Keep Your Powder Dry

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

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