Ochiltree Covenanter Flag

National Museums of Scotland

Edinburgh

NGR - *

The Ochiltree Covenanter flag is now preserved at the National Museums of Scotland.

Ochioltree Covenanter Flag

The Ochiltree Banner measures about six feet square, it bears the motto: ‘For God, the Covenanted Presbyterian Reformation, Crown and Country 1689.’

This banner also has the initials W.R. and a crown with the date 1689, with the addition of a

thistle emblem. There is also a cross of St. Andrew and the word Ouchiltrie and the inscription: ‘Deus est simper idem’ (God is always constant.)

Local legend has it that the Ochiltree banner was made by the Cochrane family who at one

time held the Barony of Ochiltree. Men gathered under the banner in the name of God, the Covenant and King William. It may be that the Ochiltree banner like the Sorn Banner had the initials W.R., crown and date added in 1689 or alternatively the banner may have originally been made in 1689 when

William III came to the throne.

When the Covenanting troubles were over the banner was brought back to Ochiltree House

where it remained until it was removed or stolen by a servant and given to a friend in the village. It next passed into the hands of Patrick Simson, schoolmaster in Ochiltree, who in 1818 placed the Ochiltree banner into the care of Alexander Boswell of Auchinleck.

The banner was used by political enthusiasts in Ochiltree in 1832 but not returned to the

Boswell family. After disappearing for a number of years it was given or bequeathed to Rev John Warrick of Cumnock, a well known historian of Covenanting tales, who donated the banner in 1930 to the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland.

The Ochiltree Banner is now part of the collections of the National Museums of Scotland and the banner is currently on display at the museum in Queen Street, Edinburgh.