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Orange community in so far as to be universally garbed in saffron (orange) raiment. T h e use of this colour in their garments continued to be a favoured fashion d o w n to so late a period as the time of Henry the Eighth, when it was, like all other things Irish, rendered punishable by law, and there is a statute of that reign forbidding anyone to " use or wear any shirt, smocke, kerchor, bendol, neckerchour, mocket, or linnen cappe, coloured or dyed with saffron." During the tenth century the designation of " a warrior of the saffron h u e " was a special titular distinction conferred upon chieftains of exceptional bravery. A.D. 1014 witnessed the famous battle of Clontarf and its great Dane conqueror, Brian Boru, a victory and a hero as m u c h talked of in Ireland as the Boyne and Sarsfield. Here the "Sunburst" appears to have been superseded, or rather to have changed its gold—or orange—ornamentations so as to become transmuted into an orb of a deep roseate hue. The country was then designated "Ireland of the R e d Banners," the sanguinary tint symbolical of the bellicose disposition of the kings and chiefs w h o were incessantly embroiled in feuds and warfare. T h e principal Irish colour hoisted at Clontarf was red, though there were subordinate blue, green, and white streamers in the field. O n this occasion the Danes were arrayed in green armour, and fought under the emblem of a black raven. A t the Battle of the Boyne, in 1690, the allied armies of Ireland and France m a d e their appearance, not sporting green but the reverse; for on the authority of Macaulay, "everyone, horse-soldier or foot-soldier, French or Irish, had a white badge in his hat; that colour had been chosen in compliment to the House of Bourbon "; and the flags of the Stuarts and the Bourbons waved together in defiance from the walls of Drogheda. When William, " the Prince of Orange," beheld the white favours so profusely distributed on the other side, he commanded, according to Banim, " that every soldier of the army do assume green for their colour — a green bough or the like." H e also truly remarked " W h a t a trick, what a farce is this fashion of choosing a colour to cut each other's throats under." But he was sadly mistaken when he thus ventured on the prophetic:—"I suppose whatever way the battle may go, James will be recollected by his white badge, and I by m y green, to the third and fourth generations of our gracious partisans." The King, however, predicted with sad certainty that bitter strife would ensue as the result of the conflict. But how astonished he must have been, were it ever possible for him to know h o w thoroughly, though perversely, the descendants of his " gracious partisans " both falsified and verified the conclusions of his vaticination, viz.:—"William and the green for ever! Hurrah! For the Loyal and Protestant green will cause from time to time more petty warfare than, perhaps the amount of this coming Battle of the Boyne Water." T h e irony of history was never manifested in a more striking manner than in reference to this simple incident, for in connection with the glorious, pious and immortal memory of William, his " Loyal and Protestant green," has been trampled under foot, and the orange lilies which studded the white ground of the French National flag at the Boyne, have been exalted to its place. Green was the colour adopted by the Society of United Irishmen in 1791, not that they copied it as being the national colour, but as Madden, their historian, writes :—" T h e colour of the United Irishmen was the old fancy colour of Nature, emblematic of the verdant soil of the Emerald Isle." This is an unmistakable adoption of green as a Society's colour; and it is only reasonable to assume that if it had been then the national colour of Ireland, that reason would be assigned for its selection instead of the one given, i.e., the colour of the country. T h e following facts are undoubted .—That golden (or orange) was the national colour of Ireland at the earliest times ; that white, starred with gold, was the Hiberno-Franco floating emblem of the Boyne, at which period orange (saffron), with purple, constituted the Papal cognizance of R o m e ; that green formed the Boyne badge of William, the Corypheus of modern Orangeism ; that it is known historically as the " holy colour" of Turkey, of the terrible Standard of Mahomet, the traditional gift of the Angel Gabriel to him. This is named Sandschakt, i.e., the Standard of Green Silk, it measures twelve feet in height, and when at rest, as it nearly always is, wrapped in a quadruplicate covering of green taffeta, enjoys uninterrupted repose m a green clothed case. It is unfurled nnlv in ,„-,.- „„A ,, , , . , b, , , u m u n e u only m war, and even then as a last resource to rally the J- r 1 1 J L • • • 1 » Faithful: and when its ominous wins so exmnrlc ;r K 0 ™ , „ ™ ' ., & bU expands, it becomes a direful shadow, beneath which all true • .. , • c •<• , Mussulmans must fight to the last easn of Hfp r'r00„ ; n r ^, • , „ .... & , , kdilJ 0I me- <jreen is likewise the chief military colour of China, where half-a-nulhon of soldiers are enrolled as " T h e A r m y of the Green Flag."