The foul anchor[242] is first found in the seal of Howard after he had become Earl of Nottingham, and may be seen in a specimen attached to a document dated April, 1601, now in the British Museum. The badge appears on the reverse of this seal on the trappings of the horse which the earl bestrides. In 1623 Buckingham, who had succeeded Nottingham as Lord High Admiral, was provided with "an Ensigne with ye L^d Admiralls Badge & Motto." This badge was evidently the anchor and cable, for the badge of the foul anchor appears prominently four times on the York Water Gate (Thames Embankment) built for Buckingham in 1626, and in 1627 Buckingham was using as his official seal the anchor and cable surrounded by the garter and surmounted by a coronet. In the badges on the gate the end of the cable hangs down over one of the arms, but in the seal the end is neatly flemished down in three coils upon the shank. In 1633, when Buckingham was dead and the Admiralty in commission, the flags surveyed at Deptford included among them a silk "red ensigne with ye Lo. Admiralls badge." At this date the badge could not have been a personal one, and there seems no doubt that it was the official anchor and cable, possibly of the same design as in Buckingham's seal, for the Commissioners had adopted this form for use in their own seal, replacing the coronet and garter by the legend "Sig. Com. Reg. Ma. Pro. Adm. Ang[243]." It will be observed that the field of this flag is red, as at the present day. The anchor with coiled cable appears again during the Commonwealth on the seals of the Generals at Sea, but the design had begun to deteriorate even in Buckingham's time. In his seals in 1628 some of the turns of the coil pass below the shank, and in the later seals the coil lays round the shank instead of upon it. When the Commission was dissolved in 1638 and the office granted to the Earl of Northumberland (as substitute for the young Duke of York), Northumberland adopted for his seal a design in which the cable was draped in graceful turns as a border round the anchor, ending at the ring on the side opposite to that at which it was made fast. This design was used by the Committee of the Admiralty and Navy under the Commonwealth and was adopted by James Duke of York in 1660[244], but in the eighteenth century it in turn deteriorated, until it reached the form used in the present flag[245], in which the cable is not made fast to the anchor at all, but simply passes loosely through the ring and hangs down stiffly on either side. The anchor flag was not used during the Commonwealth, but it was restored in 1661, when the contractor was paid £2. 10_s._ "ffor shading the Standard and Ensigne and Jack with a ancor," £5. 10_s._ "ffor sowing silke and cloth for the sockett and markeing the Ensigne with the ancor and cable," and £4. 10_s._ "ffor sowing silke and cloth for socketing & markeing the flag with a ancor and cable[246]."