Keep Your Powder Dry

Happy bloggiversary*! 8 today. Cue elderly relative asking how it feels to be 8. Jings and crivens, never thought I'd be able to keep this up. This year saw the blog clock up over 1 million views, and receive its 500th post. Both statistics I find slightly bonkers. Just checking the 'supplies' for the KeepYourPowderDry bloggiversary party This year has seen a big jump in views, just shy of 400k in 12 months. The top 20 performing posts list makes interesting reading: five of my coat colours in the top 10 (this year sees the Royalist post out performing the Parliamentarian post for the first time); my Epic posts and Which Figures posts also continue to be viewed a lot. Good to see some ECWtravelogue posts rounding the top 20 out too. Best performing 2025 post was my Irish Catholic Confederacy command. This year's blogging highlights: Amusingly someone plagiarised my blog and then tried to 'internet-one-up' me using my research. They were quite rude, then went sil...

Spurred into action by Radio 4's Food Programme trotting out the 'Cromwell banned Christmas' line, time for the annual public service clarification... It being that time of year, it is only right and proper to debunk the commonly held 'fact' that Cromwell banned Christmas.  The Puritans who held the majority in Parliament effectively banned Christmas as a) they believed it to be wasteful and a sin, and b) as an attempt to persuade the Scots Presbyterians that only by supporting Parliament could they achieve their goal of religious tolerance.  Whilst I do err with the belief that Christmas has become a festival of mass consumption and over commercialism, and has forgotten what the mid-winter festival is actually about, I wouldn't be up for banning it outright. Whilst happy to celebrate my Parliamentarian heritage and leaning (my great × lots uncle became General Treasurer of Lancashire for Parliament in 1643), if Parliament was against cake I may well have to be...

After a brief sojourn in the Marches, it's back to Scotland for the  ECWtravelogue. Today's post looks at Central Scotland, and the (alleged) jewel in the crown of Scottish Castles - Stirling. Stirling Castle, from the Rose Garden The Royal palace of Stirling Castle , had fallen into "ruin and decay"  when Anne of Denmark chose to travel to Stirling for the birth of her first child in December 1593. Prompting James VI (later James VI/I)to order repairs on the palace.  in your face Wallace Memorial! The Royal Family would spend time here until the Union of the Crowns of 1603, when his father succeeded as King of England and the family left for London. the C astle's gatehouse battle scars formal gardens laid out for Charles & Henrietta Maria, the central 'earthwork' is the King's Knot Now effectively redundant, the Palace became a prison for persons of note. Restoration work continued, and preparation were made for the visit of Charles I, who stayed ...

Yet another major update for the Shropshire entry (makes a change from all the Scottish travelogue entries of late). Shropshire was, pretty much, a hot bed of Royalist support. The ECW travelogue takes in not just those sites associated with the fighting of the Wars, but also the many places that claim to have helped save the life of the future Charles II. And, of course, an infamous oak tree. I’ve wanted to visit Stokesay Castle ever since I discovered that it was in fact a real castle and not somewhere made up (I grew up on an estate where all the road names were named after castles, guess which castle my road was named after). The gatehouse at Stokesay has to be up in the premier league of timber framed buildings Cared for by English Heritage, Stokesay Castle is "one of the best-preserved medieval fortified manor houses in England" (English Heritage castle expert Dr Henry Summerson - makes a change from the traditional quote from Pevsner). A seemingly eclectic building pr...