Medieval Scots weaponry - looking at a doing Sark

[Duncan Head]

... a pricknighate ...

Now there's a word I have not seen before. Every Google instance seems to link back to this passage; one suggests "[read: prickinghate]". 

[Erpingham]

A prickinghat is a light cavalry helmet, I believe, a pricker being a light cavalryman.  It isn't the only example e.g. this regulation for Scots equipment

And that no poor man nor unprovided be charged to come to any raids in England, and that each man whose goods extend to 20 merks be furnished at least with jack, with sleeves to the hand or else a pair of splints, a sellat or a pricking hat, a sword and a buckler, a bow and a sheaf, and if he can not shoot that he shall have an axe and a targe either of leather or of board with two hands on the back.

James II 1456/4

Targe here, of course, in its general meaning of shield.  The pair of splints is thought to be a reference to what re-enactors call "jack chains" - an arm defence.

[DougM]

If they weren't, they would have nicked it.  There would be little to no difference other than deliberately adopted symbols of allegiance, whether field signs or headgear.

[Jim Webster]

Well, legally, both sides have similar obligations on the kit they had to have.  And I've seen the assumption in general that the Scots lowland zone was pretty similar in economic terms to the North of England in the Middle Ages.  We have a description of English border horse causing a nuisance in Ripon in 1441

"like men of were, with brest plate, vambracs and rerebrace, greves and quischers, gorgett and salett, long spears and lancegayes; and the simplest arrayed of all the said persons had either a gestiment, or a hawburgon, or a thick jack, upon him, and either a pricknighate or a sallett upon their heads"
Plumpton Letters

I suspect a Scottish border retinue would be similar.

depending on the circumstances they could be the same men 

[DougM]

Shhhh Jim. The whole concept of a 'border' was fairly fluid at the time, and the Warden's writ was only in effect within his arm's length.

[Jim Webster]

Shhhh Jim. The whole concept of a 'border' was fairly fluid at the time, and the Warden's writ was only in effect within his arm's length.

with a less well policed extension if he cocked his pistol 

[Dave Knight]

Battle reports here http://soa.org.uk/sm/index.php?topic=4480.0

We are going to run the scenario again twice this coming week