Before the legislative union of the two kingdoms, the salute was exacted by English men-of-war of ships of the Scottish navy. In June, 1706, the 'Royal William,' one of the three small ships that then comprised the Scots navy, put into Tynemouth, whereupon the commanding officer of H.M.S. 'Dunwich' fired "a sharp great shot" at her and complained that her commanding officer was displaying a broad pendant in English waters. In his letter reporting the incident to the Lord High Admiral of Scotland, Commodore Gordon adds that the commander of H.M.S. 'Bonaventure' had told him "that he should be sorry of meeting me without the Island of May, since he had orders from the Board of England to make our frigates strike and salute[398]."
Closely connected in idea with the lowering of the flag in salute and as a mark of respect to a stronger power is the lowering of it as a sign of submission and surrender in action. Its application to this purpose seems comparatively modern and to have been really an extension of the salute. In naval warfare among the ancients and during the middle ages submission was often of little use; the only safe thing to be done by those who saw that they would be beaten and cared to save their lives was to take to flight. Prisoners, except a few likely to be of value for ransom, were usually disposed of summarily by being thrown overboard, for there was little room for them in the early ships and none at all in the galleys. It will be remembered that Chaucer says of his "Schipman": "If that he foughte and hadde the heigher hand By water he sente hem hoom to everyland." When Hubert de Burgh's men in 1217 agreed that so soon as they had boarded Eustace the Monk's ship one of their number should climb the mast and cut down the flag, they did not imagine that this would indicate surrender; the object they had in view was to confuse the remaining enemy ships by depriving them of the mark by which they could recognise their leader's ship.
Until the use of great ordnance had been sufficiently developed at sea to enable an enemy ship to be overcome at a distance, it is obvious that the dispute for the mastery could only be settled by hand-to-hand encounter. In these circumstances there would be no need of any method of indicating surrender other than by a personal appeal for quarter on the part of the vanquished crew, and indeed, the vanquished would hardly have the time or opportunity of removing the various flags placed along the bulwarks or flown from the masthead as a preliminary to such an appeal. But when it became possible for the ship to be destroyed from a distance, some method of indicating a wish to surrender on terms became necessary. This appears to have first been provided by displaying a flag of truce, a practice that was no doubt adopted about the beginning of the sixteenth century from the usages of land warfare where it had been current for many centuries. The following instance of its employment at sea occurred during Sir Richard Hawkins' voyage into the South Sea in 1593-4. In April, 1594, Hawkins' ship was caught at a disadvantage in the Bay of San Mateo. The crew were not over-anxious to fight, and talked of surrendering. Hawkins harangued them: "Came we into the South Sea," he asked, "to put out flagges of truce? And left we our pleasant England, with all her contentments with intention and purpose to avayle ourselves of white ragges?" After some fighting, which their neglect of proper preparations rendered useless, the captain of the ship "presently caused a flagge of truce to be put in place of our Ensigne, and began to parley of our surrendering[399]." It will be noted that the colours were hauled down and the white flag then hoisted on the ensign staff.