The flag of the Isle of Man — the three legs armoured and spurred on a red field — has no recorded moment of formal adoption. At some point in the early twentieth century, a decision was taken to fly it outside government buildings in place of the Union Flag that had been raised over Castle Rushen when the Revestment took effect on 11 July 1765. No debate appears in the Tynwald or House of Keys Hansard. No specification of the design was written down, and no direction for the legs was ever stated. For the next quarter of a century, both clockwise and anticlockwise versions continued in general use.

The first formal adoption of the current version — feet to the viewer’s left, running against the sun — came in 1958, when the Manx Post Office used it on the Island’s first local postage stamps. It was not a proclamation. It was a postage stamp.

On 19 July 1968, Government Secretary G. J. Bryan issued Government Circular No. 41/68, “Regulations for the Flying of Flags on Government Flagstaffs.” The circular specified when and where the flag should be flown, listed the colours, and described the design as “the Three Legs armoured and spurred, in the centre of a red field.” It said nothing about which direction the legs should face. Instead, it noted that “a reproduction of the agreed and authorised emblem of the Three Legs may be seen or obtained at Government Office.”

The symbol that appears on every official document, that flies from flagpoles around the Island, was never the subject of a parliamentary vote, a public consultation, or even a clearly documented executive decision. Its direction was standardised by a postage stamp and its regulations by a memo.