Andrew the Apostle commonly referred to as a St Andrew's cross, although its designer, William Porcher Miles, said he changed it from an upright cross to a saltire so that it would not be a religious symbol but merely a heraldic device. The Alabama flag also shows that device. The feast of Andrew is observed on 30 November in both the Eastern and Western churches, and is the national day of Scotland. In the traditional liturgical books of the Catholic Church, the feast of Saint Andrew is the first feast day in the Proper of Saints. Andrew the Apostle Andrew the Apostle (;
Kingdom of Scotland of Saint Andrew overlaid the cross of St George. This design may have seen limited, unofficial use in Scotland until 1707, when the "English" variant of the same, whereby the cross of St George overlaid that of St Andrew, was adopted as the flag of the unified Kingdom of Great Britain. Kingdom of Scotland The Kingdom of Scotland (; ) was a sovereign state in northwest Europe traditionally said to have been founded in 843. Its territories expanded and shrank, but it came to occupy the northern third of the island of Great Britain, sharing a land border to the