God save the King!

Let's take a break from the medieval era for a moment, and move forward in time to a blustery summer's day in Nottingham on 22 August 1642. On that day Charles I unfurled his standard of war on the summit of the highest tower of Nottingham Castle, heralding the start of the English Civil War - or the War of the Three Kingdoms, or the British & Irish Civil Wars (delete or add to taste). 

Charles I

From the evidence given by eye-witnesses at the trial of the King in 1649, we learn the following particulars concerning the raising of his standard:—

"Robert Large, painter, of the town and county of Nottingham, deposed upon oath that in the summer of 1642 he painted, by command of my Lord Beaumont, the great standard of war that was placed upon the high tower of the Castle of Nottingham, and that he often saw the King thereabouts, at the same time that his standard was erected and displayed.”

"Samuel Lawson, of Nottingham, maltster, aged 30 years or thereabouts, sworn and examined, saith: That about August, 1642, he this deponent saw the King’s standard brought forth of Nottingham Castle, borne upon divers gentlemen’s shoulders, who (as the report was) were noblemen; and he saw the same carried by them on the Hill close adjoining the Castle, with a herald before it; and there the said standard was erected, with great shouting, acclamations, and sound of drums and trumpets; and that when the said standard was so erected there was a proclamation made; and that he, this deponent, saw the King present at the erecting thereof.”

We are told the standard was “a large red streamer, pennon shaped, cloven at the end, attached to a long red staff having about twenty supporters, and bore next the staff a St. George’s Cross, then an escutcheon of the Royal Arms, with a hand pointing to the crown above it, and the legend:

"GIVE UNTO CAESAR HIS DUE,"

together with two other crowns, each surmounted by a lion passant."

Three days later the royal standard was unfurled again, this time on an open field on the north side of the castle wall (now marked by a tablet). It took twenty men to carry the banner into the field, and they had to hold it upright after digging an insufficiently deep hole with daggers and knives. The royal herald made a mess of his speech, and then a strong gust of wind blew the standard down. Not a very auspicious start for the royalists.