The Sparrowhawk Flag

On May 23, 2010, Ed Cline was presented with an authentic reproduction of the "Sons of Liberty" flag described in his Sparrowhawk novels. Ed is shown (on the left) in the attached photo holding the flag along with Bob Hill the manager of the Williamsburg Booksellers at the Information Center in Williamsburg, Virginia. Ed frequently appears at the book store on Sundays during the height of the tourist season to autograph his books and discuss Revolutionary history. If you are planning a trip Williamsburg, be sure to look him up during your visit. If you enjoy history and historical sites, Williamsburg is not to be missed.



The flag was described in the novels as being based on a British East India Company jack. This fictional provenance is discussed in detail in an earlier post "A History of the Sparrowhawk Flag". Ed provided some real historical background in another post "More Sparrowhawk flag history" in which he postulated that the American flag, itself, was very likely based on the East India Company jack. Note, however, that the canton of the EIC jack and the Sparrowhawk flag is only five stripes wide versus that of the American flag which is seven stripes wide. The American founders, obviously, wanted a much bolder canton in which to display the stars.

First Prize to be republished.

Ed Cline wrote nine novels before starting on the Sparrowhawk series: three suspense novels and six detective novels. Only two of the nine have been published. First Prize, the second in a series of detective stories, was published in 1988. Whisper the Guns, the first in a suspense series featuring an American entrepreneur hero, was published in 1992.

"Nothing that is observable in reality is exempt from rational scrutiny." This is the motto of Chess Hanrahan, the protagonist of First Prize, a detective who solves mysteries based on moral paradoxes. Hanrahan is hired by the Granville Foundation to find Gregory Compton, a writer who has just won the prestigious Granville award for fiction. Compton has disappeared without claiming the award, and the Granville Foundation is eager to find him. Hanrahan's investigation leads him through the twisted world of the publishing industry, and, along the way, it illustrates why so little true art manages to percolate through the mountain of rubbish that gets into print.

There is an excellent review of First Prize at: http://www.theatlasphere.com/columns/040205_fram-cohen_firstprize.php

First Prize is to be republished by Perfect Crime Books in December 2009: http://www.perfectcrimebooks.com/edwardcline.html

Order your copy today! Perhaps, with enough response to this release, the rest of Ed's novels will see the light of day. Currently, there are plans to publish one more Hanrahan mystery, Presence of Mind, in which he takes on the denizens of the State Department.

The Music of Sparrowhawk

One of the most interesting aspects of the Sparrowhawk series is the depth of research that Edward Cline performed to create his 18th century setting. He had to master the social atmosphere, the spoken and written language, the laws, the commercial aspects, the philosophy and the arts of the period. In addition, he had to develop a detailed sense of place for the various settings and a thorough understanding of the actual historical personages that appeared in the story. The proof of his success is the fact that the books transport you into the period and make you feel that you are a part of the action. This series is, not only, great literature, but, also, a great learning experience. So much so that the books have been used in many schools to supplement the standard texts.

The music of the period is just one example of this experience. As Ed wrote in the Sparrowhawk Companion "The classical music of the eighteenth cen­tury little appealed to me before I began researching Sparrowhawk. But as I listened to more of it, in search of music that might move Jack and Hugh, and also to grasp the character of the best music of the period, I acquired a taste and found roles for much of what the period had to offer, including many "folk" melodies..."

Teresa Hermiz, a music teacher from Centerville, Ohio, wrote the following:

"Every year I give three lecture recitals in my piano studio. My students play the music that goes with the lecture. Three years ago I began a series on the Influence of Great Literature on Great Music and vise versa. I began it with the Sparrowhawk series and have just ended it with the same. This time the emphasis was on how Mr. Cline used the music in his character development. The heroism of Jack in 'See the Conquering Hero Comes', the defiance of Skelly in 'Rule Britannia', the promise of greatness Hugh felt when listening to the 'Music for the Royal Fireworks', Etain's serene confidence in Jack, her hero, Reverdy's admiration and passion for Hugh expressed in the lovely 'Christmas Cantata', the defiant independence of the colonials marching up Bunker Hill to the fifer's 'Yankee Doodle'.

"Millions of people throughout history and today are quite willing to surrender to a tyrant who promises to take care of them. What made the Americans different? That question is answered in the Sparrowhawk books. We need to know it if we are to reclaim our freedoms and independence today."

This is a copy of Teresa's recent program:

Sparrowhawk by Edward Cline L/R September 12, 2009
History from 1744 to 1775

Book 1: Jack Frake's certitude leads him to heroically resist tyranny

See the Conquering Hero Comes by Georg Friedrich Handel
See, the conquering hero comes!
Sound the trumpets, beat the drums.
Sports prepare, the laurel bring,
Songs of triumph to them sing.

Skelly and Redmange are heroic: they will never bow to tyranny

Rule Britannia by Thomas Arne
I, haughty tyrants ne’er shall tame
All their attempts to bend me down
Will but arouse my generous flame
But work their woe and my renown
Rule, Britannia! “This Briton will never be a slave.”

Book 2: Hugh Kenrick passionately defends freedom

Music from the Royal Fireworks by Georg Friedrich Handel

Book 4: Etain’s music inspires and comforts her heroes

Rights of Conscience - Shaker hymn

Book 5: Musical Celebration in honor of the heroes

Christmas Cantata by Alessandro Scarlatti
Echo Concerto by A. Vivaldi

Book 6: War against tyranny

Yankee Doodle - Anonymous

Sparrowhawk montage

Bill Bucko has contributed this interesting montage that he developed several years ago. It knits together several key features of the Sparrowhawk series. Click on the image to expand it. Among other sites, Bill blogs at: http://forums.4aynrandfans.com/

More Sparrowhawk flag history

In answer to Teresa's question about the flag history, Ed Cline sent her, in a separate email, a brief comment on colonial flags. I thought it was worth reproducing here:

Hi Teresa:

The history of the East India Company jack, or flag, as related by the blog host (and by me in the novels) is factual up to the time Steven Safford procured one in Louisbourg. What Jack Frake, Hugh Kenrick and the Attic Society, later the Sons of Liberty, did with what Safford brought back from that campaign is fictional. There is no record of what flags were flown by the Americans at Bunker Hill, just speculation and mentions in biographies. There is no record of Virginians foiling a landing of the hated stamps, either. However, the East India Company jack is a fact, and it may be seen over the sterns of East Indiamen in contemporary paintings. [There are some interesting pictures on this site: http://www.portcities.org.uk/london/server/show/ConGallery.69/The-Lords-of-the-Ocean-Ships-of-the-East-India-Company.html]

So, how did that jack develop into the Stars and Stripes of today? No one knows for sure. No history of the American flag even mentions the EIC jack, although it was obvious to me what its origin must have been, having gone onto the National Maritime Museum site in London in the course of my researches and seen the depictions of the East Indiamen. Omission of the jack in those histories startled me. But, by charter, East Indiamen were not permitted to call on North American ports. So no colonial American who had never voyaged to Britain would have ever seen one. Benjamin Franklin, however, spent a good portion of his life in London (later in Paris), as did many other colonial Americans, such as Arthur Lee. Immediately east of London Bridge on the Thames were the warehouses and docks of the East India Company, in the Pool of London, where the Indiamen loaded and unloaded cargoes. Franklin, Lee, and numerous other colonial Americans who crossed that bridge had to have seen the Indiamen and their jacks.

Someone who had lived in London -- it is not known who it could have been -- must have, at the beginning of hostilities between Britain and the colonies, suggested the jack design and alterations to it as either a simple means of symbolizing the thirteen colonies in the stripes -- and that idea is evident in contemporary prints of American flags featuring just the stripes with rattlesnakes and/or mottos -- or as a means of adopting in a spirit of defiance the fact that it was East India tea that was dumped into Boston Harbor in 1773, the first genuine physical resistance to Crown policies. (The EIC contracted with private merchant vessels to transport the tea to the colonies, since its own vessels were not permitted to sail there.) It might have been Franklin, or Lee, or any other American who was familiar with London.

This is my own hypothesis, but given the uniqueness of the jack's design and its similarity to flag designs adopted by Americans, it is a credible one. Up until Congress adopted the stars and stripes design as the official one, American armies marched under a bewildering mix of flags, and even after adoption, that remained the case.

Hope this helps.

Cheers, Ed

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.