Keep Your Powder Dry

Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer spent seven years in Tibet, nice work if you can get it; his story was turned into a film, and Harrer was portrayed by Brad Pitt. In years to come who will portray me in the film version of this blog? When I started writing this blog it was a receptacle for bits of paper that didn't really have a 'home', so I gave them one; but the 'home' has grown and developed a life of its own. Almost.  Regular readers will be surprised to hear that the Saturday boy did not attend this year's KYPD staff mid-winter party - management's bluff of compulsory playing of 'Mould-my-Cockle-Bread'* obviously scared him off  I genuinely never expected anyone to read my ramblings, but read them you do.  Every year, sometime about October I do start to wonder what the viewing figures for the year will be: will it be 50k?, will it be 100k?, this year I started wondering if it would break the 250k figure. It passed that with ease in November...

Firenze/Florence? Well known exile location or has the ECWtravelogue decided to embark upon the grand tour? And what exactly has the birthplace of the renaissance got to do with the Wars of the Three Kingdoms? In all fairness, your immediate reaction of 'well that's got nothing to do with the Wars of the Three Kingdoms' would be correct. What Firenze did have was a ridiculously wealthy Edwardian Anglo-Italian gentleman, called Frederick Stibbert. An English pot Museo Stibbert.  Stibbert's family was incredibly wealthy, his grandfather making a fortune from his role as General Commander of the East India Company, and governor of Bengal.  You can get very close to many of the exhibits, possibly too close; but this brilliant to be able to see details that we normally see through a glass display cabinet  Stibbert's father would be a colonel in the Coldstream Guards; and, through a series of deaths in the family, Frederick would inherit the entire vast fortune. On the hi...

  Bit of an eye candy post today; where I finally get around to painting the Royalist harquebusiers on foot (they've only been sat in the 'to do' pile for nine months or so). For those of you new to KeepYourPowderDry, or the Civil Wars in general, you might be wondering why anyone would want dismounted cavalry. In a nutshell regiments of horse joined in the besieging of houses, but as horses weren't particularly useful when attacking a house, their riders dismounted to fight. They were often in the first wave of assault troops as their buff coats and armour afforded them considerable protection (in comparison to infantry). Plus it also gave them a share of any spoils if the assault was successful. For more information about the role of harquebusiers in sieges, and a look at my existing assault parties see  here . These are Steel Fist figures from pack ECWF 09, but as I have zero faith in Steel Fist swords (they are much too slender to be practical) I have replaced th...

Somehow, despite the best efforts of real life trying to hinder my painting of little men, I've managed to make some more progress on my Catholic Confederation army. Here's the second of two units of cavalry. Philip MacHugh O'Reilly was the son of Hugh O'Reilly of Ballynacargy, County Cavan, and Katherine MacMahon. The family were deemed to be one of the ‘deserving’ native Irish families whose land was not taken during the Ulster plantation. Not to be confused with Hugh O'Reilly, the Catholic Archbishop of Armagh. Contemporary sources refer to him as a lawyer, but there's no existing evidence of him having attended Inns of Court in England. He may well have received legal training on the Continent, prior to accepting a command in the French army.  Philip inherited the family estate on his return to Ireland. He would play an active role in local politics, holding a number of important roles, before being elected as MP for County Cavan in the 1640 parliament. As M...

Who? You might be more familiar if I write Eoghan Ruadh Ó Néill as Owen Roe O'Neill. But I won't because he was Irish, not English. Although there is some confusion if he was Eoghan Rua or Eoghan Ruadh. I'll stick with Eoghan Ruadh. Now please bear with me, as there's rather a lot of Ó Néills running around Ireland in the 1640s. Eoghan Ruadh had at least eight brothers and four sisters; and was connected through marriage to many of the leading native Irish families of Ulster. His nephews included Daniel  Ó Néill and Hugh Dubh  Ó Néill  both of whom were important figures in 1640s Ireland, as well as Conor, Lord Maguire, one of the original plotters of the 1641 rebellion, and his brother Ruari , who commanded a regiment in the Ulster army during the 1640s. In Spanish service, 1605–41 Eoghan Ruadh was accompanied by three of his brothers: Phelim, Art Óg, and Cormac. He secured himself a position as captain in the regiment of Henry Ó Néill , son of the Ea...

Civil War films are, to say the least, thin on the ground. So, forgive me for scraping the bottom of the barrel. My Kingdom For A Horse was a BBC made for TV play written by John Godber. The protagonist, 31 year old, still living with his parents, history teacher Steve is played by Sean Bean.  Steve and his best friend Pud, are pikemen in the Sealed Knot. Unfortunately for Steve, his head of department is also a member of the Sealed Knot, even more unfortunately he's the 'muster master general'. With the backdrop of the Sealed Knot, Airfix 54mm ECW miniatures, and frequent references to Marston Moor, Cromwell, and the New Model Army, the dour Steve plods through life in a dilapidated Yorkshire secondary school. No spoilers, but everyone who has ever taught in a secondary school will do an internal cheer when Steve has a showdown with the school bully. There's some seriously big hair, floppy fringes, brown suits, a school held up by ACRO props (nothing changed there then...

Sorry regular readers, once again comments and the contact form have temporarily been turned off. Why? Someone on Twitter has got their knickers in a twist about an information panel at Newark Castle.  Why has she done that? Because the information board features an image of a man of African descent.  The man pictured is an actor, portraying a man called John Americanus, who fought for the King at Newark. John's role in the defence of Newark is well documented. And yes, John was of African descent. The National Civil War Centre created a Civil War Trail around the town, information panels are located at points of interest. These panels feature QR codes which accessed features on a now defunct smartphone app. Each location also featured an eye witness account - stories from real people who witnessed the events in Newark. Each information panel has a photographic representation of the person whose story was told in the app. The Castle's eyewitness account was John Americanus. Un...

It has been said of wargamers that they spend all their time painstakingly painting figures and then ignore the terrain. A trend that I feel is changing for the better with printed game mats and 'teddy bear fur'.   Today's post looks at trees: more specifically, Woodland Scenics deciduous Realistic Tree Kits. 2"-3" trees, light green foliage, PP and SF figures for comparison Warning: great trees, messy process. The trees come in several different sizes. Packaging varies, sample kits consisting of armatures and foliage are available, or alternatively elements can be bought separately. They all 'work' the same regardless of 'version'. 2"-3" on the left, 3"-5" on the right I've gone for the 2"-3" armatures and 3" - 5" armatures. Armatures are tree trunk brown plastic and look very uninspiring when you first encounter them., as they are 2 dimensional. But do not be put off, the 2D branches can be bent and the...

The ECWtravelogue has visited Newark many times. The King, Queen Henrietta Maria, Prince Rupert all visited; it is home to the National Civil War Centre ; and is the location of possibly the best preserved Civil War earthwork - The Queen's Sconce . So why does it deserve another blog entry? In a word: Clampe's Plan ( but that's two! ). Clampe drew a plan of the Royalist defences of Newark and the Parliamentarian, and Scots siege lines. There's also another, slightly different, later version of the map: Buck's Map, which is held in the Royal Collection and can be viewed online here . The Queen's Sconce survived, did anything else? Clampe's Plan  I've seen photographs of other earthworks in Newark, but no locations for them. A little sleuthery comparing Nottingham's register of ancient monuments, and Historic England's records has resulted in an extensive list of sites. Unfortunately, the locations are so complex that they don't fit my normal ...

For more Yorkshire 'related stuff' you can find North Yorkshire here ,  South Yorkshire here ,   East Riding here . See also the Rupert Travelogue  entry for Yorkshire, and the entry for Adwalton Moor Oakwell Hall    was the inspiration for Charlotte Brontë's Fieldhead in "Shirley". More recently it has been used a number of times as a film set, including "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell". Located close to the M62 and the Leeds branch of purgatory on Earth (aka Ikea), this Tudor manor house is beautifully maintained by Kirklees Borough Council. The hall is presented as a seventeenth century home. I really like this approach, as so often historic houses have different rooms decorated for different eras, so it is really nice to see a house presented from one era in it's entirety. Oakwell was in the ownership of the Batt family, who supported the King; John Batt was a captain and most probably fought at Adwalton Moor. The retreating Parli...