"Firing into the Brown" #74 - Beeston's, Bourbonnais and stuff...

"So Carnehan weeds out the pick of his men, and sets the two of the Army to show them drill and at the end of two weeks the men can manoeuvre about as well as Volunteers. So he marches with the Chief to a great big plain on the top of a mountain, and the Chiefs men rushes into a village and takes it; we three Martinis firing into the brown of the enemy".

Kipling "The Man Who Would Be King"

Time for another update..

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Another in the occasional "regiments of renown" series featuring the histories of various regiments painted in haste at the beginning of a project but which were not documented here for posterity.. so we come to French infantry regiment "Bourbonnais", part of my War of the Spanish Succession collection.. 

There is a very (very) good potted history of this regiment on the Kronoskaf WSS site (link below) so there's little point in me repeating the good work completed there, but by way of a framework to hang some 'rabbit holes' on (😏), the regiment was first created in 1584 from the old Bandes* de Montferrat. On 6 March 1597, it became part of the regular French Army and apart from a 10 year period at the start of the 1600's (when Louis XIII instigated a massive reorganisation of the French army) has been a permanent regiment of the French Army to this day.

Louis de Brichanteau, Marquis de
Nangis (painter unknown)

The regiment is included in those six regiments who, by their ancestry and lineage and therefore ranking, were considered to be the "Petit Vieux" (the 'little olds') giving them the privilege of not being disbanded at the end of any war, and making them second only to those four regiments in Les Vieux Corps (Navarre, Picardie, Piedmont and Champagne). 

By the time of the War of the Spanish Succession, the regiment counted three battalions, but at Blenheim the regiment was two battalions strong, numbering about a 1000 men, and were in Nangis' brigade (who was also their Colonel), entrenched in and around the central village of Oberglau with fourteen (!) other regiments under the overall command of Lieutenant General Jean-Jules-Armand Colbert, Marquis de Blainville (who was to die during the battle). 

By all accounts they fought stubbornly and resisted Allied attacks under Prince Holstein-Beck, which at the end of the battle allowed the remnants of Tallard's Corps to retire in an orderly fashion - they then retreated in column per battalion and formed the rearguard of the defeated army.

During the War of the Spanish Succession, the regiment was commanded by:

• from 15 January 1700 by Louis de Brichanteau, Marquis de Nangis - he lived to a ripe old age and their are some fascinating snippets about him on this blog [clicky] - he shared a mistress (not at the same time! 😁) with a colonel of regiment Navarre we have already met.. "...Nangis, who was more plausibly reported to have been the lover of the duchesse de Bourgogne (hence of a woman in line to become queen of France), served heroically in his youth, though he would live to become a lackluster (sic) marshal of France. In his prime, however, his amorous exploits were rivaled (sic) only by his exploits on the field of battle...." (from Ladurie & Fitou, "Saint Simon and the Court of Louis XIV")
• from 1 January 1709 till 1 July 1727: Louis-Antoine de Gramont, Comte de Lesparre - I reckon he was about 20 when he got the Colonelcy and I would think that his might well have been due to the influence of  his much better known father (pictured following) who by that time was a Marshal of France (and was wounded at Malplaquet in 1709) ..  Louis-Antoine (the younger) got his colonelcy the same year..  he was to later die at Fontenoy

Undated portrait of Antoine de Gramont (the elder)

*The Bandes (there were many) by the way were the first permanent, paid, infantry units in the service of France, and were modelled on the organisation of the Swiss units (mercenaries in French pay). You may remember (who would? 😏) that when I did the unit history for Navarre, they also originated from one of the old Bandes.

These are Dixon's and painted and based my me some time pre-2006 - the flag is from the old Warflag.com site which is still - regrettably - down...

Other reading:

• Bourbonnais Infanterie - Project WSS

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A little rabbit hole presented itself.. 

I was having another look at that 1860 map of the Portsmouth fortifications and happened to notice this in the top corner..  Beeston's Bastion...  now Steve the Wargame is of an ancient enough age that the secondary school he went to, whilst not private in any way, still had a house system, and my school had four houses of which the sorting hat put me in Beeston's (where we then had the privilege of wearing a yellow button badge on our blazer lapels).

The houses (of which there were four) were named after notable bastions in the old city defences, so there was Beeston's, then Guy's, King's and I think Pembroke's (not so sure on this last one but I do remember that the other three houses wore red, green and blue badges) but either way I've often wondered who or what said Beeston was.. this seemed like an opportunity to find out!

My reading would indicate that by all accounts the Beeston's were big cheeses in Portsmouth back in the day (and we're talking Queen Elizabeth the First era). Under a grant from the Corporation in 1574, Thomas Beeston became proprietor of the Sea Mills (a flour mill based on a tidal creek or basin between Portsmouth and the Dockyard), he also constructed a new carriage bridge near it connecting the two locations, he was Mayor in 1591, and in future years both his son and grandson filled the same office, other later descendants were Burgesses of the town.

In 1709, the land the mill was standing on was taken under an Act of Parliament to improve the fortifications, Thomas Beeston (the family had a habit of naming the oldest son Thomas, so he was either the third or fourth generation of the first one.. 😏) was still the proprietor, and sold the mill and the Mill pond. 

It was later renamed King's Mill, by the way, and it produced flour for the Victualling Commissioners of the Royal Navy - you can see it on the map just north of the bastion, it in turn was protected by it's own bastion - the Mill Dam Bastion. Which in itself represents another little rabbit hole, as Milldam Barracks was built on the reconfigured Mill Pond - and the building still exists...🤔

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

 Laters, as the young people are want to say...