Some Notes on the Nottingham Royal Standard: 22 August 1642
Alan Turton • Nov 28, 2020
The following is a short discussion on the actual appearance of this famous flag, the hoisting of which at Nottingham on 22 August 1642 by King Charles 1st marked his official declaration of war against his rebellious parliament.
These notes are based upon research I carried out about 30 years ago when I was attempting to recreate the standard for flying during special events at the Royalist stronghold of Basing House. [now, in 2020, this is a revised article with later research as an addendum].
One of the first difficulties that arose was that no definitive contemporary illustration survives and the actual standard, which seems certain to have flown on only the one occasion, has long since vanished. There is however, one wood-cut illustration which is included in a printed report.
A true and exact relation of the manner of his Majesties setting up of His Standard.
Which taken with the description in that report gives lots of clues. It would however be foolish to accept that this illustration alone gives the actual appearance of the flag, so other sources were needed.
Hollar, the émigré Bohemian artist produced a very detailed engraving (below) of the King’s camp near Berwick during the First Bishop’s War which included in the top left-hand corner a representation of The Glorious Standard of our Gracious King.
This illustration depicts the flag as having the Royal Stuart arms of England at the hoist, with two, long, tapering tails issuing from them. The tails appear to contain no devices although they are conceivably damasked and the whole flag is surrounded by parti-coloured fringe or border.
The Nottingham Standard appears to have contained far more devices, including - if the printed report is to be believed - an actual representation of the King. To find out the tinctures of the standard I visited the College of Heralds in London. The Heralds have a coloured manuscript book which contains illustrations of the Standards of England, Scotland and Ireland carried at Royal funeral processions up to that of King James 1st.
Charles was given a private funeral at Windsor so there were no banners to record. Therefore, I based my design on that of his father’s Standard of England. This flag has a basic red field with a red and white border, the normal Cross of St England and the Royal Emblems of England and France in gold.
The Nottingham Standard seems to have been very much a one-off design to indicate the King’s conflict both in England and Ireland, and thus included elements of the Standard of Ireland which contained a golden harp on a blue field. This one-off design is also signified by the inclusion of the painted image of the King and the biblical motto Give Caesar His Due, quoted in the True and Exact Relation. This is very much a departure from the heraldic norm by this very traditional-minded King and reflects his dilemma at having to declare war on his own people.
From all the above elements, I drew the design below and from it was produced a 15’ replica which used to be seen flying – wind conditions permitting – at Basing House.
Not long after having had the standard reproduced (sketch above), I came across a reference to a contemporary letter from an eyewitness to the raising of the actual standard in which he describes it as:
It is a long pole, like a Maypole, painted red on the upper end, whereof hangs a large silk flag, (in form of a scutcheon) with a red crosse and two lions passant, upon two crownes.
From this description which is very similar to King James’ standard I then drew this reconstruction which (to date) is as accurate as possible.
It is of interest to note that the Standard of England carried at the funeral of Oliver Cromwell in 1658 is very similar in design except that one of the lions is left off, the motto is changed to Pax Quaeritur Bello (Peace Brought Forth from War) and a number of O Ps are dotted over the field.
Malmesbury in the First Civil War – 1642-46 By Alan Turton
The chaos of battle: controlled by the beat of a drum...
Big Dave & Little Wayne demonstrate postures of the pike and the calls of war...
Introduction This is a guide designed to support new and existing members to produce a convincing representation of the clothing of the common people in the mid seventeenth century. It is written with the aim of supporting members with getting together a typical basic outfit that can then be developed further as expertise, interest and finances allow and involvement in the hobby grows. It is not intended as a great academic work covering every aspect of clothing of the period. Neither is it produced with the intention of being the definitive truth about what people wore in the period – the only way we will ever know for sure is by travelling back in time and seeing with our own eyes! It is simply one possible interpretation of the written, pictorial and (rare!) surviving garments from which has developed a representation of clothing of the period which, through being worn at a range of events and while undertaking period activities in a range of weather conditions, has been proved to work – being reasonably comfortable, waterproof and warm, while looking convincing as a fairly standard outfit for the period. The clothing that we wear for re-enactments and re-creations matters. Beyond the uniform coat colour and pattern that those members who are portraying a military role are required to wear, we have a good degree of choice over our appearance and what we select to wear in our representation of a person from the past. Clothing is also the first thing that the public notice about us as individuals and one of the first things that they are able to compare with their life today. There are countless questions from curious members of the public about what we wear – what it is made of, what it is like to wear, why certain things are worn. The clothing worn by members also affects how we carry ourselves, how we act, and how we under- take activities. Costume in the re-enactment of the seventeenth century has suffered from a number of fads, fashions and inaccuracies, some of which have survived since the 1960s, some of which have dominated for a few years and then faded away but can still linger in some quarters. However, recent years has seen a growing interest in the development of realistic representations of common clothing. Those with a more academic skill than I have focused on written evidence (wills, inventories and the like), examined a full range of pictorial evidence (wood cuts, illustrations, paintings), and undertaken practical experimentation (making the things to see if they work). This guide is based on much of this research by many others, together with practical personal experience of making and trying out the garments.
If you are interested in the 17th Century, and the 'English Civil Wars' period, we recommend the following literature... General Politics/Military
[Note: This series of articles was written by Charles Kightly, illustrated by Anthony Barton and first published in Military Modelling Magazine. The series is reproduced here with the kind permission of Charles Kightly and Anthony Barton. Typographical errors have been corrected and comments on the original articles are shown in bold within square brackets.]
Housekeeping I will be referring to men and women as those people possessing a penis and vagina respectively - there are very few sources I can find for discussing how the medieval people thought about intersex individuals, so I’m just leaving that out. I will also be using both clinical and slang terms for body parts and activities, where appropriate - these terms may be offensive at times, again, I’m trying to reflect the medieval attitude towards men, women and sex. Try to keep sniggering to a minimum. This goes double for Ant. Chapter 1: Who is doing it? The Ladies Women’s status in medieval society is defined by their relationship status, which largely also dictates their sexual status. Women can be: Virgins - not allowed to have sex Wives - allowed to have sex, with certain rules Widows - have had sex before, but not currently allowed to have sex. Whores - allowed to have sex, but socially excluded and vilified Women are only allowed to have sex within a marriage to be respectable - all other women are supposed to be celibate to maintain societal worth. Virgins can be of two types: Virgins by circumstance - young, unmarried women, whose choices are marriage, if they can find a husband, or taking a vow of virginity Virgins by choice - this normally means nuns. It can also mean married or widowed women who have taken a formal vow of chastity before a bishop. Two famous examples of this are Margery Kempe (1373-1438 approx.), who negotiated a ‘chaste marriage’ with her husband after 14 children to devote her life to God, and Margaret Beaufort who took a vow of chastity in 1499 (with her husband’s permission). Contrary to current common wisdom which states that men think about sex every sex seconds...I mean six seconds...in medieval society, everyone knew that women are UP FOR IT. ALL THE TIME. It was thought that not only do women want sex more than men, but that they gain greater pleasure from the act as well. This, coupled with their innate weakness and susceptibility to temptation, leads to a greater need to control their sexual access to prevent sin and bastards overrunning the earth. Women were expected to go to the marriage bed a virgin and to confine their sexual activity to their husband, but ‘wife out to get extracurricular sex’ was an extremely well-worn trope, and prosecutions in court for adultery and fornication were fairly common. Prostitutes held a very particular place in the medieval mindset. Even the great Church fathers St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas recognise that prostitution serves a public good. It wasn’t seen as ironic that the Bishop of Winchester taxed and regulated the sex trade in Southwark in the 15th century. Prostitutes themselves were also seen as a breed apart from respectable women - they were not the lowest of the low - many of the C15th Ordinances are regulations protecting the prostitutes themselves from exploitation by brothel keepers or stewhouses, but there were also rules on public dress for them, so that respectable members of society knew at a glance their profession. The Gents Gents were much less defined by their sexual status, and while it was acknowledged that men should also not be sowing their wild oats too much because it is immoral, the church and court punishments for adultery and fornication for men are less severe in practice. There are celibate men in members of the clergy and men in holy orders, but celibacy for priests is only made canon law in 1123, and this with an emphasis on the ‘unmarried’ meaning of the term; sexual continence was also expected, but it was something that was recognised as difficult. There are court cases of clergy with ‘housekeepers’ who seem to fall pregnant while unmarried a fair amount, and there are increasing urban legends of clerical sexual misconduct as the reformation draws closer, which while probably largely fabricated, was plausible enough to be accepted. Chapter 2: Why are they doing it? Nature Calls Medieval medicine and understanding of biology was based on Ancient Greek and Roman texts, with Galen, Hippocrates and Aristotle having a big influence. The accepted wisdom is that there are four humours in the body, corresponding to four qualities, four elements and four temperaments. Blood, Black Bile, Yellow Bile and Phlegm are in turns Hot, Cold, Dry and Wet. Men are hot and dry - this is optimal. Women, however are cold and wet by nature. When your humours are out of whack, it leads to illness. Men, by virtue of their hotness and dryness, are able to burn off excess and imbalanced humours and thus not be polluted by them, whereas women lack the heat to do so. This leads to both menstruation (explained as the purging of those poisonous excess humours) and to their desire for sex - sex generates the heat they lack and male seed provides heat as well. This is why women are always UP FOR IT. It is also important for men and women to have regular sex as a mechanism to keep their bodily humours in the correct balance.
The simple answer to this question is yes; Black People (People of African dependency) had been part of the British landscape for 1500 years when the Civil War broke out. Earliest records of Black people in Britain goes back to 210AD when a Black Roman soldier was described in military records as “this Ethiopian of great frame amongst clowns and good for a laugh”. Later in the 3rd Century up to 500 Roman cavalry originating from Sudan and Ethiopia who were part of the Muarorum Aurelianorum which was named after Emperor Marcus Aurelius who was described as a “Moor”. More evidence of Black troops being part of Roman Britain on Hadrian’s Wall at a fort at Aballava near Burgh by Sands , Carlisle and modern DNA testing of the existing inhabitants shows much higher than average levels of African DNA indicating that they troops mingled with the local indigenous population potentially marrying and having families. Archaeological excavations in Sycamore Terrace, York discovered a 4th Century high status stone coffin containing the remains of the “Ivory Bangle Lady” who was a sub Saharan Black lady about 5 foot tall who died in her early 20’s. She was well nourished and the grave was adorned with high status grave goods. The archaeologists suspected she could have been the wife of a senior military commander or a successful trader. Continued excavations on the site and the subsequent DNA testing of skeleton’s led to an estimate that up to 10% of this important Roman city had their origins in Africa. Not all evidence of Black people in early Britain were directly related to the Roman army, in 1953 the discovery of “Beachy Head Lady” during an excavation of an early Anglo-Saxon cemetery from about 200-245AD that raised in excess of 300 skeleton’s. This one skeleton, during DNA testing, showed that this young woman originated sub-Saharan Africa although brought up and lived for some time in Sussex.
As many of you know, I do medieval (War of the Roses) re-enactment in my spare time and a lot of this takes the form of archery and not just dressing up in lots of tin and battering each other One of the questions that is asked by the public is about the use and effectiveness of the longbow compared with the matchlock. From my personal point of view, I would take a longbow over a musket any day but apart from the illustrations by William Neade’s Double Armed Man project of 1625, I have not seen any real evidence of its use However, I did stumble across an excerpt from a book called “Seventeenth-Century Military Archery” by E.T Fox that provides evidence of significant use and some lovely illustrations. The author explains how as a weapon of war, the longbow began to fall from favour in the sixteenth century, so much so that King Henry VIII had to introduce a number of statutes enforcing the practicing of archery in an attempt to maintain a force of available archers if required. In Queen Elizabeth I reign, the longbow less and less popular until, in 1589, her Privy Council reorganised the trained bands and removed archers from their ranks. With its strong tradition though, the longbow didn’t disappear and its use continued particularly in provincial and rural regions well into the seventeenth century. In Repton, Derbyshire, mustered militia men had “a cote and bowe and a shiffe of arrows and a quiver” in the reign of James I and as late as 1628, Sir Phillip Carteret wrote that Jersey had a force of 3000 able bodied men for the defence of the island, of whom 300 were armed with musket and pikes, “the rest having bows, bills and unarmed” As late as 1638, the Earl of Arundel at Carlisle requested, “some quantity of bows with offensive arrows should be poured into the bordering shires of Cumbria, Northumberland and Westmorland” During the seventeenth century there were a number of schemes to revive the use of the longbow, the best known of which is probably the famous William Neade’s project of 1625 that we all know as the “Double Armed Man”. Neade’s idea was that by arming a pikeman with a longbow in addition to the pike, they would no longer be restricted to standing around on the battlefield getting shot for the majority of the time and waiting just in case they were needed to defend the remaining troops from cavalry. Armed with a longbow they would have an offensive role in addition to their defensive capability.
