The design was ordered by King James VI and I to be used on ships on the high seas, and it subsequently came into use as a national flag following the Treaty of Union and Acts of Union 1707, gaining the status of "the Ensign armorial of Great Britain", the newly created state.

However, despite the personal union which he represented, in practice England and Scotland continued as separate kingdoms, each with its own parliament and laws, for another century.

Henry St George, Garter Principal King of Arms, had presented several possible designs to Queen Anne and the Privy Council.

An exception is the commissioners' flag of the Northern Lighthouse Board, whose old stock lasted so long that its anachronistic design became fixed by tradition.

[13] The flag of Taunton, Massachusetts, a reconstruction of an American Revolutionary banner, was officially adopted at the bicentennial of its 1774 introduction;[14] similarly, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, in 1973 adopted the 1775 flag of John Proctor's Independent Battalion of Westmoreland County Provincials.