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The Cuckold Flag: English Civil War

image located by William Garrison, 15 January 2025
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org

The Budge flag

See also:

The Cuckold flag

'It's not Robert Devereux's fault that his marriage and sex life became a public spectacle on par with a British Interregnum-era episode of "The Jerry Springer Show."'

Full details at https://www.military.com/history/cuckold-flag-strange-history-of-worlds-weirdest-battle-ensign.html

I just don't know about the validity of this flag...
William Garrison, 15 January 2025

Strange as it may be, it is genuine. Although most Royalist cavalry troop standards used devices connected with religion or politics, a handful mocked the Earl of Essex, and by implication, his army.

Five such standards were captured by the opposing Parliamentary side at the battle of Naseby in 1645. At least three are associated with Sir Horatio Cary's regiment (so perhaps they all were). The mottoes were variously 'Come out you cuckold' (as shown in the illustration), 'Come cuckold', 'Cuckold wee come' and 'Cuckolds we come' (twice). Cary's regiment was raised in the West Country of England in 1643 and was disbanded after Naseby, when the Royalist cause fell apart. Cary himself had been a Parliamentarian until 1643, when he changed sides, so he may have been working off a particular and personal grudge against the Earl of Essex, his former commander.

The others I have been able to find are:
Caryl Molyneux, a Royalist troop commander in the regiment of his brother Richard, used a standard with the motto 'Ad quid exaltatis cornu' (To what do you exalt this horn?), with a device of a deer's head supported by five hands. The head stands for Essex, the five hands are the 'Five Members', five pre-war Members of Parliament who were the core of opposition to the King.

Colonel Richard Molyneux used a standard with two mottoes, 'Quid si refulsero' (What if I shine back) and 'Vae cornibus meis' (Alas for my horns). Accompanying the first motto was a sun. This is being obscured by a crescent moon to which the second motto is attached. The sun was the King, the crescent moon was Essex. A bit more subtle perhaps, but still a reference is Essex's marital difficulties. Molyneux's regiment was raised in Lancashire, but had fought against Essex at Edgehill in 1642.

According to Wikipedia <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuckold> 'In Western traditions, cuckolds have sometimes been described as "wearing the horns of a cuckold" or just "wearing the horns". This is an allusion to the mating habits of stags, who forfeit their mates when they are defeated by another male.'

They are all referred to in: Young, Alan R. (ed.). The English Emblem Tradition 3: Emblematic Flag Devices of the English Civil Wars 1642-1660 (Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1995), as items 0041.0, 0042.0, 0059.0, 0060.0 and 0061.0 (Cary's regiment), and 0008.0 and 0378.0 (Molyneux's).

The source for the illustration seems to be Kightly, Charles & Barton, Anthony (illustrator), 'Standards of the English Civil Wars,' in: Military Modelling, Vol 8, no 4 (April 1978), 280-82

Ian Sumner, 16 January 2025