Tag Archives: Lord High Admiral

On Admirals and Arundells

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The Queen turned seventy-eight today. That’s not traditionally considered one of the big birthdays and so commemorations have been fairly muted. The most significant announcement was her appointment as Vice-Admiral of the United Kingdom.

The Vice-Admiral is the deputy to the Lord High Admiral, and it may be prudent to recap the outline of that office first: The Lord High Admiral is the ultimate head (originally operational, but later just ceremonial) of the Royal Navy. Appointments have been made since the late fourteenth century in the Kingdoms of England and Scotland, then later Great Britain. Occasionally in Stuart times, and almost permanently from Anne’s reign onwards, the singular office was not filled and instead the post was instead put “In Commission” – i.e. delegated to the Board of Admiralty with the First Lord of the Admiralty (a cabinet minister) as its chair. The creation of the modern Ministry of Defence in 1964 saw the Board with its First Lord dissolved and the title of Lord High Admiral resumed in the person of Queen Elizabeth II. In 2011, on his ninetieth birthday, she conferred the office upon her husband Philip. The status of the office following his death in 2021 is a little ambiguous but the general assumption is that it defaulted back to the sovereign and now resides in King Charles III. I had wondered if Vice-Admiral Sir Timothy Laurence would be appointed on his seventieth birthday this March, but this did not occur. The King perhaps intends to retain the top office for himself and have his wife as runner-up.

The Queen is both the first female and the first royal holder of the office of Vice-Admiral, whose previous recipients have all been career navy men (and indeed tended to hold the actual rank Full Admiral). Her Majesty’s most recent predecessor was the Lord Boyce, who was appointed in 2021 and died in 2022.

Below the Vice-Admiral is another deputy, the Rear-Admiral. This office is currently held by Sir Gordon General, a General in the Royal Marines who was formerly Vice-Chief of the Defence Staff and also served as Lord High Constable at the 2023 coronation.

The Lord High Admiral has a flag of office – a fouled golden anchor on a crimson field. The Queen was presented with a “burgee” (pennant) with a red anchor on a white background when she visited HMNB Devonport. I just about saw Camilla’s impaled banner of arms as well.

On another note, today is also the twentieth anniversary of the death of Sir Edward Heath, Prime Minister 1970-1974. His military career was on land, though he was a noted yachtsman in later life. He stayed in the House of Commons for twenty-seven years after his premiership had ended, which is considerably longer than all his successors combined. He is the most recent Father of the House to have served more than one term, as well as the most recent to have formerly been Prime Minister.* He is also the most recent example of the Order of the Garter being conferred upon an incumbent member of the House of Commons**.

Wikimedia Commons has long had a vector graphic (by Sodacan, of course) of Sir Edward’s shield of arms, but it was only recently that I discovered, through the website of the Heraldry Society, a photograph of the heralds’ illustration of the full achievement. Heath had no offspring, so the arms as a hereditament became extinct.

This anniversary means that Arundells, his house in Salisbury, will now have been his museum for longer than he actually lived there. He bequeathed the building to his namesake charitable foundation who then opened it to the public. There was a fear in 2010 that the house would need to be sold due to high running costs, which then developed into a legal battle, but as of 2025 the estate seems to be running as normal again.

It should be noted that the spelling is Arundells with two Ls, not Arundels with one. Incidentally, it was an Earl of Arundel who is listed as England’s earliest Lord High Admiral, so everything links up I suppose!

*I’m phrasing it that way because Heath is not the most recent Prime Minister to be Father of the House – that was Callaghan.

**I hesitate to say “sitting member” because St George’s Day in 1992 fell in the interlude after the general election (9th April) but before the new Parliament actually assembled (27th April).

William IV & the Royal Visit of 1827

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Today’s virtual lecture was presented by Owen Ryles, Chief Executive of the Plymouth Athenaeum. It concerned the time that the Duke of Clarence (later King William IV) visited the naval yards at Plymouth.

The lecture began with a preamble establishing the titular character: William was his father’s third son, long expected to lead a relatively quiet life. Even his creation as Duke of Clarence & St Andrews was not guaranteed, being granted only because he threatened otherwise to stand as MP for Totnes. He was sent into the navy at age 13 to keep him away from the perceived negative influence of his elder brother George IV. In his active career he was the first British royal to set foot in the American colonies, took command of HMS Pegasus in 1786 and gave away Frances Nisbet in her wedding to Horatio Nelson in 1787. He was commissioned as an honorary admiral in 1798, and then appointed to the office of Lord High Admiral in 1827 during the brief ministry of George Canning. In his private life, he scandalised Georgian society by cohabiting with his mistress Dorothea Bland and siring ten illegitimate children with her. He gave her a stipend on the condition that she would not return to acting, and later took legal action against her when she did anyway. When his niece Princess Charlotte of Wales unexpectedly died in childbirth William moved up in the line of succession and was forced into a royal marriage, but his wife’s children all died young.

For the grand occasion the duke arrived on HMS Lightning to a deafening chorus from onlookers. He did not disembark until 7pm. He visited the original Admiralty House, later renamed Hamoaze House, and met the Superintendent of Works Jay Whitby. On 12th July he inspected the Plymouth Division of the Royal Marines and said that Plymouth was his favourite naval resort (it was also the first borough in which he had been made a freeman). On 13th he received a loyal address by the mayor and municipal corporation at the Royal Hotel. Among the military men with whom he dined was his own son, Colonel Frederick Fitzclarence.

Also during the visit he laid the top stone of the sea wall at the Royal William Victualling Yard and donated ten guineas to each of the workmen. He also witnessed a demonstration by William S. Harris of the application of fixed lightning conductors to ships.

William’s tenure as Lord High Admiral did not last long – the next year he was dismissed after taking HMS Britannia to sea for ten days without government permission. In 1830 he acceded to the throne, the eldest until Charles III last autumn. He was reluctant to have a coronation at all, eventually spending just £30k on it compared with his elder brother’s £420k. His reign was short, and he clung to life just long enough to see his niece Victoria come of age. He was regarded as the “least obnoxious Hanoverian”, which some might consider high praise.