Tercio Standards

[jcspqr]

There are a number of excellent tercio flags available on the market.  Almost all however are “company” flags.  Is there any authority out there on whether the individual tercios would carry both a company flag and for example also a flag with a royal cypher or equivalent (I have seen some with flags of the Virgin Mary).

[Antonio J Carrasco]

Not that I am any expert on the topic, so if anyone knows better please correct me. For what is worth, as far as I know the only reliable sources are for company flags. There are not material evidence that the Spanish tercios used some kind of "regimental" flags, although it is not beyond the realm of the plausible. It is known that in some cases, if the king was present, the army carried the Royal Standard, but it wasn't related to any particular tercio. Mind that a "tercio" was an administrative unit, at least until 1660s.

[TheDilfy]

I concur with Antonio there are no "Tercio / regimental" flags - each company had a flag. Not sure if this will be of use but, some Tercios were permanent (e.g 1643 tercio viejo de los estados de Brabante (Count of Vilalba), tercio viejo de los Estados de Flandes (Count of Garcies),  tercio viejo de los estados de Holanda (Count of Albuquerque / Baltasar Mercader), tercio fijo de Napoles (Prince d'Ascoli),  tercio fijo de Lombardia (Antonio de Velandia),  tercio fijo de Sicilia (Francisco de Castilia), tercio de Saboya (Vincent Monsoriu), and some based upon infantry of nations, i.e not purely Spanish tercios, raised in territories dependent on the Spanish Crown: Flanders, Burgundy, Sicily, Naples, and Lombardy.

From around 1621 onwards, and certainly in the last quarter of the 17th century, tercios would have started to look a little bit uniform in colour of cloth, as the royal & military administrate would contract civilian for supplies of cloth, e.g 25 May 1643 contractor to supply 5720 complete suits of clothing for soldiers, each consisting of cassock, pair of breeches, doublet, leather jacket, two shirts with collars, pair of hose, shoes, hat and sword.

There is the recorded first uniformed unit(s) in this period but it was not a Tercio and not the NMA.