British Flags: Their Early History, and Their Development at Sea: With an Account of the Origin of the Flag as a National DevicePerrin, William Gordon
History
British Flags: Their Early History, and Their Development at Sea: With an Account of the Origin of the Flag as a National Device
Perrin, William Gordon
Flags -- Great Britain
Ye great silke flagg w^{th} ye Kings Armes for ye Prince
the great fflag w^{th} ye Princes Armes & ye armes of Spaine empaled
a fflag for ye foretop w^{th} the Prince of Wales armes
a fflag of Bewpers of 24 breadthes w^{th} the Kings Armes
a fflag of 18 breadthes w^{th} the Kings Armes
an Ensigne of 16 breadthes w^{th} ye Lord Admiralls armes
an Ensigne w^{th} ye L^d Admiralls Badge and Motto[228]
with a number of other flags, ensigns and pendants. As the Prince had
a special silk standard, it would seem that one of the other standards
was for Buckingham[229]. The Earl of Rutland was in command of this
fleet on its outward voyage to Santander, and apparently he was given
permission to fly the standard while in supreme command.
The following year Sir R. Bingley was instructed to put his lieutenant,
with the king's standard, in a ship to transport the Spanish Ambassador
across the Channel[230]. This was a somewhat extraordinary use of the
standard, for, with the disuse of flags placed along the bulwarks, it
had ceased to be generally flown on ships-of-war. The standard was,
however, flown on special occasions by high officers other than the
Lord High Admiral when in command of fleets. Wimbledon wore it in the
Cadiz Expedition of 1625, and no less than £36 (equivalent to about
£400 to-day) was spent on "the great silke fflagg w^{th} his Ma^{ts}
Armes guilded w^{th} fyne gould and wrought w^{th} oyle Coll^{rs},"
and it was worn by the Earl of Denbigh in 1628: but when the Earl
of Lindsey, who had been appointed one of the Commissioners for the
Admiralty after the murder of Buckingham, moved heaven and earth for
permission to wear it while in command of the fleet in 1635, alleging
among other reasons that it had been flown by the Earls of Arundel and
Rutland and by Sir Robert Mansell, and that he himself had had the
honour previously, his repeated applications were in vain; and so "a
little maimed" he had to content himself with the Union flag at the
mainmasthead.
During the Civil War the Lord High Admiral's standard held a very
anomalous position. In 1642 the Parliament had appointed the Earl of
Warwick to the office in defiance of the king's wishes, and, although
in active opposition to the king, he flew the royal standard. In the
summer of 1648 the fleet he commanded lay off the Dutch coast, watching
the royalist fleet under the command of Prince Charles. When the
Prince summoned Warwick to take down his standard the Earl replied: "I
am appointed by both Houses of the Parliament of England to be Lord
High Admiral of England, by which right I bear the Standard[231]."
The fleets never came to blows or the two standards might have got a
little mixed. Warwick had, however, provided against this eventuality
just before leaving England by supplying his fleet with pendants of his
personal colours[232].
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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