_THE SUPREMACY OF THE ENGLISH JACK._
A.D. 871-1606.
While it is true that flags and banners had grown up on land from the
necessity of having some means of identifying the knights and nobles,
whose faces were encased and hidden from sight within their helmets,
yet it was at sea that they attained to their greatest estimation.
There the flag upon the mast became the ensign of the nation to which
the vessel belonged, and formed the very embodiment of its power.
To fly the flag was an act of defiance, to lower it an evidence of
submission, and thus the motions of these little coloured cloths at sea
became of highest importance.
The supremacy of one nation over another was measured most readily
by the precedence which its flag received from the ships of other
nationalities. National pride, therefore, became involved in the
question of the supremacy of the flag at sea, and in this contest the
English were not behindhand in taking their share, for the supremacy
of the sea meant to England something more than the mere precedence of
her flag. It meant that no other power should be allowed to surpass her
as a naval power; not that she desired to carry strife against their
countries, but esteemed it more for the protection of her own shores
at home, and the preservation of peace along the confines of her island
seas.
This faith in the maintenance of the Supremacy of the Seas remains
potent to this present day, as is shown by the demand of the British
people that their navy shall be maintained at a two-power standard,
and so be equal in strength to the navies of any other two of the
nations which sail the oceans. It is no new ardour, nor the outcome
of any modern development or exigency, but is the outgrowth of the
determination of the nation from its earliest days to maintain the
supremacy of its flag, and is strengthened by the lessons learned in
those centuries.
Alfred the Great of England (871-901) was the first to establish any
supremacy for the English flag, and to him is attributed the first
gathering together of a Royal navy, the creation of an efficient force
at sea being a portion of that sea-policy which he so early declared,
and which has ever since been the ruling guide of the English people.
The true defence of England lay, Alfred considered, in maintaining a
fleet at sea of sufficient power to stretch out afar, rather than in
trusting to fortifications for effective land resistance when the enemy
had reached her shores; that it was _better to beat the enemy at sea
before he has a chance to land_, and thus to forestall invasion before
it came too near--a policy which in these days of steam is simply being
reproduced by the creation of "Dreadnoughts," swift and strong, to hit
hard on distant seas. The bulwarks of England were considered in his
time, as they are still considered, to be her ships at sea rather than
the parapets of her forts on land.
"Britannia needs no bulwarks,
No towers along the steep;
Her march is o'er the mountain waves,
Her home is on the deep."[27]
[27] Campbell.
Introducing galleys longer and faster than those of the Danes,[28]
Alfred kept his enemies at a respectful distance, and, dwelling
secure under the protection of his fleet, was thus enabled to devote
himself with untrammelled energy to the establishment of the internal
government of his kingdom.
[28] "Sax. Chron."
His successors followed up his ideas, and under Athelstane (901)
the creation of an English merchant navy was also developed. Every
inducement was offered to merchants who should engage in maritime
ventures. Among other decrees then made was one that, "_if a merchant
so thrives that he pass thrice over the wide seas in his own craft he
was henceforth a Thane righte worthie_."[29] Thus honours were to be
won as well as wealth, and in pursuit of both the merchants of England
extended their energies to wider traffic on the seas.
[29] "Canciam," IV.
King Edgar (973-75), by virtue of his navy, won and assumed the title
of "Supreme Lord and Governor of the Ocean lying around about Britain."
Thus did the English flag, carried by its navies, sail the seas. But
Harold, the last of the Saxon kings, instead of maintaining his ships
in equipment and fitness to protect his shores, allowed them, for want
of adequate provisions, to be dispersed from their station behind the
Isle of Wight, and so, forgetting the teachings of Alfred, left his
southern coasts unguarded and let the Norman invader have opportunity
to land, an opportunity which was promptly seized.
The Norman monarchs of England held in their turn to the supremacy
which the early Saxon kings had claimed for her flag at sea.
When the conquest of England, in 1066, had been completely effected by
the Norman forces, the shores on each side of the "narrow seas" between
England and Normandy were combined under the rule of William the
Conqueror, communication by water increased between the two portions
of his realm, and the maritime interests of the people were greatly
extended and established.
Richard I. showed England to the other nations, during the Crusades, as
a strong maritime power. King John followed in his footsteps, and in
1200, the second year of his reign, issued his declaration directing
that ships of all other nations must honour his Royal flag:
"If any lieutenant of the King's fleet in any naval expedition, do
meet with on the sea any ship or vessels, laden or unladen, that will
not vail and lower their sails at the command of the Lieutenant of the
King or the King's Admiral, but shall fight with them of the fleet,
such, if taken, shall be reported as enemies, and the vessels and
goods shall be seized and forfeited as the goods of enemies."
The supremacy which King John thus claimed, his successors afterwards
maintained and extended, so that under Edward I., Spain, Germany,
Holland, Denmark, and Norway, being all the other nations, except
France, which bordered on the adjacent seas, joined in according to
England "possession of the sovereignty of the English seas and the
Isles therein,"[30] together with admission of the right which the
English had of maintaining sovereign guard over these seas, and over
all the ships of other Dominions, as well as their own, which might be
passing through them.
[30] Southey: "British Admirals."
Edward II. was given, in 1320, the title of "Lord of the Seas."[31]
[31] Sir Harris Nicholas.
Edward III., himself a sailor-king and commander of his fleets, was
fully imbued with the force of the Alfred maxim, so that when invasion
threatened England he said, "_he deemed it better with a strong hand to
go seek the enemy in his own country than wait ignobly at home for the
threatened danger_."[32] Putting his maxim into action he led his fleet
across the Channel, and his victory over the French fleet at Sluys, off
Flanders, on the 24th June, 1340, was the Trafalgar of its day, and the
resulting supremacy of the English Jack on the narrow seas enabled him
to land his forces on the foreign shores, when he subsequently invaded
France to establish his claim to the French throne.
The prowess of himself and of his seamen in their victory over the
French and Spanish fleets won for Edward the proud title of "King of
the Seas," in token of which he was represented upon his gold coinage
standing in a ship "full royally apparelled."[33]
[32] Rymer.
[33] Aubrey: "Gold Noble, Ed. III."
During the Wars of the Roses less attention was given by the nation
to maritime matters, and while the English were so busily engaged in
fighting amongst themselves, the Dutch of the Netherlands, under the
Duke of Burgundy, developed a large carrying trade, and so increased
their fleets that, in 1485, at the accession of Henry VII., they had
become a formidable shipping rival of England, and were a thorn in the
side of France. Over the ships of the French the Dutch so lorded it on
the narrow seas that, to quote Philip de Commines, their
"navy was so mighty and strong, that no man durst stir in these narrow
seas for fear of it making war upon the King of France's subjects and
threatening them everywhere."
Two flags, the striped standard of the Dutch and the red cross Jack of
the English, were now rivalling each other on the adjacent seas and
on the Atlantic. The contest for the supremacy which had begun was
continued for nearly two hundred years thereafter.
In the time of Henry VII. more attention was given to merchant shipping
and foreign adventure. Cabot carried the English flag across the
Atlantic under the license which he and his associates received from
Henry VII., empowering them
"to seek out and find whatsoever isles, countries, regions, or
provinces of the heathen and infidels, whatsoever they might be; and
set up his banner on every isle or mainland by them newly found."
With this authority for its exploits the red cross of St. George was
planted, in 1497, on the shores of Newfoundland and Florida, and the
English Jack thus first carried into America formed the foundation for
the subsequent British claim to sovereignty over all the intervening
coasts along the Atlantic.
Under Henry VIII. England began to bestir herself in making provision
for a regular navy. A drawing in the Pepysian Library gives the details
of the _Henri Grace à Dieu_ (11), built in 1515 by order of Henry
VIII., which was the greatest warship up to that time built in England,
and has been termed the "parent of the British Navy." At the four
mastheads fly St. George's ensigns, and from the bowsprit end and from
each of the round tops upon the lower masts are long streamers with the
St. George's cross, very similar in form to the naval pennants of the
present day. The castellated building at the bow, and the hooks with
which the yards are armed, tell of the derivation of the nautical terms
"forecastle" and "yard arm" still in use.
With such improved armament the cross of St. George continued to ruffle
its way on the narrow seas, and widened the scope of its domain.
The supremacy claimed for the English Jack never lost anything at the
hands of its bearers, and an event which occurred in the reign of Queen
Mary gives a vivid picture of the boldness of the sea-dogs by whom it
was carried, and of how they held their own over any rival craft:
[Illustration: 11. THE "HENRI GRACE À DIEU," 1515.
(From the Pepysian collection.)]
The Spanish fleet, of one hundred and sixty sail, was escorting Philip
II., of Spain, when coming to his marriage with the English Queen, in
1554. It was met off Southampton by the English fleet, of twenty-eight
sail, under Lord William Howard, who was then "Lord High Admiral in the
narrow seas." The Spanish fleet, with their King on board, was flying
the Royal flag of Spain, and was proceeding to pass the English ships
without paying the customary honours. The English admiral promptly
fired a shot into the Spanish admiral's ship, and the whole fleet was
obliged to strike their colours and lower their topsails in homage to
the English flag. Not until this salute had been properly done would
Howard permit his own squadron to salute the Spanish King.[34]
[34] Preble: "Flag of the United States."
Under Elizabeth seamanship mightily increased. Her merchant fleets,
from being mere coasters, extended their ventures to far distant
voyages, in some of which the Queen herself was said to have had an
interest; and while before her time soldiers had exceeded seamen in
numbers, the positions were now reversed.
The defeat of the Spanish Armada, in 1588, was one of the crowning
achievements of the supremacy of the English Jack, yet it would almost
seem as though the glorious flag had, in the never-to-be-forgotten
action of the undaunted _Revenge_, kept for the closing years of its
single cross period the grandest of all the many strifes in which it
had been engaged.
England and Spain were then at open war. The English fleet, consisting
of six Queen's ships, six victuallers of London, and two or three
pinnaces, was riding at anchor near the island of Flores, in the
Azores, waiting for the coming of the Spanish fleet, which was expected
to pass on its way from the West Indies, where it had wintered the
preceding year. On the 1st September, 1591, the enemy came in sight,
numbering fifty-three sail, "the first time since the great Armada that
the King of Spain had shown himself so strong at sea."[35]
[35] Monson.
The English had been refitting their equipment, the sick had all
been sent on shore, and their ships were not in readiness to meet so
overwhelming an armament. On the approach of the Spaniards, and to
save the fleet from being penned in by them along the coast, five of
the English ships slipped their cables, and together with the consorts
sailed out to sea. Sir Richard Grenville, in the _Revenge_, was left
behind to collect the men on shore and bring off the sick, and so,
after having done this duty, came out alone to meet the enemy, which
was marshalled in long extended line outside the port. He might have
sailed around their wing, but this would have been an admission of
inferiority, and, bold to recklessness, he thrust his little ship
right through the centre of their line. Rather than strike his flag,
he withstood the onset of all the Spanish fleet, which closed in
succession around him, and thus this century of the red cross Jack
closed with a sea-fight worthy of its story, and one which has been
preserved by a Poet Laureate in undying verse, whose lines ought to be
known by every British boy:
"He had only a hundred seamen to work the ship and to fight,
And he sailed away from Flores till the Spaniard came in sight,
With his huge sea-castles heaving upon the weather bow.
'Shall we fight or shall we fly?
Good Sir Richard, tell us now,
For to fight is but to die!
There'll be little of us left by the time this sun be set,'
And Sir Richard said again: 'We be all good English men.
Let us bang these dogs of Seville, the children of the devil,
For I never turn'd my back upon Don or devil yet.'
* * * * *
And the sun went down, and the stars came out far over the summer sea,
But never a moment ceased the fight of the one and fifty-three.
Ship after ship, the whole night long, their high-built galleons came,
Ship after ship, the whole night long, with her battle-thunder and flame;
Ship after ship, the whole night long, drew back with her dead and her
shame.
For some were sunk, and many were shatter'd, and so could fight us no
more--
God of battles, was ever a battle like this in the world before?"[36]
[36] Tennyson: "The Revenge."
In such way, audacious in victory and unconquered in defeat, the
English sailors, beneath their English Jack, held for the mastery of
the oceans from Alfred to Elizabeth, and laid the foundations of that
maritime spirit which still holds for Great Britain the proud supremacy
of the seas.