The Royal Standard is a flag personal to the sovereign. It was not always exclusively so, for in the seventeenth century the Lord High Admiral, when personally in command of the fleet, and sometimes also other commanders-in-chief, flew as their flag of command, not the Union, but the Standard. It was so flown at the main by the Duke of Buckingham as Lord High Admiral, on the occasion when he disgraced the English flag in the unfortunate expedition against the Isle of Rhé in 1627. But now the Royal Standard is used only by the sovereign in person, or as a decoration on royal fête days. There are depicted on it the royal arms, which have had various forms in different periods of our history. The standard of Edward the Confessor was azure a cross floré between five martlets, or. The arms of William Duke of Normandy, emblazoned on his standard, were two lions, and they were borne by him and his successors, as the royal arms of England, till the reign of Henry II. That monarch married Eleanor, daughter and co-heiress of the Duke of Aquitaine, whose arms--one lion--Henry added to his own. Hence the three lions _passant gardant in pale_, borne ever since as the ensigns of England. These now occupy the first and fourth quarters of the standard, but they did not always do so. The fleurs-de-lis of France were, till a comparatively recent period, quartered with the English arms, having been first borne by Edward III. when he assumed the title of King of France. Many noble families, both in this country and on the Continent, have quartered the French lilies to show their origin, or in acknowledgment of the tenure of important fiefs there. Among the last may be mentioned the arms of Sir John Stewart of Darnley, who obtained from Charles VII. the lands and title of Aubigny, and the right to quarter the arms of France with his own. But in all these instances the fleurs-de-lis occupied a secondary place. So if Henry II. had desired merely to show his French connection, by maternal descent, he would have placed them in the second and third quarters. But he placed them in the first quarter, as arms of dominion, to indicate that he claimed the kingdom by right, and our sovereigns continued this idle pretence till so late as the reign of George III. It was not till the union with Ireland that it was discontinued.