The Unicorn, St Andrew and the Thistle: Was there an Order of Chivalry in Late Medieval Scotland?

Abstract

A common expression of kingship throughout Europe in the fifteenth century was the founding of orders of chivalry. Whether the Scottish crown also attempted to appropriate the ideologies of chivalry in this way is important to establish. Scholars have generally accepted that a chi valric order of knighthood was instituted in and functioned from the reign of James III.1 This order, in its first stages was named by scholars as the Order of the Unicorn, then becoming the Order of St Andrew, alleg edly the order upon which the Order of the Thistle was modelled. However, no detailed examination of the evidence supporting the order's fifteenth-century existence has yet been undertaken. This article re-examines the evidence used by historians to support the conclusion that James III founded a chivalric order and asks whether an alternative interpretation can be advanced. James VII and II instituted the Order of the Thistle on 29 May 1687, claiming to be reviving it from ancient roots. This is, in fact, the earliest explicit reference to a chivalric order and the first indication that a medieval Scottish order may have existed. 2 The patent, which was