Keep Your Powder Dry

The final Parliamentarian harquebusiers for some time leave the painting table. Lord Ferdinando Fairfax's Lifeguard of Horse: raised in 1643 they were present at the capture of Leeds, and the Battle of Adwalton Moor. 1644 saw them besiege York, fight at Marston Moor, skirmish at Halton before skirmishing a Leeds. 1645 saw the regiment venture a little further afield after a skirmish at Skipton: they were sent to Cheshire to join Brereton's army - they didn't really do much apart from besieging High Ercall and joining the march into Wales (for which the regiment got paid £200). After service with Brereton they returned to Yorkshire after spending a couple of months in Derbyshire. Their final engagement was the Battle of Sherburn in Elmet. The Regiment carried an a cornet with interesting imagery -a Papal crown impaled upon a sword topped off by a royal crown. It carries a motto in Spanish which translates as "no hurt to the King, but to his evil Government" which s...

Colonel Patrick Graham of Inchbrackie was a cousin of the Marquis of Montrose, and was known as Black Pate because he had been facially disfigured in a gunpowder explosion.  Inchbrackie was an ardent supporter of Montrose and Charles I, and raised a small regiment of Highlanders from the Atholl area -  the regiment were also known as the Perthshire Levies.  The regiment was raised  from the Atholl estates and were in the main Stewarts, Robertsons, Camerons and Murrays.  One of these men, Alexander Robertson was later given a pension by Charles II in recognition of his services. The Robertsons carried a standard at the point of which was a small stone known as the Clan-Nan-Brattich that apparently made them invincible in battle.  They fielded 500 men at Tippermuir, were present at Fyvie, fielding 500 men again this time at Inverlochy, fought at Auldearn, possibly fought at Alford, fielded 200 men at Kilsyth, then besieged Inverness. They finished off  b...

I suppose this post was inevitable; I started wondering what colour palette I would need to use to paint my forthcoming Montrose army. I've already investigated coat colours , general dye colours and how that roughly translates to paint codes , but I needed a rough idea of tartan colours, shirts and in particular those colours favoured by the Irish. Just as there is a wargamer fact™  that 'the London Trained Bands all wore red coats' so there are also quite a number of well established wargamer facts™  concerning the clothing of the Irish and Highlanders. But how factual are these facts? Highlanders Wargamer Fact™: the Highlanders wore yellow shirts .  Highlanders did wear shirts, and some, at least were dyed yellow. Highlander's shirts were made from coarse linen, they certainly didn't lace up at the front (in an Adam and The Ants style). James Gordon's History of Scots Affairs 1637-1641 (written 1841) has this description “As for their apparel; next the skin,...

You probably don't know much, or have even heard of Sir Horatio's Regiment of Horse but you will, no doubt, be aware of their cornets; nor may you know the story behind the less than subtle message emblazoned on the cornets. Cary's Cornet - original artwork by Tony Barton, from a Military Modelling series on ECW flags available to download via BCW Regimental Wiki Sir Horatio was originally a Parliamentarian, fighting as colonel of foot in Waller's Southern Association: Cary would defect to the Royalist cause shortly before the Siege of Bristol in 1643. The history of the regiment is confused by Symonds's mistaken suggestion that the regiment was taken over by the Earl of Cleveland, and that Cary would raise a second regiment in the West Country. The details that we can  attribute to Cary's are: possibly skirmishing at Westbourne, possibly at Cheriton, Storming of Leicester (where they numbered 200), Naseby, besieged at Bristol (the karmic circle catchi...