English Civil War cavalry notes..

Your troopers are most of them old decayed servingmen and tapsters; and their troopers are gentlemen's sons, younger sons and persons of quality; do you think that the spirits of such base and mean fellows will ever be able to encounter gentlemen that have honour and courage and resolution in them?

Cromwell in a letter to John Hampden after Edgehill

Time for another of my informal and occasional notes/articles, this time on the cavalry of the English Civil War. Before we start there will be a couple of exceptions/omissions - I won't cover Dragoons (as they are basically just mounted infantry, and I'll do a separate research article on them), it also doesn't cover Lancers as they were primarily used by the Scots, and they weren't present at Edgehill...

Organisation:

• Cavalry were organised in troops - a similar organisational grouping as an infantry company.
• A troop was commanded by a captain and had somewhere in the region of thirty to one hundred men. The senior/leading troops would have been lead by the colonel of the regiment, and a major (his second in command)
• Cavalry troops could operate independently, but usually they were grouped into a regiment of around six troops under the command of a colonel (when I was doing my research on Fielding's regiment at Edgehill, I read that an independent troop under Sir Samuel Luke served with the regiment for the battle, and afterwards until 1643).

Types:

Harquebusiers

By far the most common cavalry type, though the descriptor 'harquebusier' [clicky] is not very well known/used (at least to me )..

In summary, and mostly from the very excellent British Civil wars wiki, but with other bits and pieces added from other sources...

• Originally, a harquebusier was a foot soldier armed with the arquebus (or harquebus), but  during the French religious wars of the 16th century, they became mounted (I wonder if originally that was a dragoon role), and by the early 17th century, they had evolved into the standard light cavalry of western Europe (though I would be more inclined to call them medium due to the equipment they wore, and their style of fighting).
• originally they were armed with a carbine/harquebus, a pair of pistols and a sword but during the civil wars, the carbine was likely to be carried by officers only.
• defensive armour consisted of a light breast- and back-plate and pot helmet, sometimes with a "gorget" to protect the throat. A thick leather buff-coat was usually worn underneath the armour, and often replaced it altogether. A distinctive feature of the English cavalry was the three-bar pot helmet with articulated neck-guard - it is entirely possible that the cavalry would wear a soft hat with an iron "secrete" (helmet liner) underneath to give protection (8 and 9 in the picture left in the following)

Found on Pinterest but clearly copyright Osprey

Cuirassiers

Comparatively rare/scarce (expensive to maintain, and they required a heavier/stronger horse to carry the weight) - the best examples in the English Civil War were probably Haselrig's Lobsters [clicky], and perhaps Charles's Lifeguards (just a troop strong) and the Lifeguard of the Earl of Essex - either way, they were rare and classed as heavy cavalry.

Cuirassiers wore a suit of articulated plate armour reaching from the head to the knee. A long boot protected the lower leg and the back of the thigh.

Originally armed with the lance, they became increasingly through the 16th Century and into the 17th re-armed (after the wheel lock pistol was invented) with the pistol/carbine and of course the sword - later on the pistols would be early model flint lock.

Also found on Pinterest but clearly copyright Osprey

Tactics:

Positioned on each side of the infantry were the cavalry, with a right-wing led by the lieutenant-general, and a left-wing by the commissary general; the main goal of the cavalry was to rout the opponent's cavalry and then turn and overpower their infantry.

Two main tactics

• the Dutch style - to advance at a quick trot until in range of the enemy. The men in the front fired, then wheeled away. In their second charge they advanced at full gallop using either a short sword or cutlass.
• attributed to the Swedish under Gustavus - his cavalry would charge at full speed into the opponent's infantry firing their pistols either just before impact, or in the melee.

"at the start of the wars the Royalists (generally) adopted the Swedish style and the Parliamentarians the Dutch style. But by 1645 they were all working, to a greater or lesser extent, on the former" (Lipscombe - link below).

In the early years of the war at least Parliamentary cavalry tended to receive charges at the stand - depending on their fire power to disrupt the attack (the Dutch model - described in more detail in the Wanklyn book - "Deployed 6 ranks deep.. Dutch cavalry did not charge the enemy they waited for the enemy to charge them relying on firepower to disrupt them... if they were disrupted they would counter charge but at a trot rather than gallop... if the enemy wasn't disrupted then the 6 rank depth would absorb shock and the casualties inflicted on the enemy would give them the benefit in the ensuing melee")


Royalist cavalry tended to charge home directly with the sword, not using firearms until the melee. The Parliamentarian cavalry retained the use of firearms in the charge until later in the Civil War, but by the time of the New Model Army, had largely adopted the direct charge with the sword.

Royalists, under Prince Rupert's direction, began the Civil War using the Swedish three ranks-deep formation but the Parliamentarians retained a six-deep formation until late 1643 or early 1644 when they also moved to the shallower formation.

..from the Wanklyn book...

A cavalry unit drawn up in a shallow/Swedish formation would outflank a similar sized unit arrayed in a deep formation, a considerable tactical advantage.

Royalist cavaliers usually charged at speed, the English Parliamentarian Ironsides (later war then)  charged at a slower pace, troopers keeping together knee-to-knee, in order to retain their formation.

Basically thick firepower, versus thin fast shock then..

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harquebusier
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_lobsters 
http://bcw-project.org/military/units 
"Combined Arms Tactics in the English Civil War" - Nick Lipscombe
"A Military History of the English Civil War: 1642-1649" By Malcolm Wanklyn, Frank Jones