Keep Your Powder Dry

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 The Red Regiment mustered it's men from Aldgate, Tower and Billingsgate. The Red Regiment was the senior regiment of the LTB. 'Red Regim...

The Earl of Stamford's Regiment of Horse was a short lived regiment that existed in 1643 and served in Gloucester. They may have had a skirmish at Burford, but definitely fought at the siege of Siege of Sudeley Castle and the battle of Highnam. Their cornet is interesting; an old Military Modelling article from the 70s, on ECW flags, gave the cornet as blue with white horizontal stripes (from the Earl's coat of arms); however, the rather succinctly titled 'BL MS Additional [Sloanee] 5247' gives the field colour as solid blue. As BL MS Additional [Sloanee] 5247 was a contemporaneous pattern book of cavalry cornets I have plumped for the solid blue field. Just a couple of headswaps in this unit, and one of the mounted casualties. If you enjoyed reading this, or any of the other posts, please consider  supporting  the blog.  Thanks .

What can I say about the Portland Collection at the Harley Gallery, on the Welbeck Abbey estate, near Worksop? Firstly, I must point out that photography is not allowed. At all.  Not even sneaky ones without flash, so you'll just have to take my word for what's there. The Harley Gallery is located in what has to be one of the nicest gallery buildings I have been to. A large airy gallery space houses portraits of Charles II as a boy, and William Cavendish first Duke of Newcastle by van Dyck.  Other Civil War era portraits include Sir William Farmor by  William Dobson; 'Mad Madge' the Duchess of Newcastle, and Sir Edward Harley both by Sir Peter Lely. Elsewhere there is a Newark siege coin, a number of Charles I medallions and Charles's toothpick and case. Highlight of the entire gallery has to be a drop pearl earring  worn by Charles in pretty much every one of his portraits (from the age of sixteen). A close second is the chalice that he drank from on the...

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. So here are the first of twelve regiments of 'death by brown paint' horse - six each for Parliament and the King. Meldrum's horse were formed in 1643 and served in the midlands and the north. Battle honours include Gainsborough, possibly the relief of Gloucester, First Newbury, and were besieged in Hull. After 1643 they fought at Nottingham, Ormskirk and possibly the siege of Scarborough. Pretty much straight out of the box Piggies, just a coup...

Who'd have thunk it? I have managed another year of awful painting and dreadful prose. Blog continues to go from strength to strength. In the first year it managed 15,600 hits, this year it's nudging 27,600. Must be doing something right, or there has been nothing on the telly globally for the last twelve months. The KeepYourPowderDry blogiversary party: regular readers will note that the Saturday Boy has not been invited, after he embarrassed himself last year Most successful blog post of this year is 'Sealed Knot - ECWS: re-enactors on 450 hits: and the most successful of all time is "What Colours To Use" with over 800 hits. Strangely 'podiatrist Tyldesley' as a Google search term has secured rather a lot of blog visitors. A number of older posts have been updated; for example the London galleries post now has details of the imminent closure for refurbishment of the National Portrait Gallery (see ECW travelogue, then London). Somehow I have manag...

Once I had discovered that a relative was a captain in the Parliamentarian Holland's regiment, I had to represent it. This of course had the knock on effect of causing imbalance in my armies. Hence the King required a new regiment of foot to level this imbalance. So I give you Sir Bernard Astley's Regiment of Foot. Originally raised as the Marquis of Hertford's regiment, Sir Bernard joined the regiment as lieutenant-colonel in 1643. Sir Bernard was the son of Sir Jacob Astley, sergeant-major general of the King's foot. After the storm of Bristol the Marquis stepped down from the military, Sir Bernard taking command of the regiment. As the Marquis of Hereford's their highlights include Lansdown and Bristol; under Astley they fought at First Newbury(possibly), Cheriton, Cropredy Bridge, Second Newbury, Leicester and Naseby. Peachey & Prince have  identified the regiment’s coat colour as white (by a process of elimination), however this relies on some...

Who hasn't searched for themselves on Google? It's fairly normal behaviour I believe. So when you discover The Cromwell Association Online Directory of Parliamentarian Army Officers it has to be done really doesn't it? Not really expecting to find a relative I was pleasantly surprised to find Captain Thomas Chetham of Colonel Richard Holland's Regiment of Foot. But was he a relative? A little bit of digging finds that he was a cousin of Humphrey Chetham  my great x lots uncle. So I'm not exactly what relation Thomas is - somethingth cousin many times removed I guess? Richard Holland was a Member of Parliament for Lancashire, who raised a regiment of foot for the defence of Manchester in the Salford Hundred. Thomas was a captain in the regiment and  ‘fought both within and outside Lancashire between 1642 and 1646’. The Regiment fought at the 1643 storming of Preston, the defence of Bolton, and the storming of Wigan, the Battle of Adwalton Moor, the Bat...

Yes, again. Baggage. Bit of a recurring theme here. For the benefit of new readers I keep getting tempted by shiny things and add to my baggage trains - all the while vowing that that is really is my final addition. Probably done this three or four times now. My baggage trains are now mahoosive. When I discovered that a relative was a captain in Holland's Regiment of Foot, well I had to represent them (and him). Which meant that the Royalists needed another regiment of foot. Which meant I needed to rebalance the armies as they were becoming very foot heavy. But this post is about baggage - I'm coming to that, be patient. So a really big sort out of the spares box was in order. I discovered that I had enough dead harquebusiers for my big cavalry expansion, and also enough dead musketeers for the few more regiments of foot. But then I started rummaging around in the spares box. Museum Miniatures had thrown in some 'pack donkeys' into one of my orders in lieu o...

Regular readers (hello both of you) will remember my original TBM post a few weeks ago. Impressed with my sample building (and how it blended well with my Hovels offerings), I took the plunge and ordered a couple more. Again from the 15mm Big Battalions range (correctly scaled height, reduced footprint) I went for 'three story buildings' (15BPBB07U) and 'warehouse' (15BPBB17U). My parcel arrived quickly and was packaged securely. The buildings were very clean and needed no cleaning up. I gave them a very good scrub to remove mould release agent. With some of my dragoons for size reference The three storey buildings is very neat, thankfully this isn't the Architectural Journal magazine so I can't nitpick about rendered stone in the seventeenth century (stone was an expensive building material so generally wasn't rendered, it was shown off). The warehouse, again, a neat and simple design. If you enjoyed reading this, or any of the...

Hex is a micro budget British film set during the Civil Wars. Be careful looking for it as there are a number of films that share the same title. Not heard of it? No neither had I. This film is currently included with Amazon Prime in the UK, but is listed as Hex (2019). Hex (2018) is a completely different film altogether, with a much higher body count. Two soldiers (a Royalist and a Parliamentarian) meet after a skirmish and their conflict leads them into the woods. Only the woods are... well that would be telling. Think A Field of England but with an even smaller budget and in colour. The film looks at seventeenth century superstitions and witchcraft in particular; using cinematography, music and good writing to set the scene. The film is beautifully shot. The Sealed Knot provided props for the camp scenes, and no doubt one or two dead extras. Locations in and around Staffordshire and the Derbyshire border - Lud's Church looking splendid, and as atmospheric...

If you are new to the blog, or new to painting ECW figures - welcome. Now go and read what colours to use  first, as this entry will make much more sense if you read this second. Caveat: I paint true 15mm figures and apply a heavy wash of Citadel Nuln Oil. These colours work in this setting, with the heavy black wash subduing the colour a bit. If you are starting painting out different sized figures you might need to go brighter or slightly darker depending upon size of your figures. A number of people have asked me what colour paints I use for certain regiments or a particular item. So here is my attempt at converting the colour chart found in part one  into a brand and colour of paint. I must confess that I am a fan of  Foundry and  Coat d'Arms  (Cd'A) paints, so mostly I have identified their paint colours. If you are a fan of other brands there are a number of paint comparison charts available on the web, one of the best is Dakka Dakka ....

Regular readers (hello both of you) will know that I am always on the look out for resin buildings that will work with the Hovels buildings I had a look at Total Battle Miniatures' (henceforth TBM) ranges. Why resin? My own house is almost 200 years old, nothing is straight, nothing is true. Whilst laser cut mdf buildings can look good, they are a bit too crisp, neat and square for the seventeenth century. Hence resin. Sagging roof lines, wonky windows are all better represented in resin. I already own a few of their Big Battalions Napoleonic buildings (Essling Granary etc), so I hoped they would work size wise. TBM make two ranges - Skirmish which are accurately scaled, and Big Battalions which are the correct height but have a reduced footprint. My test piece is from the Big Battalions 15mm Black Powder Europe section: 15BPBB12U 'Row of Houses' A clean, crisp hollow resin model which required no cleaning up. I thought I'd washed all the mould release a...

James Progers's Regiment of Foot was a Welsh regiment armed with firelocks. They fought at Montgomery Castle and Monmouth in 1644, and were besieged at Abergavenny in 1646. Other than that we know the names of some officers but precious little else. There is some confusion which of the Proger/Progers/Prodger family was the Colonel of the Regiment. There is an article on the Dictionary of Welsh Biography  website which describes the two branches of the family. It mentions Colonel Charles Proger ‘of the Guards’, who had to redeem his estate at £330 for siding with the King in the Civil Wars, and was probably the ‘Col. Progers’ who took part in recapturing Monmouth for the King in 1644 (J. R. Phillips, Civil War in Wales). Sir Henry Proger appears to have been the ‘Lieut. Progers’ who was in Raglan Castle when Fairfax took it in 1646. The article mentions a James Proger who spent time in Spain and was last heard of as constable of Abergavenny Castle in 166...

Sir William Brereton (the same William Brereton whose coffin got washed away in a flood when his body was being returned home for burial) was commander of Parliament's forces in Cheshire. He fielded a regiment of foot, a regiment of horse and a regiment of dragoons. From 1644 the dragoons were often referred to as firelocks - whether this just refers to their weapons, or to them doing their soldiering on foot (with firelocks) we do not definitively know, although the general use of the term at the time meant foot soldiers (with firelocks). From 1645 the regiment appears to have had many in it's ranks who had swapped sides after the battle of Nantwich - including men from Thomas Sandford's and Francis Langley's companies of Firelocks. Again this supports the notion that some of the dragoons at least became foot soldiers. We actually know quite a bit about his regiments - their battle honours, officer lists and so on, but like so many Civil War units we only know...

Recently picked up a copy of this on fleabay. Widely available from internet behemoths for a lot of money, this can be picked up for less than a tenner if you have patience from a certain on-line auction house. An eagle-eyed reader reports it is available from the BFI web shop for £9.99.  Winstanley was released in 1975, and "no" younglings your screen isn't broken, films and telly box were often black and white in those days. We had it hard back in the day... Armour used in the film was borrowed from the Royal Armouries collection; the V&A and the Museum of English Rural Life helped with the rest of the costumes, and advised on locations. Whilst the costumes and locations were top notch, the cast were mostly amateurs. The film tells the story of Gerrard Winstanley  and the Diggers attempting to create a community on St George's Hill, Cobham, Surrey. Slightly slow placed*, this film is well worth the effort of watching it; although it does make m...