Wood's Regiment of Horse...

As promised, let me introduce you to the newest regiment to join the British ranks of my War of the Spanish Succession forces.. Wood's Regiment of Horse.

The regiment was first formed in July 1685 following the amalgamation of a number of separate cuirassier troops, and was known originally as the Earl of Plymouth's Regiment of Horse (following the usual practice of naming the regiment after the commanding officer).

During the Wars of the Succession they were called Wood's after their rather splendidly named commanding officer, Lieutenant-General Cornelius Wood.. I've not managed to find too much about him, I know that under his command the regiment captured a couple of Bavarian senior officers after Ramilles, that he was in charge of a major part of the allied cavalry at Malplaquet (according to Chandler), that he died in 1712, and finally that he is buried in Saint Leonard's church in Aston Clinton (4 miles east of Aylesbury on the London road).

"In this chapel is the monument of General Cornelius Wood, a distinguished officer in the reign of Queen Anne, who died in 1712: it is ornamented with a bust of the general, in white marble, surrounded with military trophies"..

The regiment itself were "serious stuff", and they carry battle honours for Blenheim, Ramillies, Oudenarde and Malplaquet! I haven't (yet) managed to find out too much about Wood's during this period, as they became the 3rd Regiment of Dragoon Guards in 1757 (3rd the Prince of Wales Own from 1761) so most information is from this period forward, but I have found that for the attack on the Schellenberg (which forms the basis for my project), they were brigaded in the divison of Lt.Gen Lumley, with Wyndham's, Schomberg's, Cadogen's and Lumley's regiments of horse - 10 squadrons of Britain's finest - under the brigade command of Wood himself.



For the Ramillies campaign they were brigaded with the 3rd Regiment of Horse (later the Bay's), Wyndham's (later the 6th Dragoon Guards), and Galway's (formerly Ruvigny's a regiment of French Protestants in the English service, later disbanded) under the brigade command of Brigadier-General Leveson.

The figures are 15mm, by Freikorps...very nice figures that take paint well I'll definitely be buying more.. I was particularly pleased with the grey, which I painted after seeing those splendid examples of such on Alte Fritze's blog (link to the left) ... and yes I do know that typically the greys were used by the standard bearers/trumpeters and such, but this is my regiment, and being a wargamer I have a slight thing about standard bearers for my cavalry regiments - ie. I don't have them as they just don't look right to me..