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England: Tudor Naval Flags

by Rob Raeside

Tudor flags (notes from a presentation at ICV 19 by David Loades)
The Anthony Roll - an illustrated survey of Henry VIII's navy

See also:

England

Notes from a presentation given at ICV 19, York, entitled "Tudor Flags" by David Loades.

The presentation mainly concerned flags used at sea by Henry VIII's navy. Such flags served three purposes - decoration, identification, and information transfer. Decorative flags were used to glorify the prince, and were not used during rough weather or in battle. In order to understand the use of flags in battle in the early 16th Century, it must be noted that the concept of the sea battle was still being developed. Before the invention of guns on board, galleys fought mainly by ramming each other. With the appearance of guns in the early 15th Century, galleys began to fight as individual ships, although such battling was rare outside coastal waters or more sheltered seas like the Mediterranean. Sailing ships in use up to the late 16th Century were clumsy, and major sea battles were more by accident than by design. Sea battles were essentially land-type battles, fought at sea. Ships therefore copied land-based forces, and carried the arms of the travellers. To demonstrate the decoration used by Henry VIII's ships, consider the record of purchase of flags for Grace à Dieu, his new flagship, in 1514. It was decorated with a 51 yard green and white streamer, 3 20 yard streamers, 3 5.5-yard long streamers, 10 3-yard long streamers, 10 St. George cross flags, and the image of the lion, the dragon and the greyhound (all provided at a cost of £112 19/8d). (See image above for an idea of the appearance of the streamer.) Some flags at this time w