The flag was registered as a result of a campaign that secured the support of a dozen county organisations plus the sanction of both the Lord Lieutenant and the High Sheriff.

[1] The design features the traditional bear and ragged staff used in the county since the Middle Ages as a symbol of the Earls of Warwick.

They were initially used separately, and the earliest known appearance of them together was on a bed of black cloth embroidered with a gold bear and silver staff owned by Thomas de Beauchamp, 12th Earl of Warwick (1338–1401).

[2] The bear and ragged staff appear in the same arrangement as the flag in John Speed's 1611 map of the county.

[2] The design of the flag lacks the chains and the muzzle on the bear, commonly found in old depictions of the emblem.