having seen severall Flaggs with St. George and St. Andrew quarterly and may every Lord Mayor's Day be seen born by some of ye Companies Barges, these flags being made much about that time, all men being willing to flatter their new king.
The evidence of the Privy Council Register of Scotland is, however, sufficient to prove that this inference was incorrect.
The documents of 1606 do not give any name to the flag they describe. It appears first to have been called the "Britain" or "British" flag[150], and I have not found the name "Union" earlier than 1625, when it appears in the list of the flags and banners used at the funeral of James I[151]. Three years later it appears in the Sailing Instructions of the Earl of Lindsey[152], but the older name still persisted at sea and is found in inventories of stores and in sailing and fighting instructions until 1639[153].
Hitherto this "British" or "Union" flag had, like the old English flag of St George, been flown equally by merchantman and man-of-war, strangers being expected to distinguish the latter by their more warlike appearance.
PLATE V — Union Flags and Jacks
Towards the year 1633, however, the old question of the salute in the Narrow Seas was becoming more and more acute, "because," in the words of Sir Wm Monson, "both the French and Hollanders seek to usurp upon his Majesties right[154]." Sir John Pennington, the "Admiral of the Narrow Seas," seized on this as an excuse to advocate a difference in the flags of the king's and the merchants' ships. In a letter dated 7th April, 1634, asking for instructions on various points relative to his duties as Admiral of the Narrow Seas he writes:
For alteringe of the Coulers whereby his Mats owne Shippes may be knowne from his Subiects I leave to yor Lopps more deepe consideration. But under correction I conceive it to bee very materyall and much for his Mats Honor, and besides will free disputes with Strangers, for when they omitt doinge their Respectes to his Mats Shippes till they bee shott at they alleadge they did not know it to be the kinges Shippe[155].
The plea that the existing arrangement caused confusion in the minds of foreigners was quite justified, but it is probable that there was a deeper underlying cause, jealousy of the mercantile marine. Be this as it may, Pennington's suggestion was favourably received, and the approval of the king was obtained to the issue of the following Proclamation:
A Proclamation appointing the Flags, as well for our Navie Royall as for the Ships of our Subjects of South and North Britaine.