The Londoners

A substantial portion of the Baronial army at Lewes was provided by the London Militia.

The citizens had not endeared themselves to the King or his son - they had pelted the queen with refuse and insults as she escaped the city by boat. Virtually all the Londoners seem to have been in favour of the Barons, though four who tried to bar de Montfort's entry into the city were held hostage by him and met a sticky end which I may relate another time.

The (theoretical) arms and armour of the English militia of this period are set out in a 1253 Assize (p.431). As in many such cases, these are ideals and not necessarily adhered to. I shall be doing some other militia as armed peasants. Hopefully Legio Heroica will one day produce some spearmen with gambesons but no mail. 

Incidentally, this assize has been cited by the US Congress in support for the right to bear arms.

I based the flag in this source: it dates from the time of King John*. The flag of London, since sometime in the 14th century and before Wat Tyler's rebellion, has been what looks like the cross of St George but with a sword in one corner (as shown here). This is the flag of St Paul**. I really couldn't decide what kind of flag to use. I originally painted it as a banner, which is perhaps more suitable for the description of Fitzwalter carrying it on horseback.  I then saw a modern version which is a vexillium type, still used by churches. Since the flag was donated by the cathedral, I thought I'd do this kind. Unfortunately, I prefer the painting I did on the other banner! I think I shall have a third attempt, with this seal as a guide.

  The arms on the shield of the 'officer' are those of Fitzwalter.  This is Robert Fitzwalter's seal (from the British Museum) from around the time of John's death. As shown in the above source, the Fitzwalter's, Lords of Baynard's Castle, had the right to be the bearers of the banner of London. I have used some licence in this case - at Lewes the militia were not lead by a Fitzwalter as the young head of the family had been captured at  Northampton. He was freed as part of the treaty after Lewes.

Instead, the wing containing the Londoners was lead by Nicholas Segrave who had escaped from Northampton.

Segrave was the step-son of de Somery, a leadiing royalist, and this may have helped his rapid rehabilitation after Evesham. He, and his sons, are mentioned in the Caerlaverock roll. He changed the family arms from the bushels to a crowned lion, though it is unclear when he did so. I have hedged my bets and shown his banner with the older arms and his shield and caparison with the newer version.

*I went to Worcester Cathedral today and while I was there I went to see King John's tomb again. There is also one of the 14th century Beauchamps there.

 ** Worcester Cathedral is also St Paul's - I didn't know until today that they use the same arms as London.

Henry's Brothers

Henry III's mother, Isabella of Angouleme, was betrothed when still a child to Hugh of Lusignan. Soon after John became King of England, he annulled his marriage and effectively kidnapped the 12 year old Isabella who was already considered a beauty. John married her and they had five children. The oldest was Henry and the second child was named Richard. A daughter, Joan, was betrothed to her mother's erstwhile suitor and she was sent to live at his court.

 However, when John died, Isabella returned to her lands in Angouleme and soon after married Hugh - her daughter instead being promised to Alexander of Scotland. Isabella proceeded to have another nine chidren. All fourteen of her offspring survived to adulthood - her daughters married a variety of notables including the Emperor Frederick II, Alexander II of Scotland, Raymond of Toulouse and Simon de Montfort.

Her second son, Richard, was from the age of 16 Count of Poitou and Earl of Cornwall. His Cornish lands provided a considerable amount of wealth and he became one of the richest men in Europe. He would later build his property portfolio through some shady purchases of debts. He also made a rich marriage and was paid off by the King on several occasions after rebelling.

One way in which he spent his money was on the reconstruction and expansion of the fortifications at Tintagel. This was an era which was fascinated in the stories around King Arthur and it seems that the castle was built because of the legend rather than for any strategic purpose. It is an interesting place to visit - unless you dislike heights! 

Richard went on Crusade from 1240-3 although he fought in no battles. On the way home, he met his soon to be second wife, Sanchia. She was one of four sisters - the others married Henry of England, Louis IX of France and Charles of Anjou. Soon after, the Pope offered to sell Richard the throne of Sicily. Matthew Paris says that he replied by saying "You might as well say 'I make you a present of the moon - step up to the sky and take it down'." His brother Henry had less sense, purchasing the right for his son which accomplished nothing except to strain the royal finances.

However, Richard was more tempted by the title of Emperor and bribed various Electors to acquire the crown. However, his title was challenged by Alfonso of Castile and neither could enforce their will on the Empire. Contemporary historians refer to Richard as King of the Germans and his son was known as Henry of Almain.

Richard had opposed Simon de Montfort at various points and joined the King when war broke out. He commanded a battle at Lewes but when things went badly he tried to take refuge in a windmill, coming out when the rebels threatened to set it aflame, calling "Come out you bad miller!" He remained in captivity until after Evesham.  See http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/luttrell/accessible/page14lge.html for a roughly contemporary windmill.

Richard's son, Henry of Almain, was later murdered by two of the de Montforts while journeying through Italy. This earned them a place in Dante's Inferno - I'll add more when I get around to posting pictures of the de Montforts.

A possible link between Richard of Cornwall's arms and those of Richard I is covered here - go to the section on 'tricky arms'. This may also explain the lion of the de Joinville/de Geneville arms (I've painted a couple of figures in variations of these arms).

Henry's ties with his Lusignan brothers were one of the causes of the Barons' War. The English nobility resented the foreigners gaining land and influence - though French was still their main language and many held French lands. The ultimate leader of the barons, Simon de Montfort, was of course of French birth himself.

Henry does seem to have favoured his half-brothers excessively - he made Aymer de Valence Bishop of Winchester despite him being decidely unqualified for the job.

Another brother was William de Valence who acquired the title of Earl of Pemboke in right of his wife. He fought at Lewes and fled into exile. He returned the following year, landing with various other Royalists and a sizeable force in William's Welsh territory. They seem to have been in communication with Gilbert de Clare and soon met up with him. He fought at Kenilworth and at Evesham. One of his postwar gains was the manor of Inkberrow which is just under ten miles from where I live.

The picture of my figures at the top of the page shows the arms of Richard and of William. The other armigerous figure bears the arms of Oddingseles. They held land at Solihull and the arms are still part of the badge of Solihull School.

The Beauchamps

Well over a decade ago I took part in my one and only archaeological dig at my local abbey's ruin. After a few days washing industrial slag, they asked if I would mind helping to clean some skeletons as this was the last dig for a few years and they wanted to get quite a few up.
 I then spent a couple of weeks cleaning bones, including a number of skulls. From the context, they were believed to be 13th century - as it happens the same period that I now cover in this blog. The preservation varied according to the soil - the boundary between two types passes through the site so in some cases half of the bones were very well preserved while the other half instantly crumbled.
 I think I dealt with about half a dozen skulls and some were so well preserved that even the ear bones survived, washing out as I swilled the skulls round like some kind of macabre Tom-Cruise-in-Cocktail. One particular skeleton stays in my memory. It was a man and going by his long bones he was probably around 6 feet tall. He had marks on his bones showing that he'd had a lot of muscles - the on-site experts said that they showed he had probably been a rider and likely a knight which would explain his presence in a high status part of the abbey. A number of bones had broken at some stage in his life, including a leg, some ribs and one arm I think. They had all healed very well.
 The most impressive injuries were to his head. There were two cuts in the skull, probably from a blade. One went from front to back along the top left of his skull and the other went from side to side across the upper back of his head. Although some healing had begun, the experts thought they were serious enough to have led to his death. A possible victim of Kenilworth or Evesham perhaps - the abbey lies within easy reach of both. Of course, it may have been some kind of accident or a local brawl, but I can daydream!

 What does this have to do with the Beauchamps? When I was helping there, a couple of people mentioned that the Black Dog of Arden was buried there. I knew nothing of the period then and only recently found out that he was one of the Beauchamp Earls of Warwick, dubbed with that name as an insult by a favourite of Edward II. His grave had been discovered years ago, but it was nice to know that one of the great magnates had apparently chosen to be buried in my hometown.



 The Beauchamps made their mark under Edward I, acquiring the Warwick title by marriage. Various branches gained land in the area, including at Alcester. It seems that the Beauchamp arms were originally a simmple gules, a fesse or but cross crosslets or martlets were adopted as differences - the crosses being taken from the traditional arms of the Earls of Warwick.

In the photo, Beauchamps are second, fifth and seventh from the left. I haven't worried too much about whether the arms are suitable for the Barons' War. Others in the line up include Hastings and Mortimer. Mortimer was an especially major player in the war.
One of the branches of the d'Abitot family is to the extreme left. I haven't found out much about them except that they had various branches holding lands in my area of the country and that they had some nice looking coats of arms!

Incidentally, my output of Medieval figures is on hold for a while as I'm working through a backlog of Classical period stuff (Simon de Montfort sits on my painting table half-finished!). I may set up a different blog to cover some of this stuff but continue to update Dante's Wars in my current lacksdaisical manner.

The Nobility of England

For a few months, I have concentrated on English knights of the reign of Henry III.

The reign was a period which saw some conflict in France and Wales as well as the Second Barons' War. Many of the same characters saw action in the next reign as Henry's son, Edward Longshanks, fought in Wales and Scotland.


 The figures are all 15mm by Legio Heroica. I used a mix of the early 13th century and mid 13th century ranges. The early period helmets would have been obsolete by the time of the Barons' War, so unlikely to have been worn by the nobility, but the figures are nice and it gives me more variety plus some of the poorer knights may have still used them. By Edward I's wars, helmet styles had evolved even further.

 I originally decided to just do a few English, representing my local area. However, the more I read and researched, the more carried away I became so that I have ended up with a full size army.

 A major resource which I used was British History Online. This includes many county histories. I live on the border of Worcestershire and Warwickshire and luckily these two are covered. The histories give a great deal of detail of who owned land where through most of recorded history. I think that at times the heraldry is inaccurate but it is a very useful starting point. Early Rolls is very useful for checking the heraldry though be sure to cross check as some arms vary from roll to roll. I also used Grazebrook's Heraldry of Worcestershire, trawling through to find places which were local to me and arms which were carried in Henry or Edward's reigns.

 Over the next couple of weeks I'll upload a series of photos of various figures, with a bit of gossip about many of them.

To start, here's Humphrey de Bohun, 2nd Earl of Hereford and Constable of England.

He was at times in opposition to the king, but was in the King's army at Lewes. Some books put him on the Barons' side at Evesham but this is probably a confusion with his son - also called Humphrey. The younger Humphrey can be seen to the rear. He was a commander for the Barons at Lewes and again at Evesham. He seems to have earned de Montfort's displeasure at Evesham for choosing to remain in command of the Welsh. He probably did not flee with them immediately - he was mortally wounded and died soon after the battle.

 The arms in black are those carried by the de Spineto family who held land at Coughton, about 5 miles from where I live.

Henry of Winchester

Henry of Winchester - Henry III of England - became king at a young age, crowned with a simple circlet as the crown jewels had been sold or lost in the Wash. His father, John, died while still at war with many of his barons. In some ways, this set the tone of the next fifty odd years, with frequent disagreements between the King and many of the most powerful men of the realm. Frequent political strife broke out into open warfare - the Second Barons' War. Much of the strife was down to the King's failure to recover land lost in France; the Saintoge War being the main example. Another cause of tension was Henry's attempt to buy the Kingdom of Sicily for his younger son. The cost was huge - Henry's brother had already declined the offer - and the chance of success was low. In the end, the only result was that the King was desparate for money.
 The various twists and turn of the Barons' War can be followed in many place. One old but seemingly useful source can be found here. One useful section is the appendix where participants of the two factions are named. I think there are a few errors, but handy nonetheless.
 This has a variety of primary and near secondary sources covering the War.
 Dante mentions Henry as one of the group at the base of the mountain of Purgatory, alongside some of the other characters I've covered.
  "You see the king who led the simple life

    seated alone: Henry of England—he
    has better fortune with his progeny."

 

  I hadn't originally intended painting an English army, but decided I'd just do a few of the local lords. I already had a fair number of Legio Heroica's figures which I started to paint as French, but I quickly decided that they wouldn't work too well alongside the French I'd already done.
 I soon found myself researching the various nobles of England and within a short time I'd commited myself to paint up a full army. I'll go into some of the sources I used another time.

 Legio Heroica do two kingly figures. The one which I used for Henry is designed for the early part of the 13th century and in theory is too early for Henry, especially for the Barons' War period. His seal show him in a full helm and riding a horse with no caparison but artistic licence was mine to take! I especially liked the pose - in DBMM Henry is an inert general and this pose leant itself to a level of inertia.

I was heavily influence by the style of painting used for this figure on the Legio Heroica site - I even copied the ermine trim.



I was intruiged by the description of a dragon standard used at Lewes. Hobilar (the magazine of the Lance and Longbow society) had a bit of a debate about whether this would have been a flag or a windsock style. After a bit of deliberation, I decided on the windsock. This was for a couple of reasons. The first was that Henry seemed interested in his Saxon predecessors - using the names Edward and Edmund for his sons was very unusual at the time. It was their saintliness which was their main draw, but he may have been aware that the Saxon kings probably carried dragon standards, as shown on the Bayeux Tapestry.

What swayed my decision finally was coming across this picture. It seems to have been from the time of Edward I, who is also known to have used a dragon standard. The picture is an illustration of the story of King Arthur, another subject which was of interest to Henry - he probably ordered the construction of the Winchester Round Table.
 I scratchbuilt the dragon using fuse wire and milliput. The first attempt was okay but I decided to try again and even then had to rebuild the head.

The arms of his standard bearer are, I think, those of the knight who held the land where our wargaming club meets.

I shall post some more pictures of the flower of English chivalry once I get the basing done!

The Song Dynasty

Once the Mongols had conquered the Jin Dynasty in Northern China, they were faced with the prospect of conquering the Song Dynasty.

A good (I think!) history of the Song and its neighbours and successors can be found in Mote's "Imperial China".

The Song (or Sung) Dynasty had emerged from the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period and fairly rapidly subdued the majority of China. However, on the northern border the Liao Dynasty had been founded by the Khitan. The last of the states to fall to the Song, the Northern Han,  was a client of the Liao so its conquest created tension between the two states. Further tension was created by Liao occupation of lands once held by the Tang, which the Song claimed.

 The Song attempted to regain these lands by force but were rebuffed with great losses - the emperor fleeing the battle in an ox cart. There were several further campaigns over the next twenty years. The Liao invasion of 1004 was bought off with what the Song called gifts and the Liao called tribute - a massive 200000 bolts of silk and 100000 ounces of silver per year.

 The war party in the Song court thought that the Liao could have been defeated but the peace party prevailed. The policy has divided opinion ever since - the cost was high but less than would have been needed for defensive troops. However, it also encouraged a military decline which would make future defence more difficult.

 This was shown to some extent with the rise of the Tanguts or Xi Xia. They were neighbours of the Song and the Liao. Initial Xia success led the Liao to again threaten to invade. The Song renegotiated the tribute to the Liao - the Tanguts were seemingly disgruntled that their hard work had produced gains for the Liao. The Song used this to their advantage - the Xi Xia were persuaded to attack their erstwhile allies, receiving substantial gifts from the Song as a reward. Over the next century, Xi Xia and Liao relations veered between war and negotiation - Song diplomacy seems to have help to manipulate the states to cut down on the threat of a new alliance between these two states.

 The Song had further conflict with the Xi Xia. During one of these wars, the Chinese infantry are said to have begun to use a large sword for killing horses, the zhan ma dao  - also see here.

 The Liao became increasingly settled and apparently unaggressive, so that when their subjects, the Jurchen, revolted the Liao armies rapidly crumbled. The Song tried to take advantage by occupying the land they claimed but this led to war with the Jurchen. This time, the Song lost all of their northern territories. The period before this is therefore known as the Northern Song, the period after as the Southern Song.

 The Jurchen estabished a  new dynasty known as the Chin or Jin (depending on which system you are using). There were a number of wars between Song and Jin including a massive waterbourne assault by the Jurchen across the Yangtze. This was repelled with massive losses and led to most of the remainder of Song-Jin relations being pretty peaceful. Just before the Mongol invasions began, a Song invasion of Jin was defeated and a further invasion in alliance with the Mongols ended up annoying the nomads.

 The Mongol invasion of Song went through several phases, interrupted due to the death of the Khan. The final invasion began with a siege - this webpage has some very useful information about Song armies.


 A major problem with putting together a wargames army for the Song is that 15mm figures covering this dynasty are few and far between. Those which are available are generally based on the WRG 'Armies and Enemies of Ancient China' which is very patchy in its accuracy. Eureka Miniatures has the Song in its '300' club and probably only needs a few more subscribers to reach its magic number. The Song's southern neighbours - the Nanzhao - are also in the '300' club and rumour has it that sculpting is in progress.

 I used mostly 'Grumpy' miniatures available from Eureka and East Riding Miniatures. These are pretty nice figures and easy to paint. They are produced for the Ming and Koreans rather than the Song so I took some liberties and did a bit of conversion.

The cavalry in the picture at the top of this post have very distinctive horse armour which would be nice to see. I made do with unarmoured horses except for a couple of SHQ horses I have. The Central Asian Turkish armoured horses from Outpost are also pretty suitable. I cut away the plumes and flags from the Grumpy cavalry and replaced them with Milliput plumes. Most also have little wings added to the helmets which gives a more Song profile.

 The armour on the figures is textile covered. While appropriate for the Ming, this would seem to have been rare for the Song period or even non-existant. Lamellar or 'mountain pattern' armour would be better.

The flag is homemade. The Chinese had a system which used symbols standing for the five cardinal directions - you can see examples on Wikipedia.

These infantry represent poorly equipped militia with some better equipped troops in front. I use the better ones to represent foot generals.

I also use some of the Grumpy figures with helmets so that I can distinguish regular and irregular troops.

A major feature of the Song army was its use of artillery.
The fire lance troops are conversions from Grumpy figures. Fire lances were apparently popular with  peasants although in an Imperial force they would probably have been better armoured.

The bolt shooter is a double crossbow from Outpost's Tang range.

The man-powered catapults are mostly Donnington - I replaced the arm with a bundle of florists' wire to give the impression of bamboo.

A very useful source for artillery and other aspects of the  later Chinese military is here. Most of the pictures are Ming or later but they draw on earlier texts.

Comparisons of Knights

Here's a comparison between the knights from various companies.

First, the horses. From the left

Legio Heroica, Essex, Mirliton, Black Hat, Alain Touller.

The Touller horses have been redesigned since I bought mine and I haven't seen them.

Again, from the left

Legio Heroica, Essex, Mirliton, Black Hat, Touller

The Black Hat knights aren't quite as versatile as their infantry, being noticeably smaller than other ranges. The Legio figures are a bit taller but it is their bulk which makes them stand out next to other figures. Their shields are just about identical in size to the ones from Mirliton though a little thicker. The Mirliton figure is one of the later ones in this range. Some of the earlier ones are a little smaller though not so much that it couldn't be natural variation. The Essex figure is one of their Spanish range wearing obsolete gear for the mid- to late-13th century.

From some pictures I've seen elsewhere, the Old Glory 'Crusader' range is a pretty good match for size and build of the Mirliton figures. Most of this range carry heater shields more typical of the mid 13th century than the 3rd Crusade. The ones in the 'Holy Order' range have larger shields which are of an earlier form though still more early 13th than late 12th century. The range seems to have a mix of early 13th century 'face mask' helms and mid century full helms. Both of these were found earlier, but full helms in particular seem to have been extremely uncommon pre-1200 and not predominant for another generation or more. The Old Glory figures also have most of the knights on barded horses which were probably uncommon before 1200.

I've used Mirliton figures for my Italians as well as French and German forces which are in progress. I used Touller figures for the Spanish. My current project is a Feudal English army of roughly the time of Simon de Montfort. I've had the urge for a while to paint a few figures bearing the arms of the nobility who held lands close to where I live. I've found even more information than I hoped and so now I shall do a whole army. About a dozen figures done so far so watch this space.

EDIT: Since writing this, Touller are out of production and unlikely to return, Black Hat/Gladiator/Metal Magic have just gone out of production and Legio Heroica are hard to get if at all.

On the positive side, Donnington have a range of 12th and 13th century figures. Mirliton have a range of  14th century figures, most of which will be suitable for the early part of the century. There are a few companies producing STLs for 3d printing though most are designed for 28mm rather than 15mm. They can be scaled but this can result in very fine detail which is harder to pick out. My favourite range is the March to Hell figures though the 13th century Feudal Europe mounted figures are very short in the leg.