Today is the feast day of England’s patron Saint George, commemorating the anniversary of his death. Tradition holds that he was a Roman soldier who was tortured and decapitated under Diocletian’s persecution of Christians in 303. During the Middle Ages he became an ideal of martial valour and selflessness. He is usually depicted as a knight in a crimson cape on a magnificent horse. He is the patron saint of soldiers, and with his sword he defeats the dragon, the allegory of evil.
