Bob of Speakers' Corner

His emergence as the English patron saint is a little bit of a journey.

I don't know if you want me to get into it because I've finished the official story of St.

George.

He ends up becoming this venerated martyr, an example particularly owned and beloved by soldiers.

because he was a soldier himself.

And he becomes this example of virtue and faith and soldiering and courage and ultimately martyrdom.

And the idea of it's church before empire, it's Christ before Caesar.

Because he is our patron saint.

Now, you've asked me to put a pin in the story of how he did that, but he is our patron saint.

He has become an emblem of England.

And I'll maybe tell the story later, but he's an integral part of our history.

When Edward III chose the Cross of St.

George, which became linked to St.

George during the time of the Crusades, when he made St.

George the patron saint of the chivalric order of the garter, which is the highest and one of the oldest chivalric orders in the U.K.,

That is how the English flag of St.

George became the English flag of St.

George.

And he embolizes our relationship as Christians

as a Christian people to the church, to the greater confederacy of the universal church around the world, and also of our own Christian character and a Christian nation and a rallying point for English patriotism.