Siege Testing - (1) Town Planning

I have a little spare time available, and today I received a shipment of what originally was intended to be an interim solution for the matter of trenches, but the interim solution seems so good that it may become a more permanent solution - I'll say more about this in a later episode...

Since all my reading and scribbling notes have only gone a little way toward developing a working ECW siege game, I think the time is right to set something up on the tabletop and try some ideas out. This is not really going to be a proper game, I hasten to add - merely an extended test of ideas - but I have a few days to work on it.

View over the formidable Bridgegate, looking west - the dodgy-looking suburb
outside the Stockgate is an immediate issue for a military governor, I would say
- it will have to be cleared - this is where trouble starts if the mayor owns
the land. Note the mighty Duke's Sconce defending the North Road.

Tonight I set out a fortified town - tomorrow I'll have to work out the population and the appropriate size and composition for a garrison, estimate what size of attacking force is needed and allocate engineers to the two sides.

It is not a real town - it has a couple of features I borrowed from Chester and Carlisle - it may develop a proper identity later on.

View of the North Wall, seen from the direction an enemy will approach! The
medieval walls, as you will see, have no earthworks to protect them (this is the
situation Newcastle was in in 1644 when the Scots arrived).

With a bit of luck, the backbone of an ECW siege game should be adaptable for Napoleonic sieges without too much grief. I have fiddled about with sieges for some years now, without managing to produce a best-selling siege game - that's why you have never heard of me.

View across the Market Cross, inside the Stockgate, with St Thomas' church in
the distance and the Old Barbican back left. A prosperous town? - I think it will
declare for the King...

More soon...

ECW - More Siege Artillery

Big ones, small ones - from siege cannons to a 2-man peashooter

Having worked on the oh-so-shiny gunners from the Mike & Whiskers Legacy Collection, and dug some appropriate guns out of the lead pile, I suddenly have a big dollop (I believe that is the correct military term) of extra artillery - specifically for sieges.

My ECW armies are already probably over-provided with field artillery, and I have a fine big mortar, but the approach of the siege project has highlighted a shortage of odd guns on small bases, to fit on tops of towers and in "mounts", not to mention actual wall-crushers.

A couple of very serious 'cannons of 8' - if these chaps (provisionally called Stan &
Olly) shoot at your town walls they will stay shot at, and don't forget it. Anyone who
observes that the ramrod would only reach halfway down the barrel is correct, of
course, but may spend the evening on the naughty step. Obviously they have a longer
one stashed somewhere, don't they? 

None of this is of particularly fine quality - the rehashed gunners are purely functional, for a start - but I have ticked another box for the list of things I need to do to prepare for sieges. Tick.

Only ECW artillery job still in my queue is to paint up a few more frame guns for the Scots - I have the gun castings, but am trying to think of how to provide suitable gunner figures in 20mm. Conversions coming up, methinks.

Next job is to slap some paint on some new hills (hexagonal, of course - MDF, of course) and start some tests to get a colour scheme for my forthcoming river system. These aren't siege jobs, but it would surely tidy things up a bit around here if I could store some of this MDF away in the scenery boxes.

Latest thought on a colour for rivers is - rather to my surprise - darkish blue-green. I was going to go for mud brown again, but somehow this doesn't seem right if the new river pieces may also form lakes and coastline. I'll get some sample pots from the hardware store and see how it looks.

Still in the Spares Box, with Mike and Whiskers

Whiskers developing his technique - in fact, I imagine Whiskers as rather more bald than this

Almost exactly two years ago, I scored one of my biggest-ever hauls on eBay, and bought in a load of ECW figures which came from the estate of a chap in Northern Ireland who had recently died - his entire collection, which was enormous, was sold by a local charity shop. I only bought a stack of his ECW troops - all SHQ and Tumbling Dice 20mm - but there were literally hundreds of them.

The big surprise at the time was that they had very obviously been painted up and organised to fight Montrose's campaigns - since that was exactly what I wanted them for, I had seen that there were a lot of Scottish troop types in the collection, but it wasn't until I started checking out the flags that I realised what I had.

The figures were quite nicely painted, in a very plain style, but I was a bit shocked to see that they had been heavily coated with some kind of ship's varnish - these figures were definitely intended to stand up to some severe, industrial handling, I would say. I set about identifying figures which would restore most easily, and which were of most immediate use for my Montrose project, and I did some retouching, and a great deal of applying matt varnish to tone down the finish, and rebasing, and I was pleased with the results. The episode generated a lot of very plain, rather dull Scottish and Irish soldiers, which provided a fine addition to bulk up the splendid Covenanter units which Lee Gramson had already painted up for me.

All good - I've done some Montrose things now, and intend to revisit this again soon. While I was spending a few late nights in 2014, getting these ex-eBay fellows ready for the armies, I got to know the previous owner a bit better. Of course, I have no idea who he was, but at 1 a.m. when I was preparing figures for the prescribed matt varnish I would find myself chatting to him - I called him Mike, in the absence of other suggestions.

"Well, Mike," I would say, "this one's got cat hairs stuck on the varnish as well - you should keep old Whiskers out of the painting room.." and so on. I developed a technique of loosening the cat hairs from the varnish with the tip of a penknife, and then removing them with tweezers. A strange way to spend a long evening - this is almost certainly why I started talking to Mike. As time went on, it became a house joke that I had gradually changed my mind, and that I now believed that Whiskers had done the varnishing himself - perhaps with a little guidance from Mike.

Well the horses are pretty ghastly, but they should paint up simply enough, and that
gives me the better part of two new regiments of rather understated Northern horse

Since I've recently been rooting around in the Spares Box, I found another load of the ex Mike & Whiskers ECW boys, and I realised that there are a lot more in the heap which would usefully restore in the same way. So for a couple of evenings I've been washing and debasing and removing the cat hairs. Since these figures are probably a bit worse than the ones I selected for refurbing last time, there are a lot more cat hairs - in fact I have now begun to believe that Mike did the varnishing, but that he applied the varnish with Whiskers, rather than a brush.

And oodles more artillerymen - just the job for the sieges - more than enough...

It's going OK - we are now ready for a bit of touch-up, and then the matt varnish can start. I need to paint up a few extra cavalry figures from scratch, to make up the numbers, but I hope to get a couple of additional Scottish/Northern units of horse out of this, and I will have more gunners than I will ever possibly need - certainly I will have plenty to man the forthcoming extra artillery for siege games.

Topic #2 - more pottery ornaments ready for sieges...

I previously gave a glimpse of some of my new Tey Pottery houses - this little side-project is shaping up very nicely, and I have the makings of a presentable 17th Century English town centre, such as I can lay siege to. So here's a slightly bigger glimpse...

ECW - Boldon Hill, 24th March 1644

Very few photos from last night - here, Sir Charles Lucas advances with
the Northern Horse. The Royalist cavalry were aggressive early in the day,
but had little success against troops on foot. Lucas, along with his colleague
Lord Eythin, was wounded in the afternoon.

The scheduled battle took place last night - we used a cut-down version of the house ECW rules, to make things less mystifying for my visitor. The circumstances of the historical campaign also lent themselves to some simplification of the troop types - all the cavalry of both sides were of "Trotter" type, and none of the infantry were sufficiently expert or experienced to permit "stand of pikes" as an anti-cavalry measure.

The initial positions can be seen in the previous post. To start off similarly to the original action (though rather earlier than teatime), Hew Fraser's Dragoons began with a hesitant attack on the fields surrounding the hamlet of East Boldon, and they were driven off rather easily by Royalist musketeers lining the hedges - the dragoons took no further part in the action.

The Royalist horse started very aggressively, in the more open ground wide on the right flank, and caused their Scottish equivalents a lot of trouble and some serious damage, but the cavalry action, as often happens with these games, was pretty much self-contained - the infantry battle developed slowly, more or less unaffected by their mounted colleagues. The Scottish foot advanced steadily and effectively up Down Hill (yes, all right) to attack the Royalist line, and successfully brushed away some troublesome artillery. They also occupied East Boldon village, but the second line which was supposed to be following in support was delayed and rather disorganised trying to get across the stream in the bottom of the valley.

After a vicious exchange of musketry on the hillside, the Covenanters took the victory by a margin of 9-7 in Victory Banners - this was helped greatly by the Royalists' late loss of two general officers - Lucas and Eythin were both wounded.

Close thing - could have gone either way (once again), and the game completed in around two hours, which is not bad at all considering that my opponent had no previous experience of the rules. I very much enjoyed the first wargame I've staged for a while, and I believe that I have not frightened away my guest general - I've added him to my list of potential volunteers for forthcoming events, including (if I get it organised) some possible siege work.

I'm sorry this is a rather unambitious report - I seem to have had some problem with my camera last night, and I got very few useable pictures.

ECW - Boldon Hill - The Set-Up

Painting and varnishing of buildings is now ended, and the dining room is now set up for the Battle of Boldon Hill (24 Mar 1644), which is scheduled for Wednesday evening. Because I can't count, I dug out one extra regiment of foot for the Royalists and - since it seems a pity to put them away again - I've added them to the OOB.

The view in the photo is facing almost due south - the Earl of Leven's Covenanters are on the left, the Marquis of Newcastle's Royalists on the right; the villages (which still exist today) are, left to right, Cleadon, East Boldon (with adjacent farming enclosures) and West Boldon (complete with St Nicholas' Church). To put a geographical fix on this, the Covenanters have the North Sea behind them, the ground beyond the right-hand edge of the table drops away past Hylton Castle to the River Wear, and the town of Sunderland is some miles beyond the opposite far corner of the table. There may, of course, be some minor tweaking of initial unit placings before we start.

The nice shiny stream (the Don Burn) is finished with brush-on decoupage medium, which I haven't tried before, but which does the job with no hassle.

ECW - Boldon Hill - homework

[Map with thanks to Stuart Reid]

Further to an earlier post on this subject, I am hoping to get a lot more free time at home, beginning within the next week or so, so am planning to stage the aforementioned ECW battle on 16th or 17th Feb - if it seems odd to make the planning so formal, I can only say that if I write the date in the diary now then it is probably going to take place!

The intention is to fight the Battle of Boldon Hill (also known as Hylton), which took place on 24th March 1644 a few miles west of Sunderland. My guest opponent for the evening, David, is a man from this area (he has an uncle who lives in Cleadon - see map!), which is why I chose this particular battle. Since David is new to wargaming, we'll use a very simple set of rules - probably the C&CN-derived set, but using a dice-based activation system instead of the cards.

The actual historical action was rather odd - the armies were of about the same size, and the hedged enclosures surrounding a couple of the villages made the terrain difficult for the Royalist Horse, so no fighting took place until around 5pm, by which time, in March in Northumberland, the light must have been fading fast. Combat was restricted to the Foot of both sides, though some Scots dragoons were involved, and the firefight lasted until late in the night. There were moderate losses on both sides, and the Royalists withdrew towards Durham, their cavalry protecting their retreat. The real battle, then, might be regarded as indecisive, but it was one of a series of episodes in this campaign in which the Royalists progressively lost advantage of position and initiative - the forces were probably pretty evenly matched, but the Marquis of Newcastle was repeatedly outmanoeuvred by Lord Leven.

I have assembled an OOB from a variety of sources - mostly secondary. Unusually, the Royalist side has the sketchier recorded history in this campaign. What follows is partly established fact, partly an educated guess based on who was in the area. For example, the exact nature of the force which Lumsden detached from the besieging force at Newcastle in order to reinforce Leven's field army is not known.

Boldon Hill – 24^th March 1644

Army of the Solemn League & Covenant (Lord General Alexander Leslie, Lord Leven)

Horse (Maj.Gen David Leslie) – approx 1600

Lord Kirkcubright’s RoH (Lt.Col James Mercer of Aldie)

Earl of Leven’s RoH (Lt.Col James Ballantyne)

Maj-Gen David Leslie’s RoH (Lt.Col Sir John Brown)

Col. Hew Fraser’s Dragoons (Maj. John Munro)

Foot (Maj.Gen Sir James Lumsden) – approx 5200

Sir Alexander Hamilton’s RoF [Clydesdale] (Lt.Col Wm Carmichael)

Earl of Loudoun’s RoF [Glasgow] (Lt.Col Robt Home)

Earl of Lindsay’s RoF [Fife] (Lt.Col Thos Moffat)

Lord Livingston’s RoF [Stirlingshire] (Lt.Col Andrew Bruce)

Earl of Lothian’s RoF [Teviotdale] (Lt.Col Patrick Leslie)

Master of Yester’s RoF [Linlithgow & Tweeddale] (Lt.Col Wm Johnston)

Earl of Buccleuch’s RoF [Tweeddale] (Lt.Col Walter Scott)

Earl of Cassillis’ RoF [Kyle & Carrick] (Lt.Col John Kennedy)

1 heavy gun, 2 light, 1 frame

Army of King Charles (Wm Cavendish, Marquis of Newcastle)

Horse (Sir Chas Lucas) – approx 2000

Lord Mansfield’s RoH (Lt.Col Sir Francis Wortley)

Sir Richard Tempest’s RoH [Durham] (Lt.Col Sir Francis Liddell)

Sir Edward Widdrington’s RoH [Northumberland] (Lt.Col Henry Constable)

Sir William Widdrington’s RoH [Northumberland] (Lt.Col John Thornton)

Col. Francis Stuart’s RoH [Northumberland] (Maj. Nicolas Burnet)

Foot (Lord Eythin) – approx 4300

Marquis of Newcastle’s RoF (Lt.Col Sir Arthur Basset)

Col. Charles Brandling’s RoF [Northumberland] (Lt.Col Robt Brandling)

Sir Wm Lambton’s RoF [Durham] (Lt.Col Henry Lambton)

Col. John Hylton’s RoF [Durham] (Lt.Col Lynsley Wren)

Col. John Lamplugh’s RoF [Cumberland] (Maj. Christopher Dudley)

Durham Trained Band (Maj. Arthur Swindells)

Commanded Shot (Maj. Wm Wray)

3 medium guns

ECW - a Bit of Planning Ahead

Alexander Leslie, Lord Leven - commander of the Covenanter army in 1644
- getting on a bit in years, but he was the real deal - he had been a Field
Marshal in the Swedish Army in the 30 Years War

Still a desperate shortage of hobby time, but I’ve been spending some of my train and bus journeys thinking, reading and scribbling notes about a possible ECW tabletop battle to introduce my chiropractor (whom, for the sake of argument, I shall call David the Cruncher) to both the history of that war and the idea of playing games with toy soldiers. 

The Marquis of Newcastle - maybe the richest man in England? - no
soldier, but he almost singlehandedly funded and raised the troops for the
King in the North East. No match for Leven on the battlefield. I've never
understood why he was not treated better, by his monarch and by subsequent
historians. Emigrated to Germany after Marston Moor.

Since David is from that part of the country, I thought it might be rather fun to set the action in the 1644 campaign around Sunderland, when the Covenanters were busy ignoring the City of Newcastle (a subject which they took up again with fresh interest after they had helped win the Battle of Marston Moor). I have been doing a fair amount of swotting-up, since my detailed knowledge of this campaign is not great, and since it falls into that off-mainstream category of ECW history that is usually classified as “of interest only to local historical societies” (which is exactly the sort of thing I am interested in).

I read about the storming of the Lawe Top fort in South Shields, which the Scots had to capture in order to protect their supply ships (which were sailing from Leith to Sunderland, and were being intercepted and forced into the Tyne). That seemed to score highly for relevance, but it was a small action, and would be a fiddly, awkward game for a newbie.

Now I am growing increasingly focused on the battle which took place (or, more accurately, didn’t quite take place) on the Boldon Hills, just West of Sunderland, in March 1644. Reasonably sized armies faced each other, but the weather was poor, and the ground may have been a bit rough, or maybe the armies were too closely matched for either side to risk an attack – whatever the reason, there was an exchange of artillery and a bit of a skirmish, but in the evening the Scots withdrew to Sunderland and the Royalists headed towards Durham. During this withdrawal, the Marquis of Newcastle received news of the Royalist defeat at Selby, and set off to York – a move which led him eventually to disaster at Marston Moor.

In my thirst for understanding of the local area, I visited
the website of West Boldon Community Council. Since I was
thinking vaguely of a possible visit, I checked Forthcoming
Events - it says there are no forthcoming events, so that's official then

The (non-)Battle of Boldon is also known as Hylton, or Hilton – my source is primarily Stuart Reid’s wonderful All the King’s Armies, but I have also picked up some scraps in my various Montrose books, and I have just started on Rosie Serdiville’s and John Sadler’s The Great Siege of Newcastle 1644, which also looks quite good. [And then of course there are also Stuart Reid’s invaluable books on the Scottish Regiments of the ECW and on the Royalist officers and regiments – once again, I have to offer humble thanks for Stuart’s research and his writings – this particular wargamer would be greatly disadvantaged without all that hard work!]

St Nicholas' Church, West Boldon, which in parts dates back to 1212

Not so rural nowadays - a view of Sunderland, including the football
stadium, from the top of the Boldon Hills - mostly, I included this photo
to upset Clive

I have a pretty convincing looking OOB shaping up, and I even have a map. For a wild moment I thought of driving down to Boldon to look at the place, but my track record for that sort of thing is not good – I usually find the battlefield is underneath a modern sewage farm or similar, and even if it is not I am unusually bad at interpreting the ground. I believe that the village of West Boldon contains a church, St Nicholas, which was around at the time, so I have no doubt that will appear somewhere on the table.

Hmmm – seems promising. I am sure you will hear more of this.

Not relevant at all, but in the course of my ECW studies I came across this photo
of Cromwell's Stone, from the site of the Leaguer of Lathom House (which
was in Lancashire, of course, and Cromwell never set foot within miles
of the place as far as I know) - local tradition has it that the holes
were used to cast cannonballs, but to me this is clear evidence that the
rules in use for the ECW in those parts used very large six-sided dice

Fortifications & Stuff - Picking Up a Few Loose Threads...

For the last month there has been very little time for hobbies here. My new-found momentum on the Spaniard-painting front has stopped abruptly – fortunately I have some splendid plastic hobby boxes which enable me to put incomplete painting projects away safely, on their bottletops, organised and safe from dust and accidents – I can even store the relevant brushes and pots of paint in there if need be.

I did manage to squeeze in a solo game after Christmas, but otherwise the only hobby-related thing I’ve done is keep an eye on an eBay auction that caught my attention – I didn’t buy anything, by the way.

I thought it might be useful (for me) if I tried to follow up on a couple of threads on fortifications which are hanging over from earlier posts; it is a commonplace for me to say “I am thinking of doing such and such” – having a note in a blog post is usually an indicator that I have thought about it and intend actually to do it. Mostly these things eventually get done, but there are occasions when they disappear or get delayed indefinitely. I rarely feel it is appropriate to publicise all bad breaks, so I am aware that there are a few sub-projects which have just vanished from view. For my own benefit, I’ve been checking up on these.

Vauban Fortress

A while ago I did an update on myVauban-style fortress pieces – I had discovered that the eventual owners of the moulds and the rights for my old Terrain Warehouse fort were now Hurlbat Games, I got in touch with them and established that they might be able to make some more of the pieces for me. Sadly that has been a dead end – not only did we not get anywhere useful, but Hurlbat stopped replying to emails, so I am not sure if they have had some commercial dommage. Strike One.

ECO Vacuum-formed Castle

I still have plans to paint up my ECO castle in a less toy-like style, but I haven’t done anything about it yet. I am keen to get on with this, because it would make it less likely that the thing will just sit in a cupboard forever. Thus far, though, Strike Two.

Mediaeval Fortress pieces

In addition to my Vauban walls and bastions and so on, I have a couple of mediaeval pieces – notably a hefty gatehouse and a castle keep, both from Battleground, which maker I think is owned by Magister Militum. I bought these because it adds some flexibility to my Peninsular War siege department to be able to produce hybrid fortresses including older components.

My visit to Chester a couple of years ago to do a little study of the ECW siege there encouraged me to get some more of the Battleground pieces – these would offer all sorts of extra scope for setting up fortresses in either period. Apart from the usual personal inertia, I have been baulked a little from this idea by the fact that Magister Militum’s approach to providing photos of the ranges on their website is sometimes a little casual for my taste – I am reluctant to buy a fortress gate costing some £20 if I have never seen one, for example.

A couple of months ago there was an eBay listing which offered some pieces from this range for sale, which caught my interest, and recently there has been another, which really looked very attractive indeed – the pieces in the lot, added to my existing Battleground components, would provide the basis for a very handsome ECW walled town.

Classic eBay case-history: 10-day auction with a starting bid of around £50, so for 8 days, in the absence of any bids, I was thinking, “hmmm – good range of pieces, in crisp, nicely painted condition, at well under the list price for new unpainted equivalents – certainly worth a punt”.

Then the bidding started after 8 days, and it advanced rapidly. I went through the next stage of logic, which is something like, “I could buy brand new kit for less than this, but the paintwork is still decent value – I’ll probably have a go for these”.

And the last stage came when the bidding was now so high that it was debatable whether the painting was really good enough to justify the mark-up – the lot eventually sold for comfortably over £100, and I never placed a bid. However, what I did immediately afterwards was to order up a selection of new Battleground pieces from Magister Militum, which I shall paint myself to match my existing stuff. This also has the advantage that the choice of pieces is driven by what I actually want rather than what’s on offer.

So I think this last episode is OK – I am happy to have finally got around to buying some additional suitable fortifications – I should get them in a week or so, though I may not be able to do much with them for a little while. Building-painting is a fast and cheerful activity, though, so it might give me something useful to do in odd moments – and, if I have the Dulux pots out, I might take the opportunity to do something to smarten up the ECO castle while I’m at it – all sorts of possibilities present themselves…

One extra job I will have to carry out is to manufacture some stone-coloured wooden blocks to stand troops on – the walkways and firing platforms on the 15mm mediaeval walls are far too narrow for my 20mm basing system, so I intend to borrow a fudge from my old mate Allan Gallacher, and make some extra blocks to support the rear of the bases of units manning the walls – it looks less daft than you would think, and, since my ECW bases have magnetic sheet on the bottom, I can top the blocks with steel paper to improve stability. That is down the road a bit, but I am at least thinking ahead!

ECW - Guest Encore

Steve C contacted me again, with a couple of interesting pictures of extra Hinton Hunt-style figures he has converted and "mastered" himself - here we have his lowland Scots pikeman (pictured with a HH Royalist pikeman, for comparison), and a one-piece Royalist cavalryman.

Thank you, Steve!

ECW - Guest Appearance

Steve C, that noted collector, convertor and painter of Hinton Hunt figures, very kindly sent me some pictures of ECW figures in his collection, and I think they are so good that I felt I might wallow in a little reflected glory and share his photos here. I emphasise that these figures are not mine - I sincerely wish they were!

Steve describes them thus:

Royalist: four companies of the King's Lifeguard Regiment of Foote - Colonel Lord Lindsey's, Lt Colonel William Leighton's, Major Robert Markham's and a  Captain’s Company, with Charles 1^st at their head . 

Parliamentarian : Earl of Essex’s  Regiment. 

All are Hinton Hunt figures with a couple of Les Higgins conversions.

An Important Anniversary

18th June, of course, is just like any other day, and this year it happens to fall on a Thursday, but, as you go about your business today, do not forget that this is an important anniversary. As anyone with the slightest awareness of history knows, on this day in 1892 the first Macadamia nuts (which are native to New Guinea and Australasia) were planted in Hawaii.

For anyone with more of an interest in military and political history, this is also the anniversary of the signing of the Treaty (or Pacification) of Berwick (1639), by which Charles I was forced to acknowledge that he had been defeated - expensively and embarrassingly - by the Scots, and this brought to an end the First Bishops' War. He followed this up with the equally successful Second Bishops' War, and - since he was now on a bit of a roll - then proceeded to declare war on his own parliament, which caused a great deal of unpleasantness and killed a lot of people - including himself.

Oh well.

Bishops' Wars

My ECW Rules - available again

I've had some email recently, most of it from members of TMP and boardgamegeek.com, about my removing access to my Commands & Colors-based rules for the ECW. Though I still have the intention to do some updates to the documentation, I found this morning that the extant versions in Google Docs date from February 2014, so are not far off the current state.

The text panel at the top right of this screen should now once again show the links - if you attempt to use them and they don't get you there, please let me know.

I am reminded that I removed these links a while ago because I was getting a steady trickle of complaints about the rules, and some requests for changes, which is OK but represents a level of user support I had not prepared myself for. Since the number of requests to reinstate the links now exceeds the number of complaints I used to get, I've put things back as they were.

Thus the links at top right will get you to pdf files for the rules and play aids for my CC_ECW game, which is certainly not a supported product, though you are welcome to use it provided you give me appropriate credit if you publish anything.

I am currently using this game with a growing collection of add-on or alternative rule sections, which I intend to document in the same sort of way once they settle down a bit.

In Odd Moments

I've been very busy recently, so time to involve myself in hobby activities has been infrequent, and - more to the point - unpredictable. Such moments as have presented themselves have been happily spent making the most of two recent purchases.

The artillery of the dastardly Parliamentarians prepare to fire on the home of the Laceys

Firstly, I was very pleased to obtain a good, secondhand set of DVDs of the 1980s BBC ECW historical drama series, By the Sword Divided. The set (of 8 discs) includes both series; thus far I have got most of the way through the first series, and jolly good it is too. I neither watched nor heard about the original transmission, so it is all new to me. The 1983 date is apparent in the 4:3 picture aspect  and the modest approach to special effects (night-time scenes are pretty much invisible!), but it has the advantage to me that, with a couple of notable exceptions, the cast are mostly unfamiliar (since I never watched Holby City...) and the production is modern enough for me not to be distracted by its shortcomings.

The one stand-out performance is Julian Glover, always a fine actor, as Sir Martin Lacey, a Royalist landowner, but the whole show rings true and is convincing. It also demonstrates a keen awareness of the history and the military aspects (from which I learned quite a bit - which I had not expected), and it comes as no surprise that the historical advisor was Brigadier Peter Young. The slight downside, of course, is that the Brigadier's personal points of bias come through along with his undoubted wisdom, so the Parliamentarian side get the benefit of very little doubt, for example. I also found that the moments when the cast stand and recite historical events to each other, as contextual background disguised as family chatter, were the least convincing of the whole production, but they do tie things together nicely.

I am a bit nervous to note that Sir Martin was killed in last night's instalment, so I am hoping the series does not dip in his absence. I shall continue to work my way through the remaining discs - this series is pretty expensive to get hold of - I was lucky to get a bargain set - but is very highly recommended if you are interested in the period. Michael had informed me that you can watch it on YouTube, which is terrific, but sadly is not practicable at my local broadband speed.

Second bit of shopping was a copy of Blücher, Sam Mustafa's long-awaited grand tactical cousin for Lasalle, in his Honour series of horse and musket rules. I haven't got very far into this yet, but it looks very interesting indeed. One thing that surprises me a little is that it is the logical replacement for Mustafa's Grande Armée rules, yet some of the most cunning, trademark devices from that earlier rule set have been dropped. There are other, newer innovations, of course, but familiarity with the earlier set gives an intriguing insight into the background.

Anyway, I haven't got very far into it yet, so will carry on reading as time permits.

ECW Campaign – Week 5

Remains of the King's Gate, at Erneford Castle, today

Most significant event of the week was the defeat of the Royalist force from Northumberland, under General Darracott, at the Battle of High Cark on 4^th April.

General Aspinall, Parliamentarian victor at Midlawton on 28^th March, was still struggling to put his strangely demoralised army into some kind of shape to take the field. Desertion had been very widespread, especially after it became obvious that no looting would be permitted. Figge-Newton, in overall command of the Parliament army in Lonsdale, ordered William Geddes’ Covenanter force to advance from Pacefield to Cark Ferry, to prevent any junction between the two Royalist forces and to seize the crossing of the River Arith.

Geddes made rapid progress, and crossed the river, but word of his advance came to the notice of General Darracott, at Erneford. That general, borrowing some artillery from the fortress, set off towards the Ferry, where he blundered into the (rather larger) Scottish force. The Battle of High Cark which followed was of short duration, but the Royalists were very disorganised by their defeat, and though Colonel Frayne (who inherited command when Darracott went missing from the battlefield) did well to conduct a withdrawal back to the strong position of the medieval fortress at Erneford, the Parliamentarian cavalry caused a lot of problems, and many men were lost on the retreat.

Geddes quartered his army around Cark Hall – home of the influential Barber family – and sent a request for orders to Figge-Newton, who had set up his staff and HQ at Pacefield Hall.

Meanwhile the Royalist force at Lowther, which had been defeated at Midlawton and was under the temporary command of Lord Sefton (as a result of the indisposition of Lord Porteous, who had not been seen for a week) was recovering fairly well, and (as predicted) many of the missing men were returning to the colours.

The armies needed to rest. Sir Henry Figge-Newton now considered his options. At this time, his favoured scheme was to lay siege to Darracott’s force at Erneford, withdrawing as many men from Geddes’ force as possible – providing him with the siege artillery but taking all the troops he could spare to reinforce the main army at Midlawton, and attempt to bring Porteous’ Royalists (at Lowther) to a decisive battle in that area.

Following the wounding of the Royalist brigadier of foot, Colonel Brogan, at High Cark, his brigade at Erneford was now commanded by Colonel Charlton.

A late development in this week was the arrival from Carlisle of a letter from Prince Rupert, addressed to Lord Sefton, who was instructed to place Lord Porteous under arrest, and send him to Carlisle as soon as he was well enough to travel. Sefton was to remain in acting command of the forces at Lowther; Rupert also explained in the letter that Sir John Darracott was to succeed to overall command in the county – Rupert, of course, did not know that Darracott had been defeated and was currently at Erneford, having lost much of his personal baggage at High Cark, and was thus not in a position to take command. Sefton was last seen composing a diplomatic reply to the Prince.

The "Ghost Pool" on the River Arith, which legend suggests is where
General Darracott hid to avoid capture

Darracott himself was unfortunate enough to have earned the unofficial nickname, “The Ghost of Cark”, as a consequence of the speed with which he was reputed to have quit the battlefield, pursued by the Pitlochrie Horse. In fairness, Sir John showed considerable resourcefulness to escape, by dint of hiding in the river, later rejoining his army soaking wet, and lacking his horse, pistols and boots. He did well to avoid harm or capture, but the loss of his dignity did nothing to help his standing with his sullen army.

Royalist

No new orders. Troops are resting and recovering.

Parliament

The siege train is to be readied to move to Cark, to be placed under the command of General Geddes there. Sir Henry Figge-Newton will come to Midlawton next week to meet with General Aspinall and draw up plans for continuation of the campaign.