Keep Your Powder Dry

  Latest behind the scenes update - August '25 After all the tales of woe and gnashing of teeth (see here ), I'm very pleased to report that: the BCW Project & Regimental Wiki is back! Slightly different domain though: BCW-Project.org.uk  (TL;DR a long story mostly centred around corporate greed). The Project side of things: the Project is 'as it was' when it disappeared from the internet nearly 2 years ago. The Wiki link on the front page, is the only real change, as it has been set to direct to the new regimental wiki address. Over the next few months, it will see some changes, mostly updating the formatting of pages, copyright, updating privacy policies etc. You may find some links broken (this goes for the Wiki too), these are being fixed but may take some time. You will also note that the 'contribute' feature has been disabled. There's quite a few things that need sorting out. The Project side of the site is very out of date software wise, and isn...

The first of rather a lot of Scottish entries to the now rather inappropriately named, ECW travelogue.  Apologies to Scottish readers who steadfastly, and proudly hang on to traditional Scottish shire boundaries, for ease of writing I have gone with the nine Scottish regions established by the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973. (Yes I know those areas are now defunct, but it made sense at the time when I was planning the entries.) A brief entry, in comparison to those Scottish regions to come, but important nonetheless. The West Port of St Andrews was built in 1587 as a monumental entrance to the city’s South Street. It was less a defensive structure than it was a symbol of civic pride. Charles II visited St Andrews in 1650 and was presented with silver keys before the West port by the provost of St Andrews. A plaque marks the event, located inside one of the gateway's arches. Battle of Inverkeithing ,  20th July 1651,   saw an outnumbered New Model Army decimate a Sc...

Finally! I hear some of you say. A Royalist Army reading list. Well, there's a problem. The Royalist Armies are nowhere near as well documented as the various Parliamentarian Armies.  Why is this the case? There are, potentially, several reasons. Parliament, at every level, consisted of committees who needed minutes, account books and audit trails. Parliament 'won' the Wars, so these records were transferred to what would eventually become The National Archives as State Papers. The records of the various Royalist Armies don't generally exist in The National Archives. Records tend to exist in the archives of the families of Royalist supporters, and are usually specific to the units that the family raised and equipped.  There may well be 'unknown' military records waiting to be discovered, but these records are not centrally held, and in many cases access is difficult or completely off limits.  Any researcher wanting to collate an "Old Robin's Foot" ...