Keep Your Powder Dry

Regular readers (hello both of you), will hopefully already be familiar with my posts on  The National Army Museum ,  The Museum of London  and  The Wallace Collection . This post will look at what, Civil War wise, is on display at The British Museum and the V&A. The British Museum is one of the world's great treasure houses, for those of us with an interest in the Civil War make for Gallery 46. Easy to spot, you'll pretty much have it to yourself as everyone else will be swarming around the mummies and the Sutton Hoo displays. Newark Siege Coin The highlight, for myself at least, are the examples of siege coins and tokens. There are some nice terracotta busts of Charles and Cromwell. Most of the gallery is devoted to crockery and glassware from the period, particularly striking is a commemorative plate of General Monck. There is also the obligatory death mask of Oliver Cromwell: their mask is bright red, whereas all the other masks...

The Tower of London is a visitor site of world significance; one time royal palace, treasury, prison, royal mint, barracks, arsenal, it is now a place for small people to run riot whilst their parents are engrossed with updating their status on social media. Detail from a Royalist cannon. From a Civil War perspective, the Royal Armouries collection in the White Tower is the big ticket item. The stand out artefact is Charles I's gilded suit of armour. Charles's 'head' from the Line of Kings There are a number of sets of pikeman's armour on display. The small cannons in the second picture were fully functioning toys(!) belonging to Charles II when he was a boy. There are a number of suits of cuirassier armour on display too. Higher up in the White Tower are a pair of Royalist gun barrels, and a secret (an item I haven't seen on display anywhere else). There is also a civil war cuirass used to test the impact of ca...

Please note: the National Portrait Gallery is closed for a major redevelopment, reopening in spring 2023.  A few days in town tramping the tourist trail made me wonder what does our capital have to show us about the Civil Wars? I shall start by looking at the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery and the immediate vicinity. First let's look at the National Gallery : this is a wonderful resource for researching clothing colours, you can see my thoughts and research  here . The National Gallery has a large collection of Van Dyck's portraits. His famous equestrian portrait of Charles is not currently on display, as they are currently renovating a number of the renaissance galleries: hopefully, this will soon be back on display. Currently there are a number of Van Dyck's portraits of the extended royal family on display, including: Prince Rupert The Stuart Brothers The National Portrait Gallery has a whole gallery devoted to the Civil War (and ...

Another four regiments of horse for Parliament. Variations on a theme of brown. Realised that I used fourteen different browns painting these (if you include the horse tones). When based, with the earth base added I was really disappointed with how they looked, only after the greenery was added did I start thinking "yes, they're alright those". Flags from Maverick Models - not currently listed as available. Thank you Stuart for your patience with my continued requests to produce specific standards. Half way through painting these four regiments I became a convert to headswapping, and I do confess to having become slightly evangelical about the subject. So, yes there are a few headswaps amongst their ranks (I particularly like the lobster pot with raised face guard).   Col Francis Russell's Regiment of Horse   Part of the Eastern Association; fighting at Newark, the Siege of York and Marston Moor, before joining the New Model Army. Colonel George Dod...

Clearly trying to avoid finishing the latest regiment of horse, I had a look at the Matchlock listings over on Caliver Books (if the 'one legged musketeer with pig' ever comes back into production I'll be first in the queue) and noticed 'general in mule litter with servant'. I'd heard tell of such a set but had never noticed it in the listings*. So it had to be ordered, along with a few other generals, purely in order to justify the postage. An adventurous casting, which needed considerable cleaning up. Painted the inside Railmatch weathered black, and block painted the general before gluing the two halves of the compartment together. Liquid green stuff applied to the join lines. The mules had their undersides and muzzle stippled with Coat d'Arms bone to make them look distinctly mule like, rather than just undersized horses. I began to wonder how it would attach to the mules when complete. I needn't have worried as it glued neatly and sec...

Part three of the Prince Rupert travelogue sees him enter the land of strange dialects, decent beer, and the unholy use of offal in cooking; before he triumphantly enters York, and foolishly rides out to Marston Moor. For ease of writing east of the Pennine watershed* is Yorkshire, west is Lancashire. Black Tom's tomb, Bilbrough Rupert's first port of call was the Royalist stronghold of Skipton. Rupert's forces relieving the siege of Skipton Castle  which had been on and off since 1642. After Marston Moor the siege started again, the garrison eventually surrendering honourably in December 1645. Rupert's forces spent two days here resting and preparing for battle. (A more in-depth post about Skipton Castle can be found here ). Skipton Castle Rupert made a statement by routing his march via Denton Hall , the home of the Fairfaxes. The current hall is a much newer building (dating from the late eighteenth century) and is used as a wedding/corpo...

Part two of the Prince Rupert travelogue sees him venture through Lancashire towards York, and ultimately the battle of Marston Moor. For ease of writing south of the Mersey is 'Cheshire', north of the Mersey is 'Lancashire'. After crossing the Mersey, Rupert bypassed Manchester as it was too well defended, instead storming Bolton. Immediately after Storming Stockport his army camped on Barlow Moor in what is now Didsbury. A plaque on Didsbury Library marks the spot. Rupert attacked Bolton on the 28th of May three days after taking Stockport. The loss of Stockport led to the Parliamentarian forces besieging Lathom House to retreat to Bolton. The attack started in pouring rain, the 4000 defenders repulsing the Royalist attacks. A fresh attack led by the  Earl of Derby broke the defensive line. James Stanley, Earl of Derby Two of the Royalist regiments of foot had returned from fighting in Ireland, and during the initial attack a number of their men were cap...