The Thistle: Scotland's National Flower

Each major claim carries one of three labels. established means supported by primary records, official bodies or several independent reliable sources. shared means the core fact is sound but sources disagree on details, dates or interpretation. traditional means widely repeated but not traceable to a primary or independent source.

The royal history of the thistle is documented from the 15th century on coins, literature and the records of the Order of the Thistle. Before that, nothing firm is known. The Largs legend has no medieval source, and the order's claimed ancient foundation was written into its own 1687 warrant. Which species the emblem shows is an informed judgement rather than a recorded fact.

The legend of Largs

traditional The popular story says that Norse invaders, creeping up at night on a sleeping Scottish camp, took off their shoes to move silently. One stepped on a thistle, cried out in pain and woke the Scots, who won the battle. It is usually set at Largs in 1263. The National Trust for Scotland, which tells the story, notes that no one is truly sure how the thistle became Scotland's emblem.

established The real battle does not fit the legend. The main source, Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar, written by Sturla Thordarson and drawing on eyewitnesses, describes storms driving several Norwegian ships aground on the Ayrshire coast near Largs at the end of September 1263. Over the following days the Scots harassed the stranded crews, and on 2 October the main Scottish army arrived while the Norwegians were salvaging their ships. The fighting was on the beach, by day. The result was indecisive; King Haakon withdrew to Orkney and died there that December, and in the Treaty of Perth of 1266 Norway ceded the Hebrides and Man to Scotland.

Which thistle?

shared "Thistle" covers more than 20 plant species. The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and the National Trust for Scotland both point to the native spear thistle, Cirsium vulgare, as the plant behind the emblem. The cotton thistle, Onopordum acanthium, is the plant most often sold as the "Scotch thistle", but it is not native. It was introduced from Europe by the 16th century and became associated with Scotland after Sir Walter Scott chose it as an emblem for George IV's visit in 1822.

shared The naturalist Peter Marren reached the same view in his essay "The Scottish thistle", in Richard Mabey's Flora Britannica (1996). He argued that if the Stuarts had any particular thistle in mind it was the one they saw everywhere, the spear thistle, which Burns called the "burr thistle", and that it best matches the early coins. The cotton thistle suits later heraldry only because its neat head fits the stylised design. He also noted that the Largs story implies the dwarf thistle, which he said is found no further north than Yorkshire, and that the tale seems to date from no earlier than 1829. His suggestion that the Stuarts borrowed the emblem from their French allies, where an Order of the Thistle was founded in 1370, is a theory rather than a recorded fact. Mabey adds that a spear thistle is carried at the Langholm Common Riding each July.

The royal thistle

shared The thistle's firm royal history begins with James III, whose coins of the 1470s were the first to bear a thistle; sources give 1470 or 1474. Some accounts take the emblem back to Alexander III in the 13th century, but without a dated record. By 1503 the thistle stood for Scotland in literature: William Dunbar's poem "The Thrissil and the Rois", "The Thistle and the Rose", celebrated the marriage of James IV of Scotland and Margaret Tudor of England.

The Order of the Thistle

established Scotland's highest order of chivalry was established by James VII, who issued letters patent on 29 May 1687 "reviving and restoring" the Order of the Thistle. The wording was deliberate: the warrant claimed the order began after a battle in 786, when St Andrew's cross appeared to a King Achaius. Other claims link it to Charlemagne or to Robert the Bruce. Historians do not accept these origins; James III in the 15th century is the earliest credible candidate for any earlier order. The 1687 order was made up of the sovereign and twelve knights, but the 1688 revolution ended appointments, and Queen Anne refounded it in 1703. George IV increased the number of knights to sixteen in 1827. The order had no chapel until 1911, when the Thistle Chapel was added to St Giles' Cathedral in Edinburgh.

The motto

established The thistle's motto, Nemo me impune lacessit, means "No one provokes me with impunity", loosely rendered in Scots as "Wha daur meddle wi' me?". It first appears on merk coins of James VI in 1578. It is the motto of the Order of the Thistle and of the Royal Regiment of Scotland.

• The word "thistle" covers more than 20 species.
• The plant usually sold as the "Scotch thistle" is not native to Scotland.
• The first thistle coins were issued by James III in the 1470s.
• The Norwegian saga of the Battle of Largs does not mention a thistle.
• The real fighting at Largs began with Norwegian ships driven ashore by a storm.
• The 1687 warrant for the Order of the Thistle claimed an origin in the year 786.
• The Order of the Thistle had no chapel until 1911.
• Nemo me impune lacessit first appeared on coins in 1578.

• Do not present the barefoot Norseman at Largs as history.
• Do not say the "Scotch thistle" (cotton thistle) is native to Scotland.
• Do not say there is one official thistle species.
• Do not date the Order of the Thistle to 786, 809 or 1314.
• Do not say the motto dates from the 13th century; it first appears in 1578.
• Do not give 1470 or 1474 as the certain date of the first thistle coin.