JANUARY 47 



lion is conspicuous among the devices on this standard ; 

 second, Archibald Douglas, first of Cavers, was the 

 second illegitimate son of the Earl; his father was 

 only thirty when he fell at Otterboume, therefore 

 Archibald cannot have been of an age to act as 

 standard-bearer in that battle. 



It has remained for Lord Southesk to clear up the 

 mystery of the Cavers flag, and to assign it to a date 

 nearly seventy years later than that of Otterbourne. 

 When the house of Douglas, already powerful, divided 

 into two branches — the Red Douglas and the Black — by 

 the bestowal of the earldom of Angus upon George, 

 illegitimate son of the first Earl of Douglas, in 1397, 

 the Red Douglas quartered his paternal coat with the 

 lion of Angus, which remained ever after a conspicuous 

 figure in the arms of his descendants. On the fall of 

 the Black Douglas in 1455, his lands and power were 

 transferred to the fourth Earl of Angus, who, being 

 Warden of the West Marches in 1452, appointed 

 Douglas of Cavers his keeper of Hermitage Castle. It 

 is probable, therefore, that the lion on the Cavers flag is 

 that of Angus, and that this was the standard displayed 

 by the keeper of Hermitage. 



Now, although we have forgotten all about heraldry, 

 we are still great people for flags. What with- our 

 jubilees, coronations, royal progresses, and so forth, the 

 consumption of bunting in this country during the last 

 five- and- twenty years must have been prodigious; yet 

 the result of it all is a trifle monotonous. When an 

 occasion arises for throwing up of hats, we repair to 

 the stores and lay in a stock of cheap Union Jacks. 



