In 1673 the Test Act deprived the Duke of York of his office, which for the next eleven years was placed in commission. Charles II, just before his death, revoked the commission, and the office fell in to the crown. When the Duke of York succeeded to the throne in 1685 as James II, he retained the office in his own hands, and in token of this placed "a crown over the anchor as being himself his own Admiral[247]."
In addition to the anchor flag (which when used by the sovereign is flown at the fore, as the main is already occupied by the royal standard) a flag of similar design, but with the St George's cross in the upper canton, was also flown as an ensign at the stern[248]
At this period, according to Lieut. Graydon's flag-book, the Scots Lord Admiral flew a white flag containing a blue anchor and cable. The Admiral of Scotland, who according to Pepys[249] was "no officer of State" and had "no precedence at all given him from his office," was abolished after the Union of 1707, when the three small ships representing the navy of that country were absorbed in the English, henceforth the British, fleet.
After the Revolution of 1688 the Office of Lord High Admiral was placed in commission, but it was revived by William III in June, 1702, when the Earl of Pembroke was appointed. Pembroke had intended to proceed to sea in command of the fleet then being fitted out in anticipation of the outbreak of the war with France and Spain, known as the War of the Spanish Succession, and he would have flown the royal standard in his flagship. William, however, died on 8th March, and Queen Anne, immediately after her accession, deprived the Lord High Admiral of the right to fly the standard, among other perquisites and droits. Pembroke then gave instructions for the anchor flag to be supplied instead. But as he was not a seaman his proposal to take command of the fleet had naturally aroused much opposition, and in the end it was dropped. In May he was replaced as Lord High Admiral by Prince George of Denmark, the Queen's consort, and although Pembroke again held the office for a short time after the Prince's death in 1708, no opportunity arose for the anchor flag to be flown at sea in military command during his or the Prince's tenure.
PLATE VIII — Admirals' Flags
In 1709 the office of Lord High Admiral was again placed in commission and it remained in commission for over a hundred years. During this period the anchor flag was on one occasion flown at sea in executive command. At the end of March, 1719, Admiral the Earl of Berkeley, then First Lord of the Admiralty, was appointed to the command of a fleet then fitting out to repel a naval raid threatened from Cadiz in support of the claims of the Pretender. Having been given the extraordinary rank of "Admiral and Commander in Chief of his Majesty's Navy and Fleets," he was authorised by the king (George I) to fly the anchor flag at the main whilst so serving, and the flag was in fact flown for a few weeks at the end of March and beginning of April. The next occasion on which this flag was flown in executive command at sea occurred in July, 1828, when the Duke of Clarence (afterwards William IV), who had been appointed Lord High Admiral in 1827, with the express understanding that he should exercise no military command, suddenly put to sea from Plymouth, flying the anchor flag, in command of a squadron of manoeuvre that it had been intended to place under Vice-Admiral Sir Henry Blackwood. This extraordinary escapade and the friction which had been caused by the duke's method of conducting affairs, led to his removal, and to the office being once more placed in commission. It is very improbable that it will ever again be conferred upon an individual. In May, and again in August, 1869, Mr Childers, the First Lord, accompanied by Vice-Admiral Sir Sydney Dacres, the First Sea Lord, embarked in H.M.S. 'Agincourt' and took command, first of the reserve fleet, and then of an experimental squadron, under the Admiralty flag. This proceeding gave rise to much comment, but since the Letters Patent appointing a Board of Admiralty give power to "any two or more" of the Commissioners to exercise all the functions of the Lord High Admiral, the action of Mr Childers does not seem to have been ultra vires, though it is not one that is likely to be repeated.
Since 1850 the anchor flag has been flown over the Admiralty Office in London. At sea it is flown in the royal yacht when the sovereign is present, in recognition of the fact that, under the Constitution, he is the source from which the Lord High Admiral's powers are derived; the anchor flag being flown at the fore, the royal standard at the main, and the Union flag at the mizen. In the Admiralty yacht the anchor flag is flown at the main when members of the Board are embarked in her. It is the custom (a custom that was in existence in the early years of the eighteenth century) to fly the anchor flag on men-of-war during the ceremony of launching. A similar flag, with the lower half of the field blue, has been recently adopted as the flag of the Australian Naval Board.