...more on Warblington...

In 1551 it was finally entailed on Sir Richard Cotton, knight, whose son George succeeded to it at his death in 1556. " (The coat of arms is that of the Cotton family - more on these guys later)  

...a little more info has come to light, but before I launch into it, first off a small correction as it's been pointed out that I got my Mary's hopelessly mixed up in the last post - it was Mary Tudor who was the daughter of Henry VIII (later to be crowned as Mary the first), not Mary Queen of Scots (thanks to my missus, and also Will, for this!!)

...anyway - as promised, a little more info has come to light...

as we know Warblington .."was restored in 1514 to Margaret (Polk), countess of Salisbury, sister and heir of Edward, the Earl of Warwick, with other lands. She was living at the castle in 1526. She was a staunch papist, and from her house her son-in-law, Lord Montagu, and others sent frequent messages to their friends on the continent, especially to Cardinal Pole, using as an agent a certain Hugh Holland of Warblington, who had already been convicted of piracy" (! I'm guessing he was probably a smuggler rather than your actual yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum type, as there have been stories about the lane that leads down to the harbour from the town for some time as having smuggling origins which around here would have been brandy, lace, and other goods from France). 

"After her attainder ('the forfeiture of land and civil rights suffered as a consequence of a sentence of death for treason or felony') in consequence of her share in these conspiracies Warblington was granted temporarily to William, Earl of Southampton, and to Sir Thomas Wriothesley, the King's secretary. 

"George Cotton was living at Warblington in 1596, and died there in 1609 or 1610, leaving a son and heir Sir Richard Cotton. In 1635 Richard Cotton died seised of the manor leaving a young grandson and heir of the same name who was a staunch Royalist."

...now comes the first of the interesting stuff...

"In January, 1643–4, 'the strong house at Warblington' was captured by sixty soldiers and a hundred muskets, and Richard Cotton was obliged to compound for his lands. He is said to have bequeathed them to his only surviving son William, who died in 1736."

My reference quotes a letter from Wilmot, the lord-lieutenant of the Royalist forces, in which he states that 'he has not yet had a reply to the message sent to Arundel Castle' (then besieged by Sir William Waller), and that 'they have taken the strong house at Warblington … which commands a pretty port, and will be of good advantage.'

It's an ambiguous entry - he probably knew who he meant - but safe to assume that the sixty soldiers and hundred musketeers were Parliamentary. Begs a few questions though - why does the source differentiate between soldiers and muskets? Perhaps the "soldiers" were pike? Or mounted troops?

Most of this post by the way, is from the following excellent source ''Warblington', A History of the County of Hampshire: Volume 3 (1908), pp. 134-139. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=41943. In the meanwhile, the search continues...

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On a separate subject, I've recently completed loading the majority of the original JPG's of the "table top teasers", so that you can now see the original articles. There were a couple missing - I'll add these soonest. Next will be the PDF's...

..bits and pieces... Warblington Castle...

..it certainly doesn't seem like a week has passed but the calendar doesn't lie; even so it doesn't seem like I have got very much done in the intervening period.

I failed significantly in my efforts to get any paint on metal; doubly frustrating as we had a quiet Sunday and I was sure I'd be able to weigh in on the next War of the Spanish Succession cavalry unit (which are going to be Cadogan's I've decided - buff coloured facings). As it turned out thought the weather was good so I ended up helping my wife chop out 8 large bags of dead foliage from the front garden - which I then took to the tip... only to find out when I got home that she had another 6 bags waiting for me! Ah well, I wouldn't have been able to focus on the paintbrush with all that activity going on downstairs...

So what have I done in the intervening period - well a little bit of everything really..

I'm reading an excellent book which I picked up at the library - "Band of Brigands" by Christy Campbell is an early history of the Royal Tank Regiment, detailing how they came into being, how the first tanks were developed, and about their early battles, first on the Somme (not wholly successful, but good enough to get Haig to order a thousand of them) and later, more successfully, at Cambrai. I can count on the fingers of one (maybe two) hands the authors of military history who for me have the ability to make me keep turning the pages (Richard Holmes, Mark Urban, John Falkner, David Chandler...........) and this guy has joined their ranks. Immensely readable, very enjoyable, and a real page turner... not my period vis a vis wargaming but a fascinating account and absolutely recommended to anyone who enjoys military history.

I also took delivery of broadband last week - a real first for me - but in addition to (successfully!) setting it up this allowed me to set off on my other main activity of the week. I cycle to work, and on a daily

basis I pass this place which is called "Warblington Castle".. I've always been fascinated by it so decided to see if I could find out a little more about it. By way of an occasional series therefore (and I'll post more information as and when I find it), I can tell you that the ruins are all that remain of a large fortified house built by Richard Neville's (the Earl of Warwick, better known as “The Kingmaker” during the War of the Roses) granddaughter, Margaret Pole, who was Countess of Salisbury. 

It was built between 1515 and 1525, and was a moated house, with staterooms, a chapel, apartments, and an armoury surrounding a courtyard. 

Margaret Pole was responsible for the early upbringing of Mary ("Bloody Mary") Tudor, Henry VIII’s daughter by his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. The King himself stayed at the Castle in 1526, but Margaret was a Catholic and opposed Henry’s plans to divorce his wife Catherine to marry Anne Boleyn - not surprisingly, perhaps, she was executed for "treason" in 1541 at the Tower of London. Apparently she was quite a feisty lady as records tell us she fought all the way to the block! 

In 1552 the Manor passed to the Cotton family, who were connected to the royal households of Edward VI and Elizabeth I (both of whom are believed to have visited the castle). During the Civil War the Cotton family supported the Crown against Parliament, and in 1644 after two separate sieges the castle was razed to the ground. All that remains is the single gateway tower in the picture.... It is this later period of the history that I'm most interested in, specifically the siege, and also a story about a running skirmish between Parliamentary and Royalist forces between the castle and nearby Havant (where I work)... as I say - more later, when and as, I find it... amazing what goes on in history just on your doorstep, isn't it?

Warfare 2007...

..so here I am fresh back from Warfare which, for me at least, is the last show of the year - and how was, it you may ask?? (and to be honest, if you're not interested, this is the point where you go to the next Blog!J)

..well, in summary, I thought it was "OK" which on a scale of excellent to awful is on the right side of the halfway point, not excellent, and probably not as good as last year, but still well worth it and an enjoyable day out. I think they were missing a few traders which I would have hoped to visit and spend money with if they'd been there, so from a personal perspective that lowered the overall score, I thought that the display and demo/participation games were not really much to write home about. The show has always been primarily a trade fair & competition weekend, but they usually put on a couple of good display games, and with some exceptions those seemed to be missing this year...

....so what did I buy? Well in the absence of Keep Wargaming (who in the UK carry Minifigs at the shows) I had to miss out on some new stocks of WWII 12mm to feed the "Blitzkreig Commander" fires, instead I spent the money on Stuart Asquith's new book "War in the Sudan 1884-1898: A Campaign Guide" at the Caliver stand (picture to the right) - I've been meaning to buy this for some time, but usually I've already spent my funds by the time I get to it - this time with no WWII to buy I had the cash.... I'll review the book more fully in a later post, but suffice to say that having had a quick flick through, and a light read, it looks to be the business and exactly what I was hoping for..

...following the recent success with Wood's regiment of horse, I also took a visit to the Freikorps stand and bought enough new lead to make up another two regiments of cavalry for the Marlburian forces, and with some spare cash left over, I also bought some cavalry from Essex. The Marlburian project, more than any of the others, seems to be one where I am buying figures from all over the place, but enjoying the whole process enormously! I'll update the project page with some comparison pictures soon, but I think that means I now have samples from about 6 or 7 suppliers for my horse.. 

..and that was it as far as purchases went - so what about the games? Not a lot of competition but my game of the show in the face of the far more professional Touching History game (of which more in a moment) went to the guys from the "Wildgeese and Galloglass Gamers" who presented the "Battle of Knocknanuss" for our delectation - a Warhammer ECW game in 25mm. I just thought it looked really nice... a real traditional looking game, actually being played, and which I for one would have been happy to join in on, and last of all in a period I've always liked... here's an overall view (apologies - not the best)
...and these are some closeups of a couple of the units in the game - I especially liked the infantry unit - blue coats, and very effective en masse...


..this was the Touching History game - as I mentioned above it would have been the winner but for the fact that this guy is a "professional" (J), and I have to say I thought the ECW game slightly edged it for me anyway...

..last time I saw him he was doing an American war of Independence game, this time he'd shifted periods to WWII - a strong allied attack on a German fixed position... the choice was interesting in itself as his web site indicated he was going to be bringing a new AWI game (something to look forward to at Salute perhaps!) By the way anyone interested should visit his web site for some mouthwatering pictures of all the projects he's currently engaged in.. inspirational stuff, and I hope the plans for a regular Battlegames article pan out...

..nice half track model - always had a soft spot for these in my own games...

..not really my scale, as I've always had a (totally personal) view that 6mm figures are basically just boardgame counters, and that's not why I wargame, but the MADGamers put on a demonstration game featuring the American Civil War battle of Shiloh in this scale.. 6mm is quite good for a game of this size - the figures were from Baccus so were good, but it was still not enough to persuade me to collect in that scale.. it was the paddle steamers that caught my eye in this game..


....last of all, you may remember way back around April this year, that I mentioned I'd seen a game at the Salute show representing a Spanish attack on an Inca city, complete with 4 foot high temple, sacrifices etc. They were also at this show so I got a few more photo's - a quite astonishing layout and it would have come higher up my list but for the fact I'd already seen it earlier in the year!



....and that's it for this post..

...final teasers added...

..just a quick update to let you know that the final Teasers have been added to the project page - many thanks to the various, and many, people who have assisted over the months and years I've been collecting these. I'm pleased to say I now have all seventeen posted.

Any broken/missing links are entirely down to me... so please let me know! One final word of appreciation to Mike for the suggestion on Box.Net - I've been looking for somewhere to store my files easily for ages and they were just the job! Thanks, Mike....

.. I have visitors down for the weekend so I'm not going to get any time for painting unfortunately. I'm cogitating on what unit to paint next - I know it'll be War of the Spanish Succession, and I know they'll be Allied cavalry, but not which unit - I'm deciding between Wyndham's and Cadogan's, as once I've painted those I then have representation for all the regiments present in Wood's Cavalry Brigade at the assault on the Schellenberg.

...I do have Warfare to look forward to though, which is on this weekend. I'm going up on Sunday with my regular opponent DG and am looking forward to it immensely, as yet again, as a result of all this painting, I have a shopping list.... more anon, and hopefully some pictures as I'm taking the camera!

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..