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Belgium: Royal standard

King Albert II's standard - Image by Mario Fabretto, 25 February 2001

Royal standard of the King of the Belgians
Standards of the other members of the Royal House
Leopold III's standard (1934-1951)
Albert I's standard (1909-1934)
The Royal standard in ancient sources

See also:

Belgium

Royal Standard of the King of the Belgians

Above is shown the standard of His Majesty Albert II, King of the Belgians, son of the late Leopold III and younger brother of the late Baudouin I.
The colour of the standard field should be "rouge ponceau". Anyway, Michel Lupant [lup98] says: "but in fact the colour used is close to the colour of the Order of Leopold's ribbon".

Album des Pavillons [pay00], as well as Michel Lupant, shows the cypher A as solid, whereas the former edition of Album des Pavillons [pie95] showed the cypher A as open (as shown above).
The cypher should have number "II" between the downstrokes of letter "A". However, Michek Lupant explains that the Royal flag for ship has the number, while the car flag lacks it. I guess that the number is omitted due to the size (it would be too small and difficult to be drawn).

Željko Heimer, 25 February 2001

Standards of the other members of the Royal House

According to Michel Lupant [lup98], HM the Queen Paola and HM the Queen Dowager Fabiola have a similar standard but with cypher "P" and "F" (open letter), respectively, instead of cypher "A".

Željko Heimer, 25 February 2001

Leopold III's standard (1934-1951)

According to Flaggenbuch [neu92], Leopold's III standard is similar in design to Albert II's standard shown above, but with cypher "L" instead of cypher "A". The height of the cypher is one fifth of the flag height.
Queen Mother Elisabeth used the same standard with cypher "E".
The Duke of Brabant, Baudouin (later crowned King of the Belgians as Baudouin I) used the same standard with cypher "B".
The Count of Flanders, Carl, used the same standard with cypher "C".
The cyphers were much more elaborate than Albert II's very simple cypher "A".

Ivan Sache, 3 March 2001

Albert I's standard (1909-1934)

Flags of the United States and Other Countries [u9s38] shows a purple royal standard with shield on openwork gold frame and crowned royal cypher in each corner - apparently an "A" for Albert. This is similar to the current Royal standards, but with a more elaborate framework and more elaborate initials in the corners.

Joe McMillan, 25 February 2001

The Royal standard in ancient sources

Royal standard, 1862 - Image by Željko Heimer, 25 February 2000

The Royal standard as shown in 1862 Colton's chart Delineation of Flags of All Nations [clt62] (reprinted in Znamierowski [zna99], p. 6) is the tricolor national flag with a complicated rendition of the coat of arms, containing shield, crown, supporters and a ribbon with the motto.
The same flag is shown in the National Geographic Magazine, October 1917 [gmc17], page 354 (fig. 734). It is there captioned "Belgium Ensign", but from the accompanying text it is clear that it is in fact the Royal standard.

Royal standard, 1896 - Image by Željko Heimer, 25 February 2000

The Royal standard as shown in an American chart published by F.E. Wright in 1896, and reprinted in Znamierowski [zna99], p. 6 is the tricolor national flag defaced with a crowned lion shield.
The image above is a reconstruction with the details that are used in modern representation of the arms, but the shield on the chart is rather blotty and has hardly any visible detail.

Željko Heimer, 25 February 2000

Royal standard, 1858 - Image by António Martins, 8 October 2008

A similar flag is shown captioned "Belgium" in "A chart of national flags" published in 1858 in New York. The chart further says "Navy and merchants flags without arms", but does not illustrate this.

António Martins, 8 October 2008

Citing Le Gras (1858) [leg58] as a possible source (many would follow him), Roger Harmignies and Michel Lupant (Royal pennants and flags of Belgium [h2l87], Flag Bulletin [tfb] 26 (1-3): 73-88) declare this [royal] flag to be imaginary.

Jan Mertens, 8 October 2008