Two flags, the striped standard of the Dutch and the red cross Jack of the English, were now rivalling each other on the adjacent seas and on the Atlantic. The contest for the supremacy which had begun was continued for nearly two hundred years thereafter.
In the time of Henry VII. more attention was given to merchant shipping and foreign adventure. Cabot carried the English flag across the Atlantic under the license which he and his associates received from Henry VII., empowering them
"to seek out and find whatsoever isles, countries, regions, or provinces of the heathen and infidels, whatsoever they might be; and set up his banner on every isle or mainland by them newly found."
With this authority for its exploits the red cross of St. George was planted, in 1497, on the shores of Newfoundland and Florida, and the English Jack thus first carried into America formed the foundation for the subsequent British claim to sovereignty over all the intervening coasts along the Atlantic.
Under Henry VIII. England began to bestir herself in making provision for a regular navy. A drawing in the Pepysian Library gives the details of the Henri Grace à Dieu (11), built in 1515 by order of Henry VIII., which was the greatest warship up to that time built in England, and has been termed the "parent of the British Navy." At the four mastheads fly St. George's ensigns, and from the bowsprit end and from each of the round tops upon the lower masts are long streamers with the St. George's cross, very similar in form to the naval pennants of the present day. The castellated building at the bow, and the hooks with which the yards are armed, tell of the derivation of the nautical terms "forecastle" and "yard arm" still in use.
With such improved armament the cross of St. George continued to ruffle its way on the narrow seas, and widened the scope of its domain.
The supremacy claimed for the English Jack never lost anything at the hands of its bearers, and an event which occurred in the reign of Queen Mary gives a vivid picture of the boldness of the sea-dogs by whom it was carried, and of how they held their own over any rival craft:
11. The "Henri Grace À Dieu," 1515.