Cross of Burgundy
The Cross of Burgundy is a red saltire of two roughly cut branches on a white field, the badge of the dukes of Burgundy that became Spain’s military flag in the sixteenth century. It flew over Spain’s ships and forts in the Americas and the Philippines until the red and gold flag replaced it from 1785.
Meaning
The National Park Service, which flies it over the Castillo de San Marcos and Fort Matanzas in Florida, describes it in heraldry as a red saltire raguly on a white field: an X with jagged edges, after the tradition that Saint Andrew was crucified on two small trees with their branches roughly hacked off. Andrew was the patron saint of Burgundy, and the cross came to Spain with Philip the Handsome, Duke of Burgundy, husband of Joanna, the eldest daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella. The Florida Department of State says it represented Spanish rule in Florida from 1565 to 1763, and that Charles I established it as one of Spain’s banners in 1516. Spain’s armed forces still use it: the Spanish Air and Space Force paints the cross of Saint Andrew on the tail of all its aircraft and those of the armed forces.
Origin and history
Philip came to rule Spain as regent for his young son Charles in 1506, the Park Service says, and Charles kept the flag when he became Charles I of Spain. The Spanish navy flew it from the early 1500s in the king’s honour, then the army, until it stood for Spain itself; it was the flag of Spanish ships and of the forts guarding Spain’s possessions in the New World and across the Pacific to the Philippines. In 1785 Charles III made the red and gold striped flag the naval ensign; the forts took it by 1793, and it became the regimental colour only in 1843.
The Spanish army’s Institute of Military History and Culture traces the cross through the army’s flags. Philip brought it embroidered on his banners when he came to meet Ferdinand at El Remesal in Sanabria; it was sewn on the uniforms of the Archers of Burgundy and later painted on the clothes of the whole army. Under Charles I each company carried its captain’s arms over the cross, and Philip II ordered every tercio to carry a yellow flag with red Burgundy crosses. Philip IV made the flags red with an image of the Virgin, but others with the cross stayed in use, as Velázquez painted them in The Surrender of Breda. Philip V’s decree of 28 February 1707 ordered each corps to carry a white colonel’s flag with the Cross of Burgundy, with two castles and two lions added and four crowns closing the arms.
Who brought it to Spain
The sources tell it three ways. The Park Service and the Florida Department of State credit Philip, for whom the red saltire was a family symbol. The Spanish Air and Space Force says Joanna joined the Burgundian cross to her own arms in homage to her husband. The army’s history institute calls it the archduke’s symbol because Austria was under the patronage of Saint Andrew, where the Park Service says Burgundy. The historian Antonio Manzano Lahoz, quoted by the Air and Space Force, preferred to call it the aspa (saltire) of Burgundy, because its use in Spain began as a dynastic badge, not a religious one: Spanish troops kept their war cry, “Santiago!”.
Often confused with
Several flags carry Saint Andrew’s cross, among them the flag of Scotland, and the Park Service says that for this reason the Spanish design is best called the Burgundian cross. What sets it apart is the cut branches: the arms are ragged, with the stubs of lopped-off boughs along each bar.
How it should look
The Park Service says the flag should be square, not oblong: Spanish regulations called for a square battle flag 6 feet on a side, and since the colonial Spanish foot was 11 inches, that is 66 inches square. The jagged points should all point up on both bars. On religious occasions the field was sometimes blue, the Virgin’s colour, with images of the Virgin in the quarters, and sometimes the Spanish arms were added at the ends of the cross.
Where you’ll see it today
whatdoesthissymbolmean.comFlag of SpainThe red and gold flag that replaced the Cross of Burgundy at sea from 1785.Read next
- Next in Historical flagsBetsy Ross flagA version of the first Stars and Stripes: thirteen red and white stripes and thirteen white stars in a circle on blue, named after the Philadelphia flag maker Betsy Ross. The story that she sewed the first flag in 1776 was first made public by her grandson in 1870, and no record from the time confirms it.
- The same shape in Celtic symbolsSt Brigid’s crossA small cross woven from rushes or straw on the eve of St Brigid’s Day, 1 February, and hung over the door or in the roof for the saint’s blessing and protection through the year. The four-armed form is the best known, but Irish crosses come in many shapes.
See also
Jolly Roger, Blackbeard’s flag, Calico Jack’s flag, Bartholomew Roberts’s flag, Emanuel Wynne’s flag, Vexillum.
Sources
- The Spanish Flag, Fort Matanzas National Monument site bulletin (NPSHistory.com copy), National Park Service
- The Burgundian Saltire - 1565-1763, Florida’s Historic Flags: National Flags, Florida Department of State
- Cruz de San Andrés, Identidad propia: pieza de información, Ejército del Aire y del Espacio (Ministerio de Defensa)
- Historia de la bandera de España, Ciclos divulgativos de vexilología, Instituto de Historia y Cultura Militar, Ejército de Tierra (Ministerio de Defensa), Aspa de Borgoña; Casa de Austria; Felipe V
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols formed from crosses or squares and rectangles.
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 14, 2026. How we research
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