appear to have been first used by the duke of York as lord high
admiral, who flew it when the sovereign was afloat and had the
royal standard flying in another ship. When a board of commissioners
was appointed to execute the office of lord high
admiral this was the flag adopted, and in 1691 we find the
admiralty, minuting the navy board, then a subordinate department,
“requiring and directing it to cause a fitting red silk
flag, with the anchor and cable therein, to be provided against
Tuesday morning next, for the barge belonging to this board.”
In 1725, presumably as being more pretty and artistic, the cable
in the device was twisted round the stock of the anchor. It
was thus made into a “foul anchor,” the thing of all others that
a sailor most hates, and this despite the fact that the first lord
at the time, the earl of Berkeley, was himself a sailor. The
anchor retained its unseamanlike appearance, and was not
“cleared” till 1815, and even to this day the buttons of the
naval uniform bear a “foul anchor.” The “anchor” flag is
solely the emblem of an administrative board; it does not carry
the executive or combatant functions which are vested in the
royal standard, the union or an admiral’s flag, but on two
occasions it has been made use of as an executive flag. In 1719
the earl of Berkeley, who at the time was not only first lord
of the admiralty, but vice-admiral of England, obtained the
special permission of George I. to hoist it at the main instead of
the union flag. Again in 1869, when Mr Childers, then first
lord, accompanied by some members of his board, went on
board the “Agincourt” he hoisted the admiralty flag and took
command of the combined Mediterranean and Channel squadrons,
thus superseding the flags of the two distinguished officers who
at the time were in command of these squadrons. It is hardly
necessary to add that throughout the navy there was a very
distinct feeling of dissatisfaction at the innovation. When the
admiralty flag is flown by the sovereign it is hoisted at the fore,
his own standard being of course at the main, and the union at
the mizzen.
The flag of the master of the Trinity House is the red cross of St George on its white ground, but with an ancient ship on the waves in each quarter; in the centre is a shield with a precisely similar device and surmounted by a lion.
The sign of a British admiral’s command afloat is always the same. It is the St George’s cross. Of old it was borne on the main, the fore, or the mizzen, according as to whether the officer to whom it pertained was admiral, vice-admiral, or rear-admiral, but, as ironclads superseded wooden ships, and a single pole mast took the place of the old three masts, a different method of indicating rank was necessitated. To-day the flag of an admiral is a square one, the plain St George’s cross. When flown by a vice-admiral it bears a red ball on the white ground in the upper canton next to the staff; if flown by a rear-admiral there is a red ball in both the upper and lower cantons. As nowadays most battleships have two masts, the admiral’s flag is hoisted at the one which has no masthead semaphore. The admiral’s flag is always a square one, but that of a commodore is a broad white pennant with the St George’s cross. If the commodore be first class the flag is plain; if of the second class the flag has a red ball in the upper canton next to the staff. The same system of differentiating rank prevails in most navies, though very often a star takes the place of the ball. In some cases, however, the indications of rank are differently shown. For instance, both in the Russian and Japanese navies the distinction is made by a line of colour on the upper or lower edges of the flag.
The flags of the British colonies are the same as those of the mother country, but differentiated by the badge of the colony being placed in the centre of the flag if it is the Union Jack, or in the fly if it be the blue or red ensign. Examples of these are shown in the Plate, where the blue ensign illustrated is that of New Zealand, the device of the colony being the southern cross in the fly. Precisely the same flag, with a large six-pointed star, emblematic of the six states immediately under the union, forms the flag of the federated commonwealth of Australia. The red ensign shown is that of the Dominion of Canada, the device in the fly being the armorial bearings of the Dominion. As the lord-lieutenant of Ireland, as the representative of royalty, flies the Union Jack with a harp in the centre, or the viceroy of India flies the same flag with, in the centre, the badge of the order of the Star of India, so too colonial governors or high commissioners fly the union flag with the arms of the colony they preside over on a white shield in the centre and surrounded by a laurel wreath. In the case of Canada the wreath, however, is not of laurel but of maple, which is the special emblem of the Dominion.
French.—To come to flags of other countries, nowhere have historical events caused so much change in the standards and national ensigns of a country as in the case of France. The oriflamme and the Chape de St Martin were succeeded at the end of the 16th century, when Henry III., the last of the house of Valois, came to the throne, by the white standard powdered with fleurs-de-lis. This in turn gave place to the famous tricolour. The tricolour was introduced at the time of the Revolution, but the origin of this flag and its colours is a disputed question. Some maintain that the intention was to combine in the flag the blue of the Chape de St Martin, the red of the oriflamme, and the white flag of the Bourbons. By others the colours are said to be those of the city of Paris. Yet again, other authorities assert that the flag is copied from the shield of the Orleans family as it appeared after Philippe Égalité had knocked off the fleurs-de-lis. The tricolour is divided vertically into three parts of equal width—blue, white and red, the red forming the fly, the white the middle, and the blue the hoist of the flag. During the first and second empires the tricolour became the imperial standard, but in the centre of the white stripe was placed the eagle, whilst all three stripes were richly powdered over with the golden bees of the Napoleons. The tricolour is now the sole flag of France.
American.—Before the Declaration of Independence the flags of those colonies which now form the United States of America were very various. In the early days of New England the Puritans objected to the red cross of St George, not from any disloyalty to the mother country, but from a conscientious objection to what they deemed an idolatrous symbol. By the year 1700 most of the colonies had devised badges to distinguish their vessels from those of England and of each other. In the early stages of the revolution each state adopted a flag of its own; thus, that of Massachusetts bore a pine tree, South Carolina displayed a rattlesnake, New York had a white flag with a black beaver, and Rhode Island a white flag with a blue anchor upon it. Even after the Declaration of Independence, and the introduction of the stars and stripes, the latter underwent many changes in the manner of their arrangement before taking the position at present established. In 1775 a committee was appointed to consider the question of a single flag for the thirteen states. It recommended that the union be retained in the upper corner next to the staff, the remainder of the field of the flag to be of thirteen horizontally disposed stripes, alternately red and white. This flag, curiously enough, was precisely the same as the flag of the old Honourable East India Company. On the 14th of June 1777 congress resolved “that the flag of the United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the Union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.” This was the origin of the national flag, but at first, as the number of the stripes were unequal, the flag very often varied, sometimes having seven white and six red stripes, and at other times seven red and six white, and it was not for some considerable time that it was authoritatively laid down that the latter arrangement was the one to be adopted. It has also been held that the stars and stripes of the American national flag, as well as the eagle, were suggested by the crest and arms of the Washington family. The latter supposition is absurd, for the Washington crest was a raven. The Washington arms were a white shield having two horizontal red bars, and above these a row of three red stars. This might, by a stretch of imagination, be supposed to have inspired the original idea of the flag which was that each state in the Union should be represented in the national flag by a star
