Raising the standard

 Greetings

The first flag I painted up for my reenactment character, the bishop, was not his banner ( his personal flag) but his standard.

This is the flag that his soldiers follow and rally to. 

Hence, it would be 'trooped' before his soldiers, so that they would all know what it looked like.

The banner has the bishop's arms on it; his standard has his badges and livery colours.

The bishop's bages are the devil climbing a hill holding a pearl ( a cant- or heraldic joke- on de Velmont... devel mont, or the devil climbs)  and the red mitre

His livery colours are black and white- so his soldiers would wear surcoats black on the right and white on the left with a red mitre on the left shoulder. His officers would wear  the demon and hill badge instead of the mitre.

When I painted the flag, I was concerned that the devil badge would not stand out if I used the black livery colour as well as the white, so I edged the banner in black instead.

It looked like this

The bishop has an Italian see and was made a knight by the pope, so has the insignia of the papal states in the hoist-rather than the cross of St George(for England)

The motto is the more acceptable of the de Velmont Mottos - their warcry "seize the prize".

(Their other motto is " Habemus Fortuna Diaboli", which translates as "We have the luck of the Devil" )

I have posted previously about painting the dagging on my tent roof. I alternated the dags black with a white mitre and white with a red mitre- Thus I have added a white mitre on black to the bishop's badges.

I have recently been to my first post-lockdown re-enactement( which I will post about later) and decided that I would update the banner.

It now looks like this.

I think it is greatly improved and I also replaced the support strings with a better crosspole support

As you can see, my fears for the devil not  being visible were unfounded.

I plan to reveal it a the next reenactement at Hever Castle in August.

Until next time

Adieu