For Ireland and King James by - A Personal Review

 

Last month my pre-order of Barry Hilton and Clarence Harrison's new book "For Ireland and King James" popped through my letterbox!!

As some of you may already be aware I already own all of Barry's collection of books on the League of Augsberg/Nine Years War period, so I certainly wasn't going to miss out on this one either.

Back in 2010 I started my collection of 15mm Essex figures based up for Beneath the Lily Banners, myself and Reject Richard started painting up English and French. I soon migrated over to Ireland, it was a toss up between the Battle of the Boyne and Aughrim. I choose the Boyne, but it could so easily have been Aughrim.

Barry and Clarence's For Ireland and King James is a veritable feast of information on the Jacobite army that campaigned in the summer of 1691 culminating in the Battle of  Aughrim on the 12th July 1691 and the 2nd Siege of Limerick Aug-Oct 1691. From uniform guides to a short history of each regiment and their flags.

If you're interested in the period or if you just like reading about history, then this book is for you.

Here's a small selection of  illustration's from the book. giving uniform and flag guides for all the Irish regiments.

I've many books on the period, but Barry has cleverly rolled them all into one book, giving you all the relevant information about each unit. e.g Col Thomas Butler's regt.

More great uniform and flag info. Here we have Butler's unusual blue cross.

More of Clarence's superb artwork

A map of Ireland, a great resource for a campaign, perhaps?

Map of the battle.

He doesn't just write books, you know?

28mm 4Ground Dutch Houses

All's been very quiet painting wise at Cassa Rousell over the summer.

I, believe it or not have stacks still to paint, but to be honest just couldn't be arsed. I do think 

the Painting Challenge does have a part to play here.

Anyway, as painting was out of the question I thought I'd get some buildings made up.

The 4 buildings are all from 4Grounds World at War series, but I'll be using them for the earlier

Donnybrook period.

I was quite impressed with them to be honest, they fitted together very well and took roughly 5 hours work to complete each one.

This is Dutch House 1

You buy it with only 1 floor

But I bought extension's for the buildings.

3 Foundry figures for scale

Dutch House 2

This is my favourite building

Rear view

Dutch House 2 as you buy it with just the 1 upper floor

Dutch House 3 & another Dutch House number 2

I did have 1 slight problem, 2 of the packs didn't have enough roof tiles, I called the 

guys at 4Ground and explained my annoying problem.

Three days later, I received a parcel in the post. containing 8 roof sheets!!!

So I swapped the roof colour of my second Dutch house 2 to a Blue roof.  

out the back 

Well worth every penny spent!!!!

Now what shall I do????

BLB - NYW English Col Hastings regt of foot

The third and last of my recently painted units for our game at Broadside a few weeks ago and this one's Ferdinando Hasting's regt of foot.

The regiment was raised during the emergency of the Monmouth Rebellion in 1685. Theophilus Hastings, 7th Earl of Huntingdon was issued a warrant on 20 June 1685. As was customary, it was called Huntingdon's Regiment of Foot and based for recruiting in Buckinghamshire. The regiment was not ready in time for the battle of Sedgemoor on 6 July 1685 but was sent to Scotland in 1689 after the Protestant William of Orange acceded to the throne of England. The Earl of Huntingdon was considered disloyal to King William III so was replaced by his kinsman Ferdinando Hastings in December 1688.

At the Battle of Killiecrankie, in 1689, Hasting's Regiment were on the right of the English line, as they were at the back of the column during the advance into Killicrankie pass. As the Highlanders charged there was little time to fix bayonets and most of the soldiers turned and fled. Hasting's and Leven's Regiments mainly stood firm and 'maintained their ground till night'. However, at the close of battle General Mackay found himself alone at one point and managed to push his way clear on his horse. It was now dark and the only men he could find were those of Leven's and Hasting's. His army was reduced to 500, the rest were killed or dispersed. They were the only English regiment on the English side at the battle.

Later in 1689 Hasting's regt were sent to Ireland, where they were involved in action at The Boyne (Rossmare), Siege of Cork 1690, Siege of Kinsale 1690, Drumaugh 1691 and Lismore 1691.

In 1692, Hastings' Regiment sailed to Flanders and, in 1694, took part in the disastrous amphibious assault at Camaret Bay on the French coast, to seize the port of Brest.

Hastings was described by the historian Fortesque as, 'One of the most unscrupulous scoundrels, even in those days of universal robbery, that ever robbed a Regiment.' His misdemeanour came to light in January 1695 when the people of Royston petitioned the House of Commons for the failure of the authorities to pay their soldiers so that they were unable to settle their bills for food and lodgings there.

There were several ways that the Colonel of a regiment could profit at the expense of the soldiers, and the government. The soldiers' clothing was paid from 'off-reckonings' which were deducted from their income of 8d a day (8 old pence). This fund could be increased by claiming for more soldiers than were actually in the regiment. Also illegal deductions were made from the remaining 6d a day so that soldiers actually received very little, and sometimes nothing at all for weeks on end. The following month, on 23 Feb, the regimental chaplain petitioned the House of Commons for non-receipt of pay. The regimental agent, Tracy Pauncefoot, could not supply an answer to this complaint and, having been taken into custody by the Sergeant-at-Arms following the Royston petition, he was now put in the Tower of London.

A few days later Colonel Hastings and four other officers were questioned by the House. Pauncefoot also attended and was found to have misappropriated 500 guineas. The findings of the House stated, 'In particular Colonel Hastings hath compelled some officers of his regiment to take their clothes from him at extravagant rates, by confining and threatening those who would not comply therewith..' On 4th March 1695 Ferdinando Hastings was deprived of his commission. But eight years later he sent a petition to Queen Anne to take into account his long service and sickness. He was granted 'Brigadiers pay from the contingencies if there be room for it.'

 In 1695 Sir John Jacob became the colonel, and it was as Jacob's Regiment of Foot that they returned to England at the end of the war in 1697.

BLB - NYW Scots Brigade Barthold Balfour's regt

The second newly painted unit for Beneath the Lily Banners "War of Three Kings" and the second regt form the Scots Brigade.
Barthold Balfours regt were raised in  1603 by the Duke of Buccleugh for Dutch service.
Jumping forward to 1672, they were commanded by John Kirckpatrick, At the start of the Franco-Dutch War they were garrisoned in Maastricht, defending the siege lines there in 1673. Also fighting at Grave 1674, Maastricht again in 1676, Cassel 1677 ans St Denis in 1678.

In 1684 Barthold Balfour became the Colonel. James II ordered them home on account of the Monmouth rebellion, they along with Mackay's and Ramsay's arriving in Gravesend (my hometown) on 30th June 1685. They arrived too late for the Battle of Sedgemoor, so were sent back to the United Provinces unbloodied.
They crossed the channel once again in 1688, were they were transferred form the Dutch establishment to the English.

The next year they fought on the left of the English lines at the Battle of Killicrankie. Their Lt-Col George Lauder was sent off to command a Fuzileer/Grenadier detachment on the extreme flank of their lines. Its not actually known what went wrong at Killicrankie with Balfour's regt. its written that they didn't even fire a shot at the Highlanders before all turning tail and running. In the turmoil of their retreat Balfour was cornered by the Highlanders and skewered to a tree!

With the death of Balfour, the Colonelcy was given to George Lauder who only just escaped death himself at Killicrankie. In 1692 they fought at Steenkirke, 1693 at Neerwinden and finally covered the Siege of Namur in 1695.

In October 1696 the ' Lawder' regiment is still on the list of troops to be maintained by William III. Somewhere in late 1697 or in 1698 the regiment was then returned to the United Provinces. In 1699 it was designated to garrison Bergen op Zoom.

BLB - NYW Scots Brigade Ramsey's regt

Posties Rejects will be putting a game on at Milton Hundred's wargame show "Broadside" in Sittingborne on 9th June. Its my turn again to host the game, I was going to do a Donnybrook extravaganza, with loads of the figures I painted up during the Challenge.  But there's not enough room to do the battle I wanted to do on a 6x4 table.
So I switched scales back down to 15mm and I will be using Beneath the Lily Banners "The War of the Three Kings" rules. We've had a few practice games and ironed out a few bits, now I've just got to try and learn them off by heart, trouble is, I'm 51 and already have a mind full of mostly useless info. Trying to pack in all the changes to BLB is proving rather difficult!!
I needs some oily fish me thinks!!!
Anyway, I needed a few units for this said 15mm battle, I did consider just painting up the command stands and using other already painted units, But I knew in my heart that this would bug the crap out of me. So I've painted them up, the figures from Essex were destined to be French re-inforcements, but instead of the grey they now wear red.

These fine looking fellows are Ramsay's regiment, who were raised in 1675 by Alexander Colyear and were one of the three Scottish regiments who were in Dutch service. They defended the lines at the Siege of  Maastrich in 1676. Colyear died in 1680 and commanded was handed over to James Douglas the then Lieutenant -Colonel. John Wauchope then became Colonel in 1685. He obeyed King James VII's summons to return to Scotland in 1688 as the country moved into the Glorious Revolution. King William removed Wauchope from command which passed onto George Ramsay.

On 27th July 1689, Ramsay's regt fought in the English loss at the Battle of Killicrankie, half the regiment held fast against the Highlander charge, while the other half fled before the Highlanders made contact. In 1691 Ramsay was promoted to Colonel of the Scots Guards, so commanded was given to Sir Charles Graham. In August 1692 they fought at the Battle of  Steenkirke, where Graham was wounded.

In 1694 Graham's regt and another 8 regiments were ordered to hold Dixmude, while other allies besiged Namur. Dixmude was under the command of Major-General Ellenberg and were expected to hold out for at least 8 days. But they surrendered after onlt 2 days, with 4,046 soldiers being taken prisoner. This raised suspicions of bribery and mental weakness.
At Gent a Court Martial was held, both Ellenberg and Graham were found guilty. Graham was dissmissed from service while Ellenberg was executed!!

The regiment then went full circle in 1695 with the son of their founder Alexander Colyear, Walter Philip Colyear taking over command

The flags are mine, made many moons ago, there are now several versions of Ramsay's available to buy, most, including those by Warfare Miniatures don't look like my versions at all, but hey ho they'll do for me.!

More from the Scots Brigade in the next post.

AHPC9 Bonus Round "Mercenary" - 15mm BLB - Baron de Kronberg Hussars

This was probably the easiest bonus round in this years Analogue Hobbies Painting 

Challenge,"Mercenary"

I could have painted loads of figures for this round, I bet most of us could have?

I chose to go back to my 15mm Beneath the Lilly Banners French army.

The Baron de Kronberg Hussars made their first appearance in the French army in 1692.

They had 2 squadrons and were commanded by a Hungarian in French service called Baron de Kronberg or Cornsberg. They were later in 1693 known as Mortani. 

They were a shortlived unit when Kronberg fell into disgrace and left France. In 1697 they ceased to exist.

Now here's the dodgy thing, There is no information on their uniform at all.

So I made it all up!! Shock- Horror! I thought red and yellow coats looked cool and it'd be a  complete contrast to the rather boring grey coats of most

of the French army.

The figures are from my favourite goto for the 1690's Essex Miniatures!
This is the same unit that Sir Sidney Roundwood recently painted up in the Challenge!!!

If you'd like to vote on my or any of the other great entries, click this link!

New Books

I've been adding a few books to my collection recently, all based in and around my favorite period of history.

The first Marlborough's Other Army, was bought at Broadside back in June, I gave it to my wife as it was going to be used as my Father's Day pressie from the kids. Unfortunately we both forgot about the book. I found it again a few weeks ago, still in the bag from when I bought it.
Its a little late in time period for me, but you rarely see anything from these battles on the warganing table. The last time I saw this being played was a great looking game from Southend Wargames Group a few years back.
Steve Ede-Borrett's The Army of James II was an absolute must for anyone with even the slightest interest in the period.
Edwin at Diplomatist books had the next book up for sale, The Siege of Londonderry 1689. I thought this'd be a great addition to my collection. Cheers Edwin
Lastly on a trip to Rochester I picked up the last book, Monmouth's Rebels by Peter Earle.

Now I've only had a quick flick through all the books and shall look forward to giving them a read..........one day!

Broadside 2016, Donnybrook - Teviot's Last Stand

Now that worked out a lot better than I hoped it would??

The Rejects all, (well some of them), made their annual appearance at Milton Hundred's

 Broadside show yesterday. 

Which also meant I finally got to play a game of Donnybrook, it only took me 2 years to organize??

But this wasn't your normal Donnybrook affair, there were 52 unit and character cards!!

Teviot's Last Stand

4th May 1664

Andrew Rutherford the 1st Earl of Teviot took over as the Governor of Tangiers on April 9th 1663. Teviot soon set about implementing major reforms of the Tangiers garrison and ordered a new network of outlying fortresses built to help protect the crowns possession. His main problem in doing so was the lack of building materials, so on May 4th 1664 he sent out a large detachment of troops, a mixture of English and Irish soldiers, towards an area known as Jew's Hill (or Jew's Mount). Teviot intended to gather stocks of stone of  lime, timber and other materials and also to cut down some brushwood on the banks of the Jew River, which the Moorish forces had used as cover during their attacks on Tangier.
Morale was very high as on 29th February there was a major engagement during which the Tangier Horse charged out of the city and captured Ahmad al Khādir ibn 'Ali Ghaylān, generally known to English-speakers as Gayland’s personal standard.
Once Teviot and his 500 troops had crossed Jew's River, they encountered around 3,000 Moroccan warriors commanded once again by Gayland. The English forces rapidly attacked and drove them off. They pursued the fleeing enemy, but it quickly became apparent that this was a trap as a much larger force (approx. 8000) were waiting to ambush them. The broken terrain was ill-suited for the British to form their battle ranks, and the engagement quickly descended into hand-to handing fighting in which the English were overwhelmed by sheer weight-of-numbers. Teviot attempted to rally his men on the top of Jew's Hill.
The 4th May was the most disastrous day experienced by the garrison during its entire occupation of Tangiers. Only around thirty of the five hundred who had marched out escaped back to the safety of Tangier.

The Earl of Teviot leads his men up on Jews Hill.

When.......out of the woods emerge a horde of Moors.

Five units in all.

Tevoit's wagon train are still unaware and cross the Jew River.

A trooper rides back and informs Teviot of the enemies approach.

The Moors advance and the Tangier's foot hurriedly try to deploy.

The wagon master unhitches two of the wagons, they may prove useful to hide behind?

Esq Lond, Dr White and Matthew Luke the Governors Secretary start to head towards the bridge.

The Tangier Horse get shot to pieces by the one and only Moorish musket unit.

Two Moor Horse attack from the flank, but confident English musketry soon puts pay to them.

The last 2 Tangier Horse fall back to the centre of the hill.

First card out the next turn was the wagons, who move forward and unhitch, just in the right place .

Meanwhile, the 3 civilians think better of heading toward the bridge, and head for the safety of the English foot.

More Moors appear to the front and right!

What's he doing??

Earl Teviot, charges the Moorish Fearless one!

I thought it was curtains for Teviot, but a throw of 10 on a D10 followed by a 1, killed him, without him getting the chance to fight back.....and I had such high hopes for him too???

Its looking a little dodgy now?

Next turn, even more Moors turn up, surrounding  the hill. 

Leading from the front, Teviot carry's the fight to the Moors, but was soon cut down by none other than Gayland himself!

I still can't believe the English are holding up so well??

There's a rather big hole on the hill.

The Rejects at play.

Moor infantry make it up on the hill.

In the centre, Engineer Johnson get attacked by a lone Moorish horseman who keeps passing his morale check.

Moorish archers, muskets and horse are battering the Tangiers foot.

Johnson gets double teamed and falls dead from his horse.

There seems no way out??

With only a handful of figures left including 3 characters, Ensign Piggott, Sgt Lee and the Standard Bearer David Israel the English threw in the towl, 

The final result was a rather unsurprising Moorish victory.

Conclusion

I was extremely pleased with how the game played, the rules  really seem to catch the flavour of the period to a T. Even better the Rejects seemed to all enjoy themselves, even Lee and John who valiantly tried to stem the flow of the Moors, knowing they were gonna get battered!

We had lots of interest from the public, most saying either they'd never seen a game from Tangiers or never heard about it!! I've even managed to convert Reece and Simon from Gravesend Wargaming club to the rules, they went out and found a copy of the rules straight away!!

I deliberately left a few things out of the rules, mainly to make the game last a little longer and make it easier for the English. 

I didn't include the End of Turn card - There were so many units that may never have moved, so thought it best to leave it out.

I also left out the mis-fire muskets penalty and let all the troops have full move, when they were in rough ground.

Hope you enjoyed the report, hopefully you'll be hearing more from Donnybrook in the near future!!