on a ship which carries at its masthead a pennon of St. George. On a rose noble of Queen Elizabeth, her Majesty is seated in the ship, which is charged with a Tudor rose, and carries at the bow a banner bearing an initial letter, a Gothic E.

Henry VII. ordered built a great ship, such as had never been seen in England, which was finished in 1515, and called the Harry Grace de

Dieu. A drawing of her, preserved in the Pepsian collection at Cambridge, England, shows her at anchor profusely decorated with twenty-five flags and standards. The ship has four masts and the high poop and forecastle of those times. Each of the round

tops at her lower

and top masts' heads, and the bowsprit end (nine in all), are furnished with a streamer or standard bearing a cross of St. George at the luff, with the ends divided longitudinally by a red and white stripe, the red in chief. At three of the mastheads are St. George ensigns, and on the principal mast a flag or standard blazoned with the royal arms, and having a St. George cross in the fly. The poop, waist, and forecastle show a line of flags or banners, two of which are St. George flags with a blue fly bearing a fleur-de-lis, and one bearing a rose, also two plain blue flags charged with a fleur-de-lis and rose. Four are striped horizontally red and white, and four striped horizontally yellow and white.

A drawing of the same ship under sail, given by Allen, exhibits a banner with the royal arms at the main masthead, a blue banner bearing a rose on the mast next abaft it, and St. George flags, white with a red cross, at both the fore and mizzen mastheads. A large royal standard on the ensign staff at the poop, and seven streamers

1 For a description of this rose noble, see 'The American Journal of Numismatics' for January, 1872, also Entick's 'Naval History,' published 1757. It was coined to assert King Edward's title to France, his dominion of the sea, and to commemorate his naval victory over the French fleet in 1340,- the greatest that had ever been obtained at sea by the English, and the first wherein a king of England had commanded in person, and wherein the French are said to have lost 30,000 men.

or standards of various colors and devices are scattered about the rigging.1

In the ancient picture preserved at Windsor Castle of the embarkation of Henry VIII. at Dover, May 31, 1520, the ship he is in —

Her

quarters of the forecastle, and the staff of each standard is surrounded by a fleur-de-lis, or; pennants are flying from the mastheads, and at each quarter of the deck is a standard of St. George's cross. quarters and sides, as also her tops, are fortified and decorated with heater-shaped shields charged differently with the cross of St. George azure, a fleur-de-lis or, party per pale argent, and vert a union rose, and party per pale argent and vert a portcullis or, alternately and repeatedly.

On the main deck the king is standing, richly dressed in a garment of cloth of gold edged with ermine, the sleeves crimson, and the jacket and breeches the same. His round bonnet is covered with a white feather laid on the upper side of the brim. On his right hand stands a person in a dark violet coat slashed with black, with red stockings; and on his right three others, all evidently persons of distinction; behind them, the yeomen of the guard. Two trumpeters are seated on the edge of the quarter-deck, and the same number on the forecastle, sounding their trumpets. On the front of the forecastle and on the

1 A return of the Royal Shippes at Wolwidge in the 1st year of Edwd. VI. names the "Harry Grace a Dieu, 1000 tons; Souldiers, 349; Marryners, 301; Gonners, 50; Brass Pieces, 19; Iron Pieces, 103."

stern are painted, within a circle of the garter, the arms of France and England, supported by a lion and a dragon, being the supporters then used by Henry VIII. The same arms are repeated on the stern. On each side of the rudder is a port-hole, with a brass cannon; and on the side of the main deck are two port-holes with cannon, and the same number under the forecastle. The figure on the ship's head seems meant to represent a lion, but is extremely ill carved. Under the ship's stern is a boat, having at her bow two standards of St. George's cross, and the same at her stern, with yeomen of the guard and other persons in her.

On the right of the Great Harry is a three-masted ship, having her sails furled, and broad pennants of St. George's cross flying. She has four royal standards on her forecastle. Between these two ships is a boat filled with a number of persons, having two pennants with armorial bearings at the bow, and two at the stern.

These two ships are followed by three others, each having pennants of St. George's cross flying, their sides and tops ornamented with shields. On the forecastle of the nearest of these ships three royal standards are visible, a fourth being hid by the foresail. All these ships are crowded with passengers. Between these ships and the shore are two boats carrying passengers on board the ships. In the stern of one of them is an officer dressed in green, slashed, holding up an ensign or ancient of five stripes, white, green, red, white, and green, the same as displayed from the nearest fort.1

Francis I. had a magnificent carack constructed in Normandy, so richly decorated, with such lofty decks and towers, that it was called the Great Carack.' It was anchored in the roadstead of Havre de Grace, and was about to set sail at the head of a powerful fleet to meet the English monarch, when he was coming to the Field of the Cloth of Gold. On the eve of its departure, Francis I., desirous of inspecting the ship, went on board, accompanied by a numerous and a brilliant court. A collation had been prepared for him and his suite, the band was playing, salutes were thundering out in his honor, and he was in the midst of his inspection of the floating citadel, when an alarm was given, — a fire had broken out between decks, and before help could be efficiently rendered the whole of the rigging was in flames. In a few hours all that remained of the Great Carack was an immense hull half consumed aground on the beach, upon which the sea was casting up the corpses of those of its crew who were killed by the discharges of its cannons during the progress of the conflagration.2 2 La Croix's Middle Ages.

1 Charnock's Marine Architecture.

An engraving prefixed to Heywood's description of the Sovereign of the Seas, built in 1637 by order of Charles I., and which " was just as many tons burthen as the year of our Lord in which she was built," shows that famous ship with four masts. A white ensign, cantoned with a St. George's cross, flies from a staff on her bowsprit, and a St. George flag at the fore. A banner, blazoned with the royal arms, is at the main, and the union jack of 1606 at the mast next abaft.1

A picture of the same ship, painted by Vandevelde, exhibits her with only three masts, and under sail, with a union jack at the bow

sprit. A banner, bearing the royal arms and supporters, is on the ensign staff, and flags at the fore and mizzen mastheads are blazoned with the crown and royal cypher surrounded by the garter and mottoes on ribbons.

Vessels in the Middle Ages, as in

ancient times, frequently had golden-colored and purple sails. The sails of seigniorial ships were generally brilliantly emblazoned with the coat-of-arms of the seignior; the sails of merchant vessels and of fishing-boats, with the image of a saint, the patron figure of the Virgin, a pious legend, a sacramental word, or a sacred sign, intended to exorcise evil spirits, who played no inconsiderate part in the superstitions of those who went down in ships upon the great waters, a custom which is still kept alive by the maritime people of China and Japan. Different kinds of sails were originally employed to make signals at sea; but flags soon began to be used for this purpose. A single flag, having a different meaning, according to its position, ordinarily sufficed to transmit all necessary orders in the daytime. At night, its place was taken by lighted beacons. These flags, banners, standards, and pennants, most of them embroidered with the arms of a town, a sov

1 "A true description of His Majesty's royal ship, built this year, 1637, at Woolwich, in Kent, to the Glory of the English Nation, and not to be paralleled in the whole Christian world," by Thomas Heywood; to which is prefixed a Portrait of the Ship.

ereign, or an admiral, were made of light stuffs, taffeta, or satin; sometimes square, sometimes triangular, sometimes forked, each had its own use and significance, either for the embellishment of the vessel's appearance, or to assist in manoeuvring. The galleys were provided with a smaller kind of pennant, which was put up at the prow, or fastened to the handle of each oar. These were purely for ornamental purposes, and were often trimmed with golden or silk fringes.

Amongst the most celebrated flags and standards of the French navy was the baucents, a name that recalls the banner of the Knights Templar. These flags of red taffeta, sometimes sprinkled with gold, were only employed in the most merciless wars; for, says a document of 1292, "they signified certain death and mortal strife to all sailors everywhere." It is related of Philip the Bold, of Burgundy, in his preparation for the invasion of England, 1404, his ship was painted outside in blue and gold, and there were three thousand standards with his motto, assumed, no doubt, for the occasion, but which he afterward always retained: "Moult me tarde." It was also embroidered on the sails of his ships, encircled by a wreath of daisies, in compliment to his wife. In 1570, Marco Antonio Colonna hoisted on his flag-galley a pennant of crimson damask, which bore on both sides a Christ on the cross, between St. Peter and St. Paul, with the Emperor Constantine's motto, " In hoc signo vinces." The banner which Don Juan of Austria received at Naples, on the 14th of April, 1571, with the staff of supreme command over the Christian League, was made of crimson damask, fringed with gold, on which were embroidered, besides the arms of the prince a crucifix, with the arms of the Pope, those of the Catholic king, and of the Republic of Venice, united by a chain, symbolical of the union of the three powers "against the Turk."

A ship on the tapestry of the House of Lords, which has been destroyed by fire, exhibited the royal standard at the main, swallowtailed banners at the fore and mizzen, and a St. George ensign.

In a very old representation of the fight with the Spanish Armada, on the coast of England, all the ships wear ensigns, flags, and streamers. The Venetian galleys of the fourteenth century carried blue banners and ensigns, blazoned with the winged lion and book of St. Mark, or.

A manuscript in the British Museum, of the time of Henry VIII., assigning directions relative to the size of banners, standards, &c., says: "A streamer shall stand in the toppe of a shippe, or in the fore castle, and therein be putt no armes, but in mans conceit or device, and may be of the lengthe of twenty, thirty, forty, or sixty yardes, and it is slitte as well as a guyd homme or standarde, and that may