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![[Stará Lysá flag]](../images/c/cz-nb-sl.gif)
by Jarig Bakker, 18 May 2004
What does the black and yellow quartered flag on this central panel
represent?
James Dignan, 7 Jun 2004
Stara Lysa Flag looks familiar to me (although I didn't see it
before). Such lion with quartered banner was part of the Arms of an interesting
personage, called Count Franz Anton Sporck.
His ancestor Johann was a tall and strong man of ordinary origin (his
father was a farmer - it is said), who entered in 16-th Cent the Army of
Catholic League, fought in the Battle at White Mountain (1620- Bílá
Hora), where the Bohemian States Uprising was defeated by Hapsburgs.
And Johann Sporck was 1647 made Fortune in Thirty-years War,
was promoted to Imperial Colonel, a Baron (Freiherr) and the Emperor gave
a great estate in middle Bohemia on Elbe (Labe) River. 1664 he became Count.
Above mentioned Franz Anton (1694 - 1738), Johann's son, was "a friend
of Arts and Sciences". In Lysá nad Labem (not
in Stará Lysá) he had founded a picture gallery and great library. In Kuks
next to Dvůr Králové he had established beautiful complex of Spa, Chateau,
Hospital, Church and Park with many valuable baroque statues. He was fond
of hunting and founded on his own so called "St. Hubert Order" (not to
be confused with Bavarian Order of simillar name), which he had
conferred personally to the Emperor Karl VI, when he was in Bohemia.
This event is to our days represented by a beautiful baroque monument in
a wood near Hlavenec (MB). The coat of
arms of Hlavenec is remembering this
event too. One of Sporck's hunting lodges called "Mon Repos" is in the
wood in neighbourhood of Stará Lysá.
Full arms of Sporck family is just from the moment of Imperial and
Royal Grant quite complicated: Quaterly 1. a 4. Or a Double-headed Eagle
Sable crowned of the first, 2. a 3. the lion with flag - but standing
on a tripple hill Vert (sometimes without hills) and in escutcheon Azure
(crowned by Counts Coronet) a Turk's head in Turban, erased, proper.
The crest is the eagle from the first field. The other crests are: peacock
feathers, lion with flag, whole Turkish officer with sceptre downwards
and an armded hand with sword. The family died out in the beginning of
the last century and no other member of the family was so interresting
like Franz Anton (František Antonín) was.
Allready in the Year 1718 a family Swéerts ( of Flemish origin) received
the right to add escutcheon with Turk's head to Family Arms and the right
to change the name. The are known from that year as Counts Swéerts-Sporck.
It is more then probable the lion with black and golden flag is a sign
from Spork's Arms, because Stará Lysá is in former Sporck's estate.
Ales Křížan, 8 Jun 2004