Flodden and the Blue Blanket

A fierce migraine has been afflicting me all week, but I managed (just) to find time to visit the exhibition on "Flodden and the Blue Blanket" at the Trades Maiden Hospital in Edinburgh.

The Blue Blanket in question is the standard granted to the Hammermen of Edinburgh under which the Edinburgh Trades would muster in time of war. It wasn't unique–the Edinburgh Merchants had a Blue Blanket too, and so did the merchants and tradesmen of other Scottish burghs. Over time, the Hammermen themselves have had many Blue Blankets, regularly laying up worn colours and replacing them with fresh ones. This Blue Blanket in the Trades Maiden Hospital is believed to be late 17th century, and the oldest surviving example.

No photography was permitted, quite rightly, but I have posted an image of the flag at the to give an idea of its original appearance. Nowadays, there is almost none of that bright azure colour remaining, and the flag is a ghostly white, but it remains an impressive piece of Edinburgh history.

Much of the exhibition concentrates on Flodden, one of Scotland's greatest debacles, in a country famous for its debacles. The Edinburgh Trades contingent fought under their own banner at the battle and were essentially destroyed during it. The flag, now tattered and torn, was somehow rescued from the battlefield by Randolph Murray, captain and sole survivor of the Edinburgh City Band (the town watch), who carried it back to the capital with the news of Scotland's defeat.

The exhibition collected together several different depictions of Murray's arrival in Edinburgh on his wounded horse (above), carrying with him the Blue Blanket. The event also featured in William Edmondstoune Aytoun's "Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers", a phenomenally succesful poetry collection in its day. The poem which you can read here, "Edinburgh After Flodden" while very much a piece of its time still has a little of that blood and thunder to shake the reader.