British Flags: Their Early History, and Their Development at Sea / With an Account of the Origin of the Flag as a National Device

by William Gordon Perrin

The Admiral commanding in chief, although he was not Lord High Admiral, flew the royal standard at the main.

The Vice- and Rear-Admirals of his squadron flew "a redd flagg with a little white, and St George's Crosse therein at the topp of the flaggstaff[268]" (i.e. a red flag with St George in the upper canton next the staff, as in the red ensign), while the private ships of this squadron flew red pendants at the main.

The Vice-Admiral of the fleet and the Vice-Admiral and Rear-Admiral of his squadron bore plain blue flags at the appropriate mastheads, and the private ships of this squadron wore blue pendants at the fore topmast head.

The Rear-Admiral of the fleet and the Vice- and Rear-Admirals of his squadron had white flags [269], while the private ships of this squadron had white pendants at the mizen topmast head.

No mention is made of the Union flag, which should normally have been flown by the Vice-Admiral and Rear-Admiral of the fleet at the fore and mizen respectively, but as "every flag officer both of the fleet and of the squadrons was a soldier[270]" anomalies were to be expected. Sir Francis Stewart, the original Rear-Admiral of the fleet, and the only seaman among the flag officers, was left on shore at the last moment because his ship, the 'Lion,' was found to be leaky. Wimbledon sent for his flag and conferred it on Denbigh, the Vice-Admiral of his squadron. Denbigh's former place was given to Delaware, the Rear-Admiral of the second, or blue squadron. This naturally gave offence to the Vice-Admirals of the second and third squadrons, and a furious squabble arose, which only interests us in two points so far as the flags were concerned. One is that in the course of the squabble the red flag, which became the object of contention, is referred to repeatedly as the "flag of St George," the other is that in a weak attempt at a solution of the difficulty created by his action Wimbledon authorised Valentia, the Vice-Admiral of the blue squadron to

carrie the redd flagg with the St George's Cross in the maine topp as a kind of extraordinary or cheife deputy or Vice Admirall to the Admirall or to his Squadron, soe to distinguish him from my Lo. Delaware with some preferment alsoe to my Lord of Valencia.

A few days later Wimbledon requested him "to weare his flagg no longer in the maine topp," and finally both Valentia and Delaware "for reasons best known to themselves took downe their flagges." The whole episode forms a truly comic opera performance that must have greatly amused, if it did not disgust, the seamen of the fleet.

The main interest in this miserable expedition lies in the fact that it was the first occasion of the division of the fleet into red, blue, and white squadrons.

Two years later an expedition was fitted out under the command of Buckingham, the Lord High Admiral, intended for the capture of the Ile de Ré. On this occasion, in addition to the main fleet, which was again divided into red, blue, and white squadrons under three principal officers:—the Lord Admiral, with the standard at the main; the Vice-Admiral, with the Union at the fore and a blue flag at the main; and a Rear-Admiral, with the Union at the mizen and a white flag at the main, each of these having a Vice- and Rear-Admiral under him—there were two subsidiary squadrons, one under Lord Denbigh, who flew the St George at the main, and the other under Sir John Pennington, who flew the St Andrew's cross at the main, the only occasion on which the Scots' flag has been flown by an admiral of an English fleet.

The method of bearing Admirals' flags now became regularised. If the fleet was small and had only three flag officers, the senior flew the Union flag at the main—unless he were the Lord Admiral, or had special permission to fly the standard—and the other two flew the Union at the fore and mizen respectively. If the fleet were larger the number of flag officers, who, it must be remembered, had as yet no permanent tenure of the rank, was increased to nine and the fleet was divided into squadrons distinguished by the red, blue and white flags of their Admirals and by the corresponding pendants of the ships; but this distinction of colour did not as yet extend to the ensigns on the poop.