"Scottish Royal Livery?" Topic

Did the Scottish kings had any specific royal livery, like the tudor green and white, during the late middle ages?

Good question! I look forward to any informed comment. Long ago, I painted a small royal bodyguard unit of Scottish men-at-arms and arquebusiers c. 1530 and for want of any other idea or knowledge used a yellow and red livery motif, to reflect the colors of the Scottish royal standard. And I used rampant lions as a badge. But this was only supposition.

There is mention of liveried men in the Scots army at Flodden but not of any in royal livery.

The Scottish attitude to royalty was significantly different to that in England and the armed force directly at the disposal of the King was pretty small so forcing him to rely on the nobility and limiting his power.

Look to the Stuarts for badges rather than the Royal arms – Henry's come as much from his Tudor roots as any directly royal connection.

The Stewart's arms were, let's see, I'm not at home with my books -- bar of blue and white check on a yellow field, something like that? Or just a yellow/blue stripe pattern? I do recall that yellow and blue are the Clan Stewart livery colors. Don't remember the badge offhand. But a good starting point for research, yes!

I wonder if the unicorn, as a royal arms supporter, would have been used?

The distinction between the Stewart Lowland nobility, the Stewart Highlanders of Lorn, and the later Royal Stuarts just complicates matters.

Clan Stewart? That;s a little like Clan Goldberg… Really guys, the clan thing is fairly meaningless before the 1500s and the majority of Scottish people thereafter were no more members of clans than they were members of the mouseketeers.
As for liveries… a reasonable assumption would be that men retained by the king might bear his livery/badge – a lion rampant, red on gold. Other members of he (very extensive) Stewart family is a different matter, but just because some one was a member of the wider Stewart family does not mean that their arms were necessarily similar to or based on the checky bar,
Also..the significant difference between attitudes to the medieval kingship in Scotland and England is that in Scotland the last king wass invariably (except for Robert I) succeeded by his legitimate heir. The idea that Scottish kings were 'primus inter pares' is a Victorian fiction.

look up the kings households and use the family coat of arms

House of Dunkeld (1034–1286)

House of Balliol (1292–1296)

House of Bruce (1306–1371)

Stewart (1371–1567)

There are many branches to the Stewart (or Stuart) family and, indeed, those who may derive from a different root.

To claim that the notion of a clan is such a late development is a misleading satement. What is thought of as a 'Clan' today may not emerge until then (although I'd have said it was a bit earlier) but there are certainly groups of families that traditionally stuck together and looked (usually) to a Laird of a particular name and location, their oral history stretches back a lot further than 1500. They may not have called themselves a 'clan' or been structured as the later semi-feudal ones were but, in practice, they operated in a similar manner. Northern & Western Scotland still had a more 'tribal' society than the south and east so this is quite a normal & natural structure under the pervailing conditions.

Don't get confused by tartans and kilts and all the usual touristy flash around clans – its roots were the tribal social stucture of a rural population in a fairly harsh and competitive environment.

I never said that Scottish kings were different in the way you imply – just that they didn't have the centralised military force at their disposal that was available to English kings, even allowing for the difference in size and wealth.

A surprising amount of Stuart heraldry is based on the original Stuart arms though, not always so for some of the other disparate Scots families.

I'm not sure that red/yellow would be the Royal livery for Scottish royal retainers – Tudor is green & white and those colours don't appear on the royal arms. I just don't know and am reluctant to guess with no clues.

" That;s a little like Clan Goldberg… Really guys, the clan thing is fairly meaningless before the 1500s"

Not really although it does depend on your understanding of clan. The foundation of the power of the Gaelic lords was Gaelic law, the 'clan thing' is important in Gaelic law. It was the 'clan thing' that enabled them to raise troops and with those troops they intervened in Scottish politics, and sometimes beyond, until 1746. Their power was more significant before 1500.

As to the livery I would go with something based on the Royal Standard. There is an Osprey that shows royal soldiers in blue and white. It looks good but I'm unsure of the rationale maybe something to do with the banner of St Margaret or the auld blu blanket.

Oral history really is not a reliable source until it is written down, and even then is only reliable within that contest, so – for example – the interview material for 'band of Brothers' is reliable with the proviso that we bear in mind the individual perspectives of the witnesses and the fact that they are recalling events at a considerable distance. Oral evidence that consists of – for example – what our grandparents told us about their grandparents certainly is not reliable – which does not mean that it is wrong, only that we cannot take it as gospel. OTH, it may be seriously unreliable – many people in the UK are aware of the General Strike of 1926 and that Churchill called out the troops and that the troops fired on striking miners. There's not a word of truth in it (the strike happened, but not the shooting) , but it is quite well established as part of our oral history.
It was landlord power over tenants with no security that enabled troop-raising, but Highland troops seldom had any real impact in Scottish political life beyond local affairs.
Even under Montrose, the battles were won by the Irish professionals – just as Montrose's regular misjudgements were rescued by the abilities of the |Irish officers.
Clan Stewart …would you really say 'Clan Plantagenet?' it would be just as viable.
Gaelic Law..no such thing really. There were differing practices in localities across Scotland just like any other European country, but no unified system of 'Gaelic law' existed.
Royal livery – quite agree; I only suggested it would be a reasonable assumption. Of course the Tudors came to kingship more than 200 years after Robert II and practices had changed. It is not clear that badging in that sense was a practice at all in the 1370s. Interestingly, Barbour writes of the 1320 conspirators that they had arranged a body of 300 men-at-arms in livery at Berwick, but it seems much more likely that Barbour means they were all men of sufficient rank to be bearing their own devices rather than that they were carrying a uniform badge.
Clan stuff generally…if there is a body of primary source material to indicate a distinctive cultural 'clan' aspect to Highland society and politics prior to 1500 it would be very interesting to have a look at it. There is Major's attack ion Highland people I suppose, but it's best to see that as Lowland propaganda, and it hardly constitutes a body of evidence.

"Gaelic Law..no such thing really."

No that's not right nor do we have to rely on oral history.

Gaelic society was literate and very legalistic.

You might find Patterson's Cattle Lords and Clansmen a good overview of how things worked and while it draws mainly on Irish law texts comparisons are made throughout with Scotland, Wales and Brittany. Its clear we are dealing with a legal system held in common in Celtic speaking areas of Europe. Prior to 1500 the law operating in Gaelic speaking Scotland would hold few suprises for an Irish Brehon.

If your interested I'll try to find some online links.

The power of the Highland lords rested on their ability to raise troops and project force. That power came from their position as enshrined in law. Any reading of Scottish history that didn't recognise the influence of the Lord of the Isles or Campbell of Argyll would be seriously wanting. Higlanders both.

Patterson's book is about Ireland and it is p[rim,arly sociological deductive analysis based on very sparse sources…nothing at all wrong with that, but is about Ireland, not Scotland, but I'd be interested in any medieval Gaelic source material that is relevant to this issue.

I'm guessing you have not read it as the sources are not very sparse and there are interesting references to Scotland. It is the easiest and cheapest access point for understanding surviving Gaelic texts.

I'll see what I can find for you.

There's very little – so the palaeographers tell me – in the way of Scottish medieval texts in Gaelic and I understand that a good deal of what does survive consists of literature rather than record or formularies. Although I have been told that there are a number of informative fragments of Irish formularies dating from the 13/14/15th centuries that's somewhat out of my field as a Scottish medievalist. I would be delighted to see any 13/14th century Scottish Gaelic material. It is very difficult to come by and naturally it is that much more difficult to study if it is not available in translation.
The influence of Lord of the Isles was a very variable thing; it depended very much on the interests and ambitions of the lords and the power of the crown – you could make much the same point about marcher lords in England/Wales or any magnate in medieval France. England (after the conquest) was rather different since the structure of lordship did not devolve regal power to earls as it did in France or Scotland – or in England before 1066. The rise of the Campbells to the magnate class was of course entirely dependent on crown patronage.

I found this book ( link ) mentioning the Stuart livery being scarlet and blue (the same as the house of hannover). Ian Heath, on the foundry book dealing with english and scottish armies, mentions James V guard of halberdiers being clothed in blue and scarlet. What do you guys think?

EDIT: However, other XIX Century sources (like this: link ) point to red and yellow being the colors. Confusing…

What a title …'The Genteleman's Magazine'…. so much more cool than 'Heat' or whatever.

Interesting discussion.

This is how I understand it:

The Stewart family originated in Brittany, a Breton knight coming over at the time of the conquest. Sometime later, a guy named fitzAlan moved north and his descendants became the hereditary high stewards of Scotland. They became royal through marriage.
Stewart is simply a form of steward. Stuart is the Frenchified version of Stewart.
The Stewarts are a lowland family, so are in no way of the Gaelic culture. As a 'clan', Stewart has no chief and therefore no achievement of arms, they are what's known as armigers. Therefore the arms of Scotland; lion, unicorns, etc. are nothing to do with the Stewarts but are the national arms, used by the incumbent monarch of whatever family. The Earls of Galloway today are considered to be the senior branch of the name Stewart.
As far as badges and liveries go, any combination of red, yellow, blue and white can't be far off. I've seen somewhere that James VII had red and yellow as his livery, the following is the only reference I've seen to badges:

link

That pretty much sums it up I'd say, though I think Stuart is an Anglicised spelling?

Stuart is the French version of Stewart (they didn't have a 'w' apparently).

The Scottish Stewarts original powerbase was Renfrewshire but once they became royal and prolific, the various branches spread the length and breadth of Scotland.

There were several Stewart clans in the highland areas (my own being the Stewarts of Appin being founded around 1460-70's), most of these stemming from cadet branches of the Royal (extensive) medieval Scottish Royal family being given lands throughout the West and North of Scotland at various times throughout the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance periods, and there are numerous armorial achievements of the various branches of Stewarts Lowland and Highland ( a quick check on wikipedia or a search on one of the many clan sites will easy prove that).

As far as a Royal Livery goes for any Scottish King goes, there probably isn't one. Most of the Royal Scottish Household were made up of the Nobility of the Realm at that time and they would have worn their own livery/badges etc while on campaign. The Scottish household did not maintain a standing retinue like the French and English did. Any 'servant' class accompanying the king would have worn clothing that differed from year to year and king to king so hence the varying descriptions from source to source. The best guess if you want one, that has some history behind it is the Blue/Yellow of the Stewarts mentioned above.