Cropredy 375

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Rather than cluttering up my ECW Travelogue guide to Cropredy Bridge, I decided to post a second entry which is purely devoted to my snaps from the Sealed Knot's Cropredy 375 event.

The Living History camp...




 
The battle...
 











 













 











 

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London Trained Bands - Red Regiment

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Trained Bands were a militia of part time soldiers; they were formally founded in 1571 under Elizabeth I, although their history dates back much further. Each County had a trained band, but in London there were a number of regiments. Initially there were north, south, east and west regiments; by 1638 four had become six regiments (now called red, white, blue, green, yellow and orange regiments), by the time of the First Civil War there were these six regiments and three suburban regiments (Southwark, Tower Hamlets and Westminster). Each regiment drew it's men from a particular district of the city. In 1643 they were expanded again by the formation of the auxiliaries, giving a total of eighteen regiments.


We know quite a lot about the London Trained Bands (henceforth LTB) thanks to the Royalist spy William Levett


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Sir John Meldrum's Regiment of Horse does not have spectacular or even notable battle honours, so why does it get it's own blog post? Regular readers will know that I have been having a bit of an existentialist crisis with the makeup of my two main armies. We know that generally armies had equal numbers of horse and foot, but rather than having 200 horse and 200 foot I prefer to field equal numbers of units. This karmic balance was shattered for a variety of reasons and my regiments of foot became rather top heavy.


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The Earl of Stamford's Regiment of Horse was a short lived regiment that existed in 1643 and served in Gloucester.

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Just a couple of headswaps in this unit, and one of the mounted casualties.
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Flags and Colours Part 2: Evidence

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Updated: Seven more cornets located!

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Surviving Flags

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Picture courtesy of the National Army Museum
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Who'd have thunk it? I have managed another year of awful painting and dreadful prose.

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As 2020 is the year in which the 375th anniversary of the Battle of Naseby is celebrated, it is fair to assume that there might be a few Naseby 375 ECW Travelogue entries... the first visits Daventry, an unassuming market town in Northamptonshire. Keep an eye on the Sealed Knot's event list as I have an inkling they might be organising something special.


Can't say I have ever been to Daventry before...

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Regular readers of the ECW Travelogue will know that I often have to apologise for poor quality photographs taken in museums. Normally this would be down to operator error (i.e. my incompetence) but on these occasions it isn't: it is down to museums becoming light airy public spaces. Great for the building ambience and visitor experience, awful for taking pictures.

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In use at home on a glass cabinet door - even I draw the line at taking a picture of myself using this in public.
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Strange items I own #63

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1643, Charles had signed a Cessation with the Irish and recalled soldiers from Ireland to reinforce his armies. Several regiments were sent to Cheshire where a  new army was being raised. Lord Byron took command of that army in December of that year, and immediately started an offensive against the Parliamentarian forces in the County.

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Alan Garner's novel "Red Shift" uses this incident for one of the three stories within a story.





Sir William Brereton, the Parliamentarian …
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