User:The C of E/fos

Sark is a Channel Island part of the Bailiwick of Guernsey. It was originally part of the Duchy of Normandy and was owned by the monarchs of England since 1066 when Duke William "the Bastard" of Normandy successfully invaded England and assumed the English throne. By the late Middle Ages, Sark had become a hotbed for piracy and other criminal activities. Since 6 August 1565, Queen Elizabeth I appointed Hellier de Carteret as the Seigneur of Sark (also known as the Dame of Sark when the holder is female) to prevent it becoming a pirate island. The office would be hereditary and the holder had to pay the English (and later British) monarch £1.79 annually for the right to rule the island as a feudal fief. Until 2008, when democracy was introduced, it was the last feudal state in the Western world.

The flag of Sark was designed in 1938 when the Dame of Sark, Dame Sibyl Hathaway approached Herbert Pitt to design a personal standard for herself. The flag was also referred to as the Seigneur's Flag. Reportedly Dame Sibyl once incorrectly asserted to the Flag Institute that the flag had been in use for "at least two hundred years".

The flag remained as the Seigneur's flag following the Second World War and the Nazi occupation of the Channel Islands. In the 1960s, Dame Sibyl sold the tenement of the island of Brecqhou to Leonard Matchan. Upon taking up the tenancy, he adopted his own flag for Brecqhou using the Seigneur's Flag as the basis and sewed his own personal coat of arms onto it. In 1993, when the tenement was purchased by David and Frederick Barclay, they also adopted their own flag by using the Seigneur's flag with their coat of arms defacing it.

In 1985, when Sark was invited to participate in the inaugural Island Games, it was noted the island had no individual flag to represent it. Accordingly, the Seigneur John Michael Beaumont granted permission for the Seigneur's Flag to be used as the flag of Sark.