is charge:--"As your bride or your
own daughter, from the right hand to the left; and if both your arms
should be shot or cut off, you should take it with your mouth; and if
you cannot preserve it thus, wrap yourself therein, commit yourself to
God so to be slain, and die as an honourable man." As long as the
colours were flying, and a piece of the standard left, the soldiers
were to follow the Ensign to the death, till all should lie in a heap
on the battle-field, that no evildoer or blameworthy person should be
sheltered by the flag; if any one should transgress against the banner
oath, the Ensign was to furl the banner, and forbid the transgressor to
march under it or mount guard, and he was obliged to go among the bad
women and children with the baggage till the affair was arranged: the
Ensign was not to leave the colours a single night without permission;
when he slept he was to have them by him, and never to separate himself
from them; if they should be torn from the standard by treachery or
some roguish attendant, the Ensign should be delivered over to the
common soldiers to be judged for life or death, according to their
will. It was necessary for him to be tall, powerful, manly, and
valiant, and a cheerful companion, friendly to every one, a mediator
and peace-maker; he was not to inflict punishment on any one, that he
might incur no hatred. In the open field under the unfurled colours
appointments were declared and the articles of war read. A trooper was
not, without permission, to be out of sight of the colours when the
army was marching or encamped; whoever fled from the colours in battle
was to die for it, and whoever killed him was to be unpunished: if an
Ensign should abandon a fort or redoubt before he had held out against
three assaults without relief, he transgressed the rules of war; a
regiment lost its colours if from cowardice it yielded a fortress
before the time. It was not long since pike-law was given up, the
severe tribunal of the Landsknechte, where, before the circle of common
soldiers, the provost-marshal accused the evil-doer, and forty chosen
men, officers and soldiers, pronounced judgment: at the beginning of
the trial the Ensigns furled their colours, and reversed them with the
iron point in the ground, and demanded a sentence, because the colours
could not fly over an evil-doer. If the transgressor was condemned to
the spear, or to be shot by the arquebussiers, then the Ensign thanked
th