"WotR mercenaries - livery" Topic

Just getting into the period and bought some boxes of the Perrys figures. There are refs to various mercenaries in the books I've read to date:
Scots
Irish
Burgundian
French
Breton
German/Swiss (only at Stoke Field?)

Would these be kitted out in the livery of their employer and march under his banners?
Are there any others that I've missed please?

I don't think we can know for sure but my Perry Miniatures German mercenaries representing those who fought for the Earl of Lincoln at Stoke Field in 1487 wear yellow and blue jackets which were his livery colours. I gave them a Burgundian flag as they were paid for by Margaret of Burgundy. They go nicely with Lincoln's retinue bow, men at arms and billmen many of whom wear yellow and blue livery jackets too.

The Irish at that battle I just left in their native clothing.

As Alan says we cannot know for sure, but my view is that mercenaries who were individually employed would wear the livery of their employer, but mercenaries who were hired as a group would wear their own livery (e.g. Burgundian handgunners) if they had it. Of course not all mercenary groups would have had their own livery.

Irish would have distinctively Irish clothing, not available in this Perry box.

Others are right, paint your continental mercenaries any way you want. Countries didn't have specific colors and specific look to them that was different from England. Only Irish, because of their geographical location, still had their native look to them.

I used Gripping Beast Irish. They fit in perfectly.

Many thanks – I've got some 100YW Irish from I think it Crusader though unfortunately there is no great variety in the poses.

Interesting point re troops employed en bloc – though I suppose the thing with liveries in general was, was there in effect pre-battle recognition classes? ("look out for these, boys, they're the enemy") – obviously at various battle s there were issues of misrecognition of banners/livery devices.

Whilst from a distance its easy to know that that lot there are the enemy, quite how in swirling melee you knew who was who – esp for those in a full helmet with limited visibility i wonder how much it was case of anyone in front of me is going to get hit! Relatively easy if one is say all red and the other white and blue but if both retinues in that part of the field had similar colour patterns re their liveries, i assume there was no alternate strip if two sides with white and blue lined up against each other (or a gentlemen's arrangement to move one or the other)
And if you were mercenaries turning up in another livery again that would be unfamiliar to everyone.

Yes an interesting point. At the 1st battle of St Albans and at Wakefield the Duke of York's men in blue and white fought the Duke of Somerset's men also in blue and white. However the colours were reversed, York's boys had blue on the sword side of their livery jackets, Somerset's lads had white on that side. There were badges to tell the two sides apart too, a falcon in a fetterlock for York, a portcullis for Somerset.

How often mistakes were made and how much time you had to check on the arrangement of colours on those chaps approaching and what badge that fellow is wearing is anybody's guess. At least one mistake certainly did happen; Barnet 1471 but that was due to the fog and similar flags. Oxford's men wearing a sort of orangey red blundered into Montague's troops wearing red and black. Oxford's flag of a star with streams was mistaken for Edward IV's flag of a radiant sun resulting in the Lancastrians mistakenly fighting each other leading to their defeat.

My Burgundian crossbow skirmishers are in the blue and white of their native country, even though they fight for my blue and murray-ed Edward IV, Hastings &c.

My Burgundian crossbow skirmishers

Crossbows? The Burgundians had handguns at 2nd St Albans in 1461, so not very likely to be equipped wirth crossbows.

But yeah, my Burgundian handgunners are in blue and white.

IIRC mercs were usually employed during WotR during a desperate foray a last throw of the die so to speak i.e. Stoke. I suspect the employer had more on his mind than supplying uniforms. So badges or homegrown colours perhaps?

Possibly but Burgundy was rich, the expedition to England was properly planned and financed with a reasonable chance of success so I would've expected them to wear livery jackets and / or badges.

The fact is we don't know so who can say if the troops depicted look right or wrong?

Well, accounts of the later war say that European mercenaries were employed with crossbows as skirmishers; they were needed to give my Yorkists more troops, so I painted them in Burgundian colours rather than in those of one of the French captains on the Lancastrian side.

Thanks again for the above – in the fury of battle one would not want to have a sudden memory loss – "are we blue and white – or white and blue?" – or be colour blind!

Hi i!m collecting a French MAA/ crossbow company . The perry box art says the French used a red jacket and white cross! Or Blue jacket with white cross and red trim. My philosophy isthe troops will bein the livery jacket of country of origin . Any thoughts. Cheers

Hi i!m collecting a French MAA/ crossbow company.

Where and in what historical context are you planning to use these guys?

There is nothing I've found the comes close to the Lance And Longbow Society and its publications for help in these areas.

But as people keep saying there is nothing out their as yet that confirms or denies the actual livery worn if at all?

As for crossbows these appear on the muster rolls for the Cinque ports along with pavise..

As for crossbows these appear on the muster rolls for the Cinque ports along with pavise..

Muster rolls for the Cinque ports (and other places) relate to the armed men available for the defence of the location. They would rarely, if ever, be deployed on the battlefield.

Muster rolls for the Cinque ports (and other places) relate to the armed men available for the defence of the location. They would rarely, if ever, be deployed on the battlefield.

That's quite an assumption to make, MajB. Were not muster rolls related to commissions of array?

That's quite an assumption to make, MajB. Were not muster rolls related to commissions of array?

Yes, muster rolls are related to commissions of array. However commissions of array were not exclusively to do with raising a field army. Mostly they were concerned with local defence.

Hmm … I need to qualify what I said in my last post. A "Commission of Array" was a letter sent to a number of individuals "commissioning" them to raise troops (usually) to defend the realm against either invasion or rebellion. Commissions might also be used to raise troops for foreign campaigns. The individual recipients would then use whatever resources they had to fulfill the commission. This might mean using their own retinue troops (if they had any) or alternatively passing the commission "down the chain" to other local leaders. Incidentally, this is why we still refer to "commissioned " officers. Originally, an officer was commissioned to raise a military force (even as late as the Napoleonic period).

A muster roll, was simply a list of those who presented themselves at a muster of arms. Such a muster might be in response to a commission of array, but not necessarily so. So yes they were related, but the existence of a muster roll does not always imply a corresponding commission of array.