Drummond and Lawers Horse

Lawer’s Horse

Raised later than its associated foot regiment, it’s routmaster was Sir Mungo Campbell.  It joined its parent regiment on the march south with Callanders army in June 1644.  No record of its activities in England remain.

It was intended to be amalgamated with Hamilitons horse, but remained independent, serving in close association with the infantry through 1644 and 45.  At Auldearn they formed the right flank screening Cambells foote in their assault on the Village.  They were outnumbered and routed by Gordons charge. After serving through Auldearn and Alford, the troop was put on the same pay footing as Hamilton and Balcarres Horse in recognition of its experience.  However, by late summer it had been recruited up to full strength and amalgamated into Hamilton’s Horse.

Drummond’s Horse

Routmaster Henry Drummond raised his troop in April 1644 for service with the Army of the Solemn League and Covenant.  It served closely with Campbell of Lawer’s troop, both in England and once it returned to the northeast.  Both troops were brigaded together at Auldearn, presumably due to their small size.  They formed the right flank to the head of Hurrys advancing force, but sat on the flank of the Seaforths Highlanders.  When Aboyne's Horse attacked they attempted to wheel to counter but swung the wrong direction getting entangled with Seaforth, then fell back disordered into Lothian and the Lord Chancellors regiments. As with Lawer’s, the troop was amalgamated into Hamilton’s Horse later in the summer.

The flag is pure conjecture - there being no record of the original.  That being said I tried to use traditional motifs (cross-swords, thistles and covenant slogan) and chose a green back ground in contrast to the the red of the other unit (Halkett's).  I will probably do another standard specifically for Lawer's troop.

This will probably be the last post for a while as I'm working on the Northern levies just now and it's going at a snails pace.

Covenanter Cavalry 5: Flags and Stuff

March has been a busy month at work and the painting has been stopped as I've dug into motifs for the Covenanters standards.  Although at first pass their seems to be a lot of info on the Covenanters standards from those captured at Dunbar, Inverkeithing, Worcester and Preston - none of them really tie to the regiments at Auldearn.  So had to be a bit creative within the realms of historical accuracy.  That being said, I'll document the logic when the regiments are fully painted and written up.

In the meantime here's the first cav unit based up waiting for their colours.

The following image shows some work in progress on the rest of the standards - pretty daunting at first but a wee change from Little Big Mans.

Off to Rio so unit should be done in two weeks.

Covenanter Cavalry 4

Unit finished - only got the standard to paint and then the bases to do.  Once that is done I'll get some proper shots taken - but can't really knock the utility of the old IPhone!

Going to be a bit tricky getting the spacing right due to the officers sword.  Back row sits nicely though.

Covenanter Cavalry 3

Some more of the troopers.  Back row will be swords at the ready, front the command and charging types.

Covenanter Cavalry 2

Some work in progress on the cavalry.  Should be another half dozen along soon - hopefully have the whole unit done by the end of the month.  I'll do a write up of the regiment then - will have to be creative with the flag unfortunately - going to be harder painting on something a quarter the size of the infantry.

This will be an officer for one of the command vignettes. I really like the tone on this horse, doesn't really do it justice.  The plaid is the same as on the Lord Chancellors regiment.

Bit to much reflected flash. These are the real thing though - good front rank cavalry, especially the two with swords raised "gerrintaethem".  Black horses not to my cup of tea - the triad makes them too grey.  Think I might have the solution though, a black ink wash (see trooper on the lefts boots) darkens it all up again, whilst retaining some of the form.

Covenanter Cavalry 1

Been a while since anything has been posted and even longer since it was relevant to the blog. However, now back into the swing of things and looks as if I'll have a good run at it for a while with only a few distractions. The photo below is a "good-faith" work in progress shot of all the "cuddies" for the covenanter cavalry. It's been a bit of a trial to get variety in colour and learn to paint them ala Foundry but I think they came out okay. My biggest problem is painting horses in batches of 6, so I mixed them up with some dark age stuff to make sure I got plenty variety of colours. This resulted in 19 Covenanter horses, plus 9 arab, 6 dark age scot's and 7 norman nags too!

My cohort in India has picked up his paints too, so some more Irish are in the offing. Rumour has it he might be moving to a new location so we can only wait to see if Montrose and Baillie finally get to grips!!