Interest in creating emblematic devices, fashionable during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, did not disappear in England with the demise of the tournament and the Stuart masque. Alan R. Young examines the hundreds of emblematic devices used by the warring parties on their military flags during and immediatley after, the English Civil Wars. To be fully understood, these emblematic devices must be 'read' as part of the massive propaganda war waged by the different factions. This collection throws light on the nature of the conflicts that led to the civil wars, based on the views set forth in the emblems and mottoes designed by the men who risked their lives in the cause of Parliament, king, covenant, or Irish Confederacy.

Unlike earlier volumes in the Index Emblematicus series, which draw on printed emblem books as their sources, The English Emblem Tradition, Volume 3 brings together a corpus of material that was previously scattered widely among a number of surviving manuscripts. Wherever possible, carefully drawn illustrations of details of the flags have been reproduced from the original manuscripts. The flags are listed in alphabetical order by motto ( the mottoes are translated from the original Latin, French, Spanish, and other languages). A series of concordances, indexes, and lists makes the volume extremely accessible. Because of the unusual nature of the source material, a lengthy introductory essay is provided to explain the indexing of the text.