‘This flag was never a French one’

Abbotsford, authenticity and the Battle of Waterloo

Abstract

Three flags in the collections at Abbotsford, the home of Sir Walter Scott, undocumented by Scott and believed to be connected with the Battle of Waterloo, have long raised questions about their provenance and authenticity, emerging in the decades after Scott’s death in 1832 as Abbotsford transitioned from private home to Victorian tourist destination. This paper re-examines the flags and researches their provenance to conclude that they could not be genuine artefacts from the battlefield, and to establish that Sir Walter Scott could not have believed in their authenticity when he acquired them. Their likely origin as props in pageantry and exhibitions staged in London to celebrate the British victory at Waterloo provides insight into how Scott knowingly combined authenticity with theatricality in his aesthetic creation of Abbotsford.