This has been interpreted by Nigel Tranter in his fictional account of the campaign as being the King's Standard (a red rampant lion on a yellow field), which MacColla carried to attract the attention of the covenanters while Montrose rallied the rest of the Royalist army. Stuart Reid, not unreasonably, supposes that the Irish would have carried colours similar to those described for the Irish Confederacy forces in the Ireland, and that the yellow colour is one of 12 colours described in the contemporary gazette, "The True Informer".
Reid lists the descriptions of all 12 colours in his book "Scots Armies of the C17th. III: The Royalist Armies, 1639-46" (published by Partizan Press). Two of those descriptions form the basis for the colours given to my first Irish Regiment. Most of the colours have overt catholic imagery, and latin religious mottos, both features that would not have endeared them to the presbyterian burghers of Scotlands towns and cities.
All of the colours are thought to have featured a red saltire on a yellow field in the canton, and the Royal Crown and cypher (CR), together with the latin motto "Vivat Carolus Rex", or "long-live King Charles".
The first is a green sheet, with "Christ carrying his cross on his shoulder", and the motto "PATIOR UT VINCAM", which translates as "I suffer so that I may conquer".
The second colour is a red sheet with "the name of Jesus", which I have chosen to interpret as meaning the common Catholic abbreviation "IHS" for "Iesus Hominum Saviour", or "Jesus, Savior of men". The motto on this sheet is "IN NOMINE JESUS OMNE GENU FLECTITUR", which loosely translates as "In the name of Jesus all knees shall bend".
At this time, fear of the Roman church ran so deep, that just having an Irish accent in Scotland could prove fatal. So Montrose's use of Catholic Irish mercenaries to press the King's will in Scotland could not have gone down well with the locals, and no doubt these colours fluttering over his victorious army would not have helped matters.
Both flags were made in photoshop, and printed on paper. They were subsequently entirely painted over, to give them the hand-painted look. They were also cut to give a torn and ragged campaign look. More flags to come. Next: MacColla's Lifeguard.
5 comments:
English Civil war was on our list to do. We had planned to start getting miniatures at the end of the year. But after seeing this site. We are making our list up and ordering minatures. Great job on your site. Blog says your out of Hoston, Tx. You going to Bayou Wars?
Thanks rhammond. I wish you the best of luck with your ECW project! Yes we are in Houston, but I wasn't planning to go to Bayou Wars. Where are you and your mates based?
We are out of Baton Rouge. We are in the middle Wars in Eastern Europe. Hussites, Kingdom of Hungary, Poland, and one stray El Cid army. Useing the Territory campaign out of the WAB book.
Your site and these pictures in particular have inspired me to go back to Montrose's campaigns and to get painting. You might want to try Devastator Miniatures (via Caliver Books' website)- they also model the Irish Brigade with figures scaled to Perrys and Eureka. Hope you will be posting more Irish flags.
The Irish infantry are awesome! Do you have a description or better still an image of a flag for MacColla's Lifeguard that you can point me towards? I am particularly keen to add them to my collection. Your help would be appreciated
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