ECW Campaign – Skirmish at Hobden’s Mill - 19th March 1644

Lord Alwyn's brigade of Parliamentarian horse plods through woodland in
what passes for column of march in these rules...

As soon as he learned that Parliamentarian troops were at Ringrose House, Lord Porteous, the Royalist commandeer in North Lancashire, sent a fast galloper to Colonel Sir Roderick Broadhurst, stationed at Dransfield House with a cavalry outpost, with orders to bring his force back to Midlawton with all haste, to join the main Royalist army.

Broadhurst was a seasoned campaigner, a veteran of the wars in Germany, and was used to exercising his judgement to interpret the orders of his (very inexperienced) commanding officer in whatever way he thought was in the best interests of His Majesty. On this occasion, he considered that – since the estimates he had received of the Roundhead strength gave real cause for alarm – he should simply cut and run; take his entire garrison from Dransfield and head back east, as ordered.

He set off on the morning of 17^th March, with his own regiment of horse and that of Lord Clevedon, plus Major Dingle’s regiment of dragoons and a very small, almost a token, element of light artillery – a frame gun which added little to his firepower but slowed his march down a great deal (though, of course, it might have proved invaluable if he had been required to defend Dransfield House – a situation which seemed unlikely now). A total of some 1200 men.

Some miles to the south, a brigade of Parliamentary horse under Lord Alwyn were plodding towards him through the mud, under orders to hold a position in the area known as Boot Mills – near the site of the long-vanished medieval village of Boot – abandoned and burnt down following the plagues of two centuries earlier. This position would screen the left flank of the Parliamentarian advance and would cover the key fords over the River Arith at Patondale. Lord Alwyn had at his disposal three regiments of horse – those of Thomas Chetwynd, Richard Sudley and Lord Eastham – he had no dragoons, and no artillery presence – speed of movement was considered paramount by the Parliament command. By a complete coincidence, Alwyn also had about 1200 men.

Lord Alwyn knew that a very troublesome force of Royalist horse was present somewhere near Dransfield, but he had no information about its strength or location.

The Parliament forces marched up the road from the bottom; the
mill is the building about two-thirds up the map, beside the road

On the morning of the 19^th the two cavalry forces blundered into each other near a mill belonging to the Hobden family, close to the site of Boot village. Broadhurst’s scouts alerted him first, and he attempted to set a trap for the enemy column in the area of enclosures and hedgerows near the mill. Alwyn soon caught sight of the Royalist troopers in the fields next to the mill, and he halted his column and deployed his leading regiment into line.

There followed a quick and decisive melee between Alwyn’s right-hand unit and Broadhurst’s leftmost one, which resulted in the Parliamentarian horsemen being routed. In the period of confusion which followed, Alwyn’s leading support unit refused to advance, and Broadhurst quit the field leading his force away to the east, toward Patondale fords and the Royalist centre at Midlawton. The Royalists had almost no casualties at all – the Parliamentarian Lord Eastham’s Regiment of Horse suffered approximately 80 killed and missing, 115 wounded.

All units of horse are classed as raw “trotters”, Broadhurst is rated as “Competent” (rating 2) and Alwyn as “Poor” (1). I used my Arquebus rules, which are an adaptation of Clarence Harrison’s Victory without Quarter, quite simply because the action was too small and too tactical to suit the Commands & Colors variant I normally use.

[I would describe the experience of using these rules as “Death by Morale Tests” – there is a definite Old School feel to them, but this extends to a relentless series of traditional-style morale checks which proved, ultimately, to be laborious and dispiriting, considering the modest scale of the skirmish and the short duration. I am not filled with any great enthusiasm to use them again in this form…]

The photos should give a little more idea of the fighting. [Note to self: must encourage my son Nick to return to photography duties for these battles – his pictures are always more interesting than mine.]

Normal, full army returns for the end of Week 3 will follow in a few days.

Broadhurst marches his Royalist force on to the field

Having spotted the enemy approaching, Broadhurst sets an ambush at the
mill, and personally leads Lord Clevedon's Horse in a flanking manoeuvre

Broadhurst's remaining troops hurry into position for the ambush

No ambush - Lord Alwyn sees troopers moving in the fields, halts his
march and forms up, detaching Lord Eastham's regiment in a flanking move to the right...

Lord Alwyn, with his Welsh grandad's sword

Alwyn's boys, all formed up and with Lord Eastham's RoH steaming
ahead on the right flank...

...while the Royalists are also in position, with their flanking column moving up on the left...

Dragoons behind the hedge - I bet no-one expected that...

...while Broadhurst's own regiment take position behind the wall of a field, with
pistols at the ready

The frame gun - not a lot of help today. Maybe another time...

General view, from behind the Royalist position, as the first clash approaches

Lord Eastham's Roundheads, on this side, face up to Lord Clevedon's horse

First impact, Eastham's men are pushed back down the hill, suffering heavy
casualties and becoming shaken

And yet they rally, but do not have time to offer any kind of countercharge before Broadhurst
and Lord Clevedon's men are on them again

This time it's decisive - the Parliament regiment streams to the rear, broken, and Broadhurst
fails dismally in his attempt to halt the pursuit by the victors. Then it all becomes
very confused - the routing cavalry pass their colleagues in Thomas Chetwynd's regiment,
who are now the front line, and give them such a shock that they are shaken and refuse
to take orders from Lord Alwyn. Around the same moment, the pursuing Royalist
horse suddenly come upon Chetwynd's halted men, get a disastrous morale check
result and turn tail and rout. In the resultant confusion, Broadhurst gets his
army on the march, on their original route. There is no immediate prospect of Alwyn
organising any kind of pursuit for a while...

Background Artillery Project - A Gift for Timing

Having only very recently scratched together a more-or-less complete set of limbers for my French artillery - after a great many years spent getting around to it - I am somewhat shaken to receive notification today that Franznap are about to produce artillery train teams and personnel in 1/72 white metal. I had mobilised various cut-and-shut Scruby horses and drivers, refurbished Hinton Hunts - all sorts of things. As you might expect, the Franznap offerings are so beautiful it hurts, certainly blow my limber teams out of the water and into the neighbouring bushes, and - in the numbers that I would have needed - not so very expensive.

Oh well. At least mine are Old School [sniff].

Hooptedoodle #158 - Newton's Bollocks

In a former lifetime, when I was Lord High Panjandrum in charge of something-or-other for a nameless (and rather stupid) organisation in the finance industry, someone gave me a Newton's Cradle, which was the sort of well-intentioned, pointless executive toy that people gave each other in those days. It was fun for about 90 seconds, and after that it just sat on a dark corner of my meetings table and gathered dust. Eventually I got tired of people playing pranks such as altering the length of the strings so that the balls missed each other, and it got cleared out. I don't know where it went - there must be a lot of pointless executive toys from the 1980s and 90s lying around somewhere - perhaps someone collects them, buys and sells them on eBay - perhaps there is a weird museum somewhere.

Whatever, I have not seen or heard of Newton's Cradle for many years. As part of my Christmas present, my son (who, at 12, is developing into a mathematician of some considerable talent - I hope he ends up less nerdy and boring than his old man...) gave me - well, that's right - you guessed.

Sadly, it has not gone well - something had gone wrong with this particular example in its travels between China and here. The balls had become tangled inside the packaging, and the strings are very thin, transparent, nylon fishing line. Our attempts to disentangle it have met with no success at all - in fact, thus far, the combined attentions of me and my family have, I believe, made things rather worse than they were at the start.

I have an instinctive resistance to phrases like "hopelessly entangled", but I believe we may have a case of just that here, unlikely though it may seem. Things may improve, but time and frustration do not come entirely free of cost, so this may be your only chance to see an example of [roll on drums...] Newton's Bollocks.

Not a big seller, I fear - though I could be open to offers if anyone is interested.

Hooptedoodle #157 - Happy Tangerines to Everyone

Christmas is coming – among other clues, I can tell since I can no longer bear to switch on the TV because the advertising gives me hives, and also our washing machine has broken down and cannot be fixed until the 29^th.

This morning’s breakfast fruit reminded me of Christmases in my childhood – there were certain comestibles which I always associated with Christmas at home. I’m not talking about obvious stuff, like turkeys (I never had turkey for Christmas until I was well into my teens – we used to have a goose, sometimes a duck); I can remember my mum making her own mincemeat (to save money, I would guess), and I recall dates (in those distinctive boxes with a camel and a palm tree on the label), walnuts (which I have never cared for) and – in particular – tangerines.

At the bottom of my Christmas stocking, the tradition was that I would always find a couple of tangerines and a silver sixpence. I have no idea how Father Christmas remembered every year, nor how he carted around great masses of tangerines – assuming everyone got them, but they were always there.

I knew that you could buy tangerines at any time of the year, of course, but it seems that we didn’t, and it was such a Christmassy thing in our family that it would have seemed wrong somehow. A tangerine was smaller than an orange, and had a completely different taste – I liked them.

Tangerines seem to be regarded with special affection in folk lore, too – as I recall, both Blackpool FC and Dundee United were always called the Tangerines – not merely the Oranges.

Anyway, today’s idle question is, what became of the tangerine? Whatever it says on the supermarket shelves is gospel, as we know. We went through a period of buying something called mandarin oranges, which were small oranges, but I’m not sure they were tangerines, as in proper tangerines. Nowadays we can get clementines, which to me just seem like small oranges, and we can get satsumas, which I guess must be the same as, or very similar to, tangerines, but they don’t seem to taste just quite the same.

I hasten to add that I enjoy my breakfast satsumas, but I would be sad to think that the tangerine, like the real banana, had succumbed to progress. Any tangerine fanciers/experts out there?

By the way – in passing – the washing machine problem. Bosch’s customer service very nearly got a Donkey Award this morning, but are spared at the last minute. Bosch cannot arrange an engineer visit unless you can give them some numbers from a plate mounted inside the door of the machine. You can see what’s coming: part of the problem with our machine was that we couldn’t open the door. Eventually we did manage to get it open, so the visit is booked, but if we had not opened it then we could not have had an engineer. Seems odd, but we’ll let it go, in the euphoria of having been granted a reprieve. The engineer’s visit, of course, costs £95, excluding parts, and even if he does nothing or cannot fix the machine, the £95 is compulsory. We’ll see how it goes – we went through this scenario in 2008, when the charge was only £69, which is still a handsome fee for telling someone their machine is knackered. You may have your own views on after-sales service scams, but it’s Christmas and for a little while I shall simply believe that a nice man will come and fix our machine. I have the paperwork for the Donkey Award standing by, though, just in case.

I wish everyone a contented and peaceful Christmas – may your satsumas be sweet and your rinse cycle run smoothly – may your eyes be bright and your clothes be dew fresh every day.

Have a good one.

ECW Campaign – Week 2

New secret weapon for the Roundheads; a personal friend of General
Aspinall's, this is Mordecai Hindle, calling down damnation upon the Papist
followers of the King. If attached to a Parliamentarian unit in battle, Mordecai
can add one C&C battle die to their capability. The bad news is that if they have to
retreat from a melee while he is attached, they leave the field in panic (with him)

Each week consists of two turns, and one side has the initiative throughout. This week, since the Royalist HQ had no word of any enemy advance until very late, there is little doubt that the initiative lies with Parliament.

Parliament

Aspinall, seconding a number of chosen officers and sergeants for the job, has arranged for the raising of a pro-Parliament town guard unit at All Hallows (new Force H), to man (and defend, as necessary) a depot there, for storage and shipment of supplies to the advancing army. The job of commanding this unit is given to Captain Joshuah Tweedie, of Hawkstone’s Regiment of Foot.

Word has reached General Figge-Newton, at Fernbeck, that the promised force of Scottish Covenanters, under General William Geddes, are marching from the Ripon area to join his army. Estimates are approximately 6000 foot plus 400 horse, but it is not yet certain when they will arrive, nor exactly where. Figge-Newton has sent messengers to Geddes, requesting that he march towards Pacefield. This group is identified provisionally as new Force I, but they are not yet on the map.

Force D (Lord Alwyn, with a brigade of horse) advance north, along the west bank of the River Arith, from Hoskett Castle to the area around Old Claiffe, to screen the remainder of Aspinall’s army.

Force E (Col Allington’s brigade of horse) cross the Arith at Ringrose House, and march north-east over Old Howk Hill to Frinckus Abbey.

Force F (Col Bryanston’s brigade of foot) march from Harthill, via Ringrose to Hoskett.

Force G (Genl Aspinall, with Hawkstone’s and Lord Lambton’s brigades) marches via Skag Moor, across the river to Thorkeld, destroying the river bridge after crossing).

General Figge-Newton has ordered a new carriage, to allow him to campaign in comfort. We shall hear more of this.

Royalist

Since no word of the enemy movement reached Lowther until Friday, there has been no reaction yet. As from Friday, Lord Porteous knows that the enemy were at Ringrose House a week ago, with a large body of cavalry.

A messenger has also arrived at Lowther with word from Sir John Darracott, commanding a reinforcement sent by the Marquis of Newcastle, confirming that he has lost contact with the Scottish forces, and has opted to march directly to Lowther to join with Lord Porteous – he expects to arrive around 21^st March, his force amounting to about 4700 foot, 800 horse – these troops are all classed as veterans, and comprise a new Force F, which is off the map for the present.

Lady Porteous has finally chosen the drapes for her new home, and the Royalist command are (unusually) united in their relief that her husband will now be allowed to concentrate on the job in hand.

Hooptedoodle #156 – Holidays with Clues

Themed Holidays - for loonies?

I was in Edinburgh this morning – I had a hospital appointment, so had to be on the 09:26 from our local station. Left my car at my mother’s house (private superstition – just in case the hospital keeps me in overnight – you know how it is…) and walked through a light snowstorm to the station. Blooming freezing, I can tell you.

When I got to Edinburgh it was still very cold, but the sun was shining, and Princes Street was looking as good as it can these days – very attractive, if you like mobile phone shops. Saw the famous tram – not so shiny-new now, but still exciting – I must go on it sometime soon – maybe out to the airport and back.

I had just a little time to kill, and as I walked along Rose Street I passed the rear of British Home Stores, and was very surprised to be reminded they have a restaurant – well, a “caff”, really. I haven’t been in, nor thought about, a BHS restaurant for maybe 25 years – in a moment of nostalgic perversity, I went in and ordered a cup of coffee – perverse only in the sense that I recall that BHS used to serve the worst coffee I ever tasted. I read my book for a little while in there – it was warm, the place was almost empty, and it was entertaining to watch the staff not quite managing to put up a big Christmas tree. Lots of shouted instructions and things falling. The coffee was undrinkable; it is reassuring in these days of uncertainty and slipping standards to know that some traditions, at least, are kept safe for us.

The hospital visit was trivial in the end – they took me early, as soon as I arrived, a quick X-Ray and I was out again. On the way back up to the station, my No. 29 bus was stuck in traffic, and a sign in a shop window in Stockbridge caught my eye. It was obviously a travel agency, but I couldn’t quite make out this sign. Eventually the bus reached the window, and I confirmed that the sign did, in fact, say “Painting and Pilates Holidays in Italy”, which I had previously discounted as meaningless – or at least unlikely. Painting and Pilates? Very strange – I can think of a whole pile of things I would like to do in Italy – especially on a cold Scottish morning – but wouldn’t have thought of pilates. Hmmm.

“Wandering Around Gawping at Tourist Sites in Paris”? That would work.

“Getting Drunk and Falling Over in Spain”? Not for me, certainly, but there appears to be a big demand for it.

I recall that, years ago, a widowed friend of my first wife went on a very expensive Cookery Holiday in Provence. A party of comfortably-off British women of a certain age all went on a conducted bus tour of Provence, watched local chefs in action and had a go themselves. Like the old school domestic science cookery lessons, they had to pay extra for the ingredients, and I understand that the holiday turned out to be more about the tastes and opinions of the English gauleiterin who organised and led the tour than it was about food in Provence. It was, in short, an exercise in rather shrill discipline and control, conducted in a foreign country at considerable cost to the attendees. Maybe we could have predicted this – I don’t know.

In truth, some of my own holidays over the years have been less than perfect – it might have helped if we had been given more clues up front – “Playing Boardgames in a Rain-Sodden Tent in Brittany for 2 Weeks” – “Trying to Get a Replacement Alternator for a Very Old Ford Cortina in the Jura Mountains” – these and a few others would have been useful, but it isn’t really like that in the world of holidays.

What this subject really reminded me about was James Last Holidays [what?]. Ages ago, a friend of mine at work, and his wife, were passionate about the James Last Orchestra, and used to spend a lot of money going to see them whenever they came to Edinburgh. If you are unfamiliar with the JLO then you have my congratulations – well done. I understand that James (real name Hansi) is still alive and going strong, aged 85. In his field, he was almost uniquely successful – for many years he ran a big touring orchestra, with all the top instrumental and vocal soloists he could get his hands on, added rows and rows of very attractive girl violinists dressed in low-cut lace blouses, and charged an absolute fortune for tickets. Old Hansi had completely cornered the market in exquisite bad taste – everything they played was faultless, arranged and engineered to perfection, and it stank to heaven. If you liked over-the-top big-band versions of Presley hits, or excerpts from Mozart’s horn concerto with bass guitar and castanets, or grindingly sickly romantic ballads, the JLO was for you. It was, absolutely, a product of its age; a number of really top-quality dance-bands came out of Germany in the 1950s and 1960s – Bert Kaempfert’s was another – and what they specialised in was superbly engineered LP recordings of covers of other people’s hit songs – particularly on the German Polydor label. Elderly audiophiles who had a little money to spend (i.e. who owned a “stereogram” – remember those? – they were the ones you could hear from next door) bought their LPs by the lorry-load. Hansi made a great many people happy – especially his bank manager and the West German economy – so good luck to him.

Yeah - right...

Anyway – back to my story. My work colleague talked me into paying some obscene amount for two tickets, and my wife and I joined him and his wife at a JLO concert at the Playhouse. Unspeakable. Couldn’t be faulted in any way except that it made me feel physically unwell. Somehow we got mugged into going to two further concerts on subsequent tours – each dearer than the previous one, and all the old ladies in the audience used to call out to the singers, who blew kisses and so on, while Herr Last posed and minced and almost conducted, and played to the ancient gallery like a true old showbiz ham. We couldn’t turn down the offer of tickets because – well, because we didn’t want to offend anyone. How much evil in the world is carried on because someone didn’t want to cause offence? After two further helpings I eventually found some unbeatable reason not to attend the next one, and then we were, mercifully, off the roller.

The audiences at these shows were something to behold – all dressed to the nines, and all loving it, blue rinses and all. The relevance to my story about holidays is that you could actually go on a James Last holiday – if you were a registered fan. The programmes were full of adverts. You could go on a cruise from Bremen (Last’s birthplace), and there would be music playing all day, every day (guess whose?), and there would be dances at night featuring JLO tribute bands who had once received a pay-cheque from Hansi himself, and during the days there would be walking tours of Bremen, to visit sites associated with Hansi’s childhood etc, where you could buy signed souvenirs, and there would even be some gigantic organised swapmeets, where you could buy and sell your rare JLO albums and memorabilia. After all these years, I still cannot think of a better working definition of Hades.

Of course, Father Time catches up with all of us in the end, but the thought of what those James Last Holidays might have been like still chills me to the marrow. For me, the man is best revered for his starring role in a famous musician’s joke:

Q – What is the difference between the James Last Orchestra and a buffalo?

A – A buffalo has the horns at the front and the arse at the back.

ECW Campaign - Week 1

Lady Porteous, waiting for the merchant to bring tapestry samples

For the Royalist army, the big news of the week was the arrival of the wife of Lord Porteous, who is a considerable personage in her own right, since before her marriage she was Lady Harriet Stanley, younger sister of the Earl of Derby, and thus a very major celebrity in the Catholic Royalist circles of Lancashire. Within two days she had requisitioned a very elegant house in the centre of Lowther, and had had her husband's belongings and furnishings moved out of his rather humble apartment at the back of the Guildhall. She has also ordered that the Town Guard should no longer be drilled in the gardens opposite the new house, since the noise upsets her dogs, and disturbs her needlework in the afternoons.

The Royalist army is comfortably established in Lowther, which is on the south side of the River Arith, and in the fortress of Erneford, which lies in a loop in the river, on the north bank. Between these two places there is a single crossing at Cark Ferry, and a unit of firelocks has been stationed in the ferry house there. Immediately to the south lies the market town of Midlawton, also a prosperous place, though it has no walls or defences of any form, and there is a sizeable body of foot troops garrisoned there, billeted on the townspeople - a situation which has produced less trouble than was expected. The civilian population have coped well with the material demands of the soldiery, and are generally well disposed to having so much protection and so much of the King's treasury on their doorstep.

Over at the western end of the Royalist position, Sir Roderick Broadhurst has a substantial detachment of horse, including a unit of dragoons - this is the force which has caused so much loss and inconvenience to supporters of Parliament (and everyone else) in the Furness area of the Lonsdale Hundred.

Since it takes just over a week for news of any sort to travel right across our map, the Royalists are unaware of the movement of the Army of Parliament, to the south...

Fernbeck House

Parliament. Sir Henry Figge-Newton has identified that he needs, as a priority, to secure a number of places which have full granaries and hay-barns, to replenish his baggage train for the march ahead. Accordingly, he has established his personal and army HQ in the very luxurious Fernbeck House, and has a small mixed force with him. The main army is advancing north near the western edge of the map, beyond the river, under the command of General Aspinall, the overall 2-i-C. Aspinall has sent the cavalry ahead, where they have secured the ungarrisoned estate of Ringrose House, which is capable of some measure of defence, and - further north - the rugged old castle at Hoskett, which has been abandoned for some years but is still in a decent state of repair. The foot are following behind, and making a thorough job of emptying the stores, inns and larders of the little towns of All Hallows and Harthill. The woods near Harthill Lake were a favourite hunting venue of the King's in more peaceful times, so the soldiers have taken special care to make sure that any concealed luxuries on the estate have been discovered and put to good use.

Sir Henry Figge-Newton is also inspecting his
new residence - settling in nicely at Fernbeck

Hoskett Castle today - the river in the foreground has moved somewhat
since the 17th Century, and has swallowed the course of the old road

Mounted messengers have been sent by loyal subjects of the King at Ringrose, to warn Lord Porteous of the approaching danger, so the Royalists should know of all this by the end of next week.

Soldiers of Hawkstone's and Burdett's regiments bicker good-naturedly
about choice of billets in All Hallows

Of the respective reinforcements for the two armies, nothing more is known, but both sides are led to believe that their overall strength might eventually be more than doubled.