We may conjecture that the original signification of the lowered flag was the passing away of the authority which that flag connoted.
After the battle of Lepanto in 1571 the fleet of Don John entered Messina "the galleys gay with all their flags and streamers and towing their prizes with lowered colours."
There were several ways of treating the flag of a captured ship during the seventeenth century. It might be hung below the ensign of the captor on his ensign staff, hung over his stern spread upon a spar or trailing in the water, hung over the stern of the captured ship in like manner[407], or kept to "dress ship" with. When Captain Heaton was in command of H.M.S. 'Sapphire' during the First Dutch War,
he took so many prizes that on a festival day the Yards, Stays, backstays and shrouds being hung with Dutch, French, Spanish and Burgundian colours and pendants variously intermixed, made a beautiful show, and raised the courage of all belonged to her[408].
The practice of hoisting numerous flags in token of rejoicing is so ancient and so widespread that it may be regarded rather as the result of a primitive instinct than the outcome of any formal symbolism, but it may be noted that, although the display of numerous flags by ships in harbour on holy days and days of national rejoicing was allowed, and in some cases even enjoined by authority, the display at sea of "ostentatious bravery" was usually interpreted to indicate some warlike or provocative action on the part of the ship indulging in it. This was certainly the case until the end of the seventeenth century, but with the dawn of the eighteenth a more law-abiding, or perhaps we should say more civilised, spirit began to prevail upon the sea, and these primitive methods of displaying the red rag to the bull began to go into disuse. The practice of displaying flags upon occasions of rejoicing, however, gave rise from time to time to unpleasant incidents between ships of different nations from the indiscriminate use of all the flags in a ship, including national flags of other nations, in the desire to make a fair show; for until the nineteenth century was well advanced both men-of-war and merchantmen carried very few signal flags, which are the only flags over whose relative precedence when hoisted in "dressing ship" no offence can be given.
Prior to 1889 it was usual in the Royal navy for one of the junior officers to draw up a scheme for "dressing ship" on ceremonial occasions for the approval of the captain, but since that date the order of the signal flags, some 60 in number, has been laid down in the Signal Manual so that uniformity is secured, the national ensign (or ensign of a foreign power if the occasion warrants the use of this) being exhibited only at a masthead.
The modern practice, for all ordinary occasions, is to hoist the national colours in the morning and to keep them up until sunset, but innumerable references to hoisting or "heaving out" the colours indicate that in earlier days this was not the custom, and that they were only hoisted at sea when there was some special reason for so doing. There was a routine for hoisting the flag in harbour in the time of Elizabeth, for the orders for Drake's fleet in 1589 and the "Brief Noates" of John Young circa 1596 both contain an article to this effect, those absent without leave at the time being deprived of their "aftermeal," but the hour at which the ceremony took place is not stated. The practice at the end of the eighteenth century, as related by Wm Spavens[409], Pensioner on the Naval Chest at Chatham, was as follows:
At sunrise every ship in the fleet hoists her colours viz the ensign and jack, unless it blows hard and the yards and top masts are struck, in which case the colours are not hoisted but when some vessel is coming in or passing; and at sunset they are again struck or hauled down; at half past 7 o'clock the drums begin to beat and continue till 8, when the ship on board of which the Commander in Chief hoists his flag, fires a gun.
We do not know when this practice of hoisting the colours at sunrise was first instituted, but it is not older than the seventeenth century. In 1844 the time was altered to 8 a.m. from 25th March to 20th September and 9 a.m. from 21st September to 24th March. If there is sufficient light for the ensign to be seen, it is hoisted earlier or later than these hours, if the ship is coming to an anchor, getting under way, passing or meeting another ship, approaching a fort or town, etc.
The use of false flags as a means to deceive or entrap an enemy is probably as old as the flag itself. We have already had an example of the application of a similar ruse in the case of the Greek and barbarian standards in the year 480 b.c., but perhaps the earliest instance upon record of the use of flags at sea for this purpose occurred about the end of the twelfth century when Frederick of Sicily was a little boy (dum ... Fredericus Sicilae Rex esset puerulus). The Pisans had fitted out twelve ships and galleys and set out to attack Messina, which they tried to blockade. One night the citizens discovered that four of the galleys were off the Pharos, or lighthouse. They fitted out two galleys under Walter of Ferrara with picked crews, and hoisting Pisan flags (which presumably would be visible near the lighthouse) they fell upon the Pisans and took two of the galleys. Many instances of the use of false flags, either to avoid scaring an unsuspecting prey or to escape the notice of a stronger enemy, might be culled from the sea literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, one of the most interesting being the following, taken from Captain Wyatt's account of Dudley's voyage in 1594-5: