed that, in light of their resolution, the Society should adopt the name “Sons of Liberty”. This was a term used by Colonel Barré in the Commons to describe the colonials in his defense of their protest actions. Frake also said it was time to discuss the actions to be taken to prevent the landing and employment of stamps in the county. At this meeting the shocked members rejected the proposals, but, later, as events escalated, they did adopt the new name for the society.

The flag of the Sons of Liberty was a modification of the East India Company jack. The thirteen red and white stripes were accepted as representative of the thirteen colonies in rebellion. The St. George's cross was replaced with a field of cobalt emblazoned in gold with the Society's new motto “Live Free or Die”. The motto was derived from a letter to Jack Frake from Skelly and Redmagne: “...we are certain that you will understand our new-found maxim: Live free, or die. Perhaps, someday, you will understand it better than we have, and attain a greater liberty than we can now imagine.” The cobalt color was suggested by Glorious Swain's last words to Hugh Kenrick: “The sky is growing more blue...a royal cobalt...the canopy of Olympus.” The name of the Society, “Sons of Liberty”, was sewn in black on one of the white stripes. The modifications to the flag were made by Lydia Heathcoate, the town seamstress.

This was the design of the flag when it was first used by the throng that gathered to resist the clandestine landing of the Stamps at Caxton. Lydia Heathcoate made one later alteration to the flag by adding “Queen Anne Independent Company Virginia” to a second white stripe. This was the flag that the Queen Anne militia carried to war.



This history, flag descriptions and all quotes are derived from the Sparrowhawk novels, Copyright © 2001-2006 by Edward Cline.