Lord Wharton’s Regiment of Foot

The man himself at the age of 19..
painted 10 years before Edgehill ...

More reinforcements for Parliament..

Wharton's were another one of the regiments in Charles Essex's Brigade that broke and ran at Edgehill ... 

They were originally raised as one of the regiments destined to be a part of the expedition to Ireland in 1642, and in fact their Colonel, Philip Wharton, 4th Baron Wharton (that's him, left), was to be Colonel General of the entire force. 

At Edgehill then, they were bundled along in rout with most of the rest of the brigade in the aftermath of Rupert's first charge with the Royalist cavalry, but were also, according to most of the sources I have read, roughly handled by returning Royalist cavalry and lost a number of their standards..

Wharton commanded a separate troop of horse at Edgehill and was probably with them rather than his foot regiment when they routed from the field (Young)..

According to Young, like Mandeville's, they were disbanded after Turnham Green possibly as a result of their performance in the battle, but again there were plenty of other regiments in the Parliamentary army that did as badly and weren't disbanded..

Scott, Turton and von Arni speculate that the regiment may have had grey coats, so that's good enough for me in this case, and  they give their numbers as  being 500 at the battle. In Aaron Graham's "The Earl of Essex and Parliament’s Army at the Battle of Edgehill: A Reassessment. War in History" he numbers them as 608 rank and file - I don't doubt the actual number is somewhere between the two.. 😀

I can find no record of any standard for the regiment - perhaps not surprising given their longevity, so have been forced to fall back on my imagination - those top right are the heraldic arms of the 4th Baron ..and I thought that one of the smaller devices - in particular the figure kneeling (and presenting a sword) - on a plain background, would make an ideal Colonels colour, but in the end decided to go with plain green with a little battle damage...  

 

So - 24 figures - a hodge-podge/mix of makes (Peter Pig, Gallia, Minifgs I think) - all 15mm - and all paint butchered in November 2020.