If you thought that Scotland has two national flags, you're wrong, the Saltire or Cross of Saint Andrew is our one and only national flag. The more ag-gressive and fearsome Lion Rampant, much favoured by Scotland's fanatical football supporters, is not a national flag at all. It is the personal property of the Queen and anyone who flies it without the Queen's permission is technically breaking the law.

Ironically, citizens who wish to demonstrate their loyalty to the Scottish Crown should do it by flying the Saltire!

The Royal Banner is thought to date back to the reign of King William the Lion (1165-1214). King William is credited with the introduction of heraldy into Scotland and with the adoption of the Lion Rampant as his own personal emblem.

To understand what the Lion Rampant is, readers must first have an understanding of heraldry. Heraldry originated in the Middle-Ages to help kings deploy troops in battle.

Imagine the chaos and confusion of a battle in the Middle Ages. Kings had no radios to send messages to the battle- front and shouting out orders was of lit- tle use: not only might a battlefield stretch for miles but the commands would also be lost amongst the general din of swords clashing, men grunting and horses neighing.

Messages could only be delivered by messengers. Therefore, it was of vital importance that the messenger took the right message to the right person. To do that, a messenger had to be able to recognise different people and also see where they were on the battlefield. Needless to say, it could be very difficult to distinguish men who were in the thick of the fighting and surrounded by a sea of jostling bodies.

Let's take a famous example. During the Battle of Bannockburn, King Robert sent a message to Sir William Keith which instructed him to attack and disperse the English archers. Keith, who was one of the many heroes of the day, carried out the king's instructions to the letter and completely scattered the archers.

But what would have happened if Keith had not received the king's message? Arrows would have fallen like rain upon the Scots army with devastating consequences. The unthinkable might have happened we might have lost the battle!

It is clear that a system was needed which allowed a king to see at a glance where his various lieutenants were deployed. This is why nobles started us- ing heraldic designs. The heraldic designs, or coats-of-arms, were often painted on their shields and were simply mediaeval markers which allowed the king and his messengers to see where his various nobles were. Once one no- ble had adopted a heraldic design or coat-of-arms, no one else could use it for obvious reasons: if several nobles all used the same coat-of-arms, it would be impossible to distinguish between them.

This is why the Lion Rampant or Royal Banner cannot lawfully be flown by ordinary Scottish citizens today. The Lion Rampant is, in effect, the mon- arch's personal coat-of-arms. Returning to our mediaeval battle, it is easy to see why no one else could be allowed to decorate themselves with it: that would have made it impossible for them to identify the kins.

All this is quite logical. But we no the old laws can also be surprising-longer live in the Middle Ages. Is itly severe. In the first instance, anyone therefore logical that out-of-date lawsfound guilty of displaying the Scottish should continue to apply to the flying Royal Banner can be fined £100 as we of the Lion Rampant? I think not I have already said if, however, that

Today, we only rarely fight wars.person flew the flag a second or third Even when we do, our armies have notime then the penalties would become usless for heraldy. From radios to radar,much greater. If, for example, the Lord modern technology offers today sol-Lyon King of Arms issued an interdict diers a whole range of different waysforbidding a particular person to fly the to get information to and from theLion Rampant and he or she subse-battle-front. Heraldry is no longerquently flew them they would be gull-needed and has not been used forty of contempt of court - a much more centuries,serious matter.

The old laws are almost universally.In the past, the Lion Rampant is a ignored but, even so, they do still app-flag which has been treated with the utly. Today, few Scots realise that they most respect. Whenever the flag was could be fined £100 for the so-calledhoisted, it was greeted by a salute of "crime" of displaying the Lion Rampant. This sometimes had unfortunate consequences for the king's subjects.

In 1645, the Marquis of Montrose (the King's Lieutenant) raised the Royal

Banner with one such traditional fanfare. Unfortunately, the noise was heard in the nearby glens and it warned his enemy Argyll that Montrose had crossed over the hills and descended upon Inverlochy!

The rules which depict what the Scottish Royal Banner is are horrendously complicated. The heraldic term for the Lion Rampant is the Tressured Lion.

The term "tressured lion" refers to the rectangular border around the lion. It is the double-tressure or double border that distinguishes the flag as the Scottish Royal Banner. A flag bearing a rampant lion against a yellow back- ground but which did not have the double-tressure would not, technically speaking, be the Royal Banner.

Therefore, anyone can fly a flag with a rampant lion against a yellow background. The illegality comes only if the lion is surrounded by a double- tressure.

It is thought that this strange technicality arose because the rampant lion was in common use in mediaeval Scotland. The Scots kings used the double-tressure to distinguish their lion from all the others.

We know that there were sound reasons why the Royal Banner was not allowed to be flown by anyone except the king or his chosen representatives during the Middle Ages. But we no longer live in the Middle Ages and it seems a shame that people who wish to show their loyalty to the Scottish Crown by flying the Royal Banner are technically breaking the law when they do so. The Lord Lyon, King of Arms, also has doubts as to whether the matter of flying the Lion Rampant should be subject to penal laws. He commented in a letter to me:

' 7 am sure it is much more a matter of education and instilling in the young an appropriate understanding of the distinction between the En-signs of Scottish National identity (the Saltire flag) and an Ensign of Sovereign Authority in Scotland (viz. the Lion Rampant), One would hope that the teachers in our schools would encourage the young to understand that 'the ruddy lion ramping in his field of tressured gold'has been an Ensign of Sovereign Authority in Scotland for nearly 800 years and that it should in Scotland be respected as such and that where national identity is to be symbolis-ed the Saltire flag should be displayed. "

The Lord Lyon is, of course, perfectly correct. However, there remains another side to this whole business.

Scottish history stretches back about two thousand years. In that time several Royal Houses have come and gone and scores of monarchs have lived and died. Many of these monarchs had more than one child. . .but only one child could inherit the throne. Many kings also had illegitimate children who were barred from inheriting the throne. Some legitimate kings were overthrown by rivals and their children, though of ge-nuine royal blood, never inherited the throne.

As we come down through the cen-turies, we see that there were large numbers of princes and princesses who - for one reason or another - never in-herited the Scottish throne. Many of these princes and princesses married and had children and their children had children. Throughout Scottish history, there has always existed a large body of people who were of royal descent but who were excluded from the throne. As time passed, it is clear that the number of people outside the Court with royal blood in their veins got larger and larger.

I wanted to leam how many people alive in Scotland today might be of royal descent. I spoke to Scottish genealogist Tony Reid of Edinburgh who told me that the numbers would be very large indeed:

"My personal feeling, and nobody is going to disprove it, is that near- ly all indigenous Scots are descended from some royal line or other. It has been estimated that Edward III of England had over 80,000 descen-dants by the time he had been dead 550 years. But our Pictish kings go back more than 1,500 years!

"Bearing in mind that the Picts were the fore-runners of the Highlanders and that in our experience there are very few Scottish families with no highland blood in their veins; you can safely assume that most Highlander readers will be of royal descent."

This set me thinking: if most ordinary Scots have small portions of royal blood in their veins, surely that gives them the right to fly the royal Banner at all times!

The only difference between you, me and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth is that she can prove she is descended from the ancient Pictish kings whereas you and I cannot. But the fact that we cannot prove we have royal ancestors in our far-distant past does not mean they don't exist: they do.

Next time you see the Scottish Royal Banner held aloft at Scottish occasions, reflect on the fact that there must be many Scots present who are of royal descent. And surely that gives them the right to fly this splendid flag!