[252] Vide Nicolas, History of the Royal Navy, i, 178.
[253] Ensign, in the original sense of insignia; the modern "ensign" does not appear to have been used in the English navy before the latter part of Elizabeth's reign.
[254] Froissart, i, 255.
[255] Harl. MS. 309, fol. 4.
[256] I.e. in both the main-mizen and the bonaventure (or after) mizen tops; the large ships of this period were four-masted.
[257] S. P. Henry VIII, ccv, 160.
[258] "Though the use of a Rear Admiral is but a late invention in comparison with the other two and is allowed but the ordinary pay of a Captain" (Naval Tracts of Sir Wm Monson (N. R. S.), iv, 1).
[259] The French employ the term "contre-amiral" and the Dutch the curious locution "Schout-bij nacht," i.e. "Bailiff by night." The offices of Lord High Admiral, Admiral, and Vice-Admiral were adopted by England from the French.
[260] Pepys MS. and Rawlinson MS. c, 846.
[261] Edited by Sir Julian Corbett and published by the Navy Records Society in 1902 (Miscellany, vol. i) with facsimiles of the diagrams.