"Osprey's "Scots Armies of the English Civil Wars"" Topic

I have the osprey book on the Scottish Armies of the ECW, by Stuart Reid. Recently I found he had also written three other books on the subject before (the "Scots Armies of the 17th Century" series), by Caliver Books. I was wondering, do these books contain any information any information about flags and uniforms not present on the osprey one? Should I buy them?

I'm the other way around – got the 3 Caliver books but not the Osprey, so would be interested to know as well. I imagine the Caliver ones go into far more detail on regimental officers etc than the Osprey.

I own two of the three. Yes, much more information to a level of detail beyond what I needed. Where it is known, the colors and details of the flags are listed. The "Scots Colours" vol.2 is FULL of just flags and regiment details. Uniforms are a bit of a wild guess beyond what is generally known.

I have all three, plus the Osprey. Here is why you should own them…

Osprey – the colour plates are superb and there are several flags in the sidebars but these are reproduced from Reid Vol 1 and Vol 2 below…

Reid Vol. 1 (Partizan) – Descriptions and drawings of early pre-Preston flags (1639-45) prior t the standardization, regimental listing, great black and white sketches (incl a couple of varieties of frame gun), organization of government army – a must for the home guard player (the covenanter armies that fought Montrose).

Reid Vol. 2 (Partizan) – chock full of flags from the later campaigns (1648-1650), infantry and cavalry

Reid Vol. 3 (Partizan) – descriptions of Irish flags (with occasional latin spelling mistake), drawings of Gordon flags, Aberdeen Militia flags, some great line drawings of Royalist troops, a gazeteer of Royalist regiments, a potted history and a couple of essays on highlanders and Irish giving the usual Reid viewpoint.

IMO, if you can stretch that far all 4 are well worth owning.

Very useful information on the contents – thanks, especially elcid. I've now ordered the Partizan vols. 1 and 3 from Amazon s/h as well as the Osprey. They'll be very useful as I'll probably do some more ECW flags to give away on my blog soon; one day perhaps I'll finally get round to painting up my large 15mm ECW armies and I'll need lots of flags then! ;-)

Rather than paying the sometimes crazy prices asked, it's worth hunting around the s/h online sellers regularly to find a copy at a price you are willing to pay as "new" copies do keep popping up. Today I was able to pick up the Partizan vol.3 on the Scots Royalist armies s/h for only 1 penny plus postage. :-)

Cheers,

David
nba-sywtemplates.blogspot.co.uk

Good deal for a penny! It is worth shopping round. I just picked up Edward Fugrols "Regimental history of Covenanting Armies" for 15 quid and am well chuffed .

Yes, I was very pleased with the Vol.3 purchase – although Vol. 1 was much more expensive!

£15.00 GBP for the Furgol sounds excellent value – most places seem to be asking over £40.00 GBP…

Cheers,

David
nba-sywtemplates.blogspot.co.uk

Ouch! Furgol cost me considerably more! Nice find

Stuart Reid's Partizan books are excellent for their source material, especially on Scots flags. But beware of Volume 3. There are lots of mistakes in it IMHO, especially about the irish regiments in Scotland.

Thanks for the comment, 1ngram. Could you list the most important errors you've seen in Vol.3, please? Or would it be too much work? (My copy has not arrived yet.)

Cheers,

David
nba-sywtemplates.blogspot.co.uk

This has been gone into before both here and in ECWN+Q and I don't want to keep going on about it.

But essentially Stuart says the Irish Regiments:
1. had pikes – they didn't. They left them on the boat.
2. dressed like the english – they didn't. They wore a variety of gaelic dress, "cot and trews" probably. He seems to have accepted this in his later books.
3. were not highlanders/redshanks. The sources tell us where they were recruited from and their later history in Ireland under Colkitto.
4. they fought just like lowland regiments. Whether one accepts the "highland charge" thesis or not it is clear from battles in both in Scotland and Ireland (eg Knocknanus) that they advanced at a rush, fired once and then charged straight into the enemy.

Finally no source for the Luke Wadding (proposed) Irish flags I have seen specifies the canton cross as anything other than "an Irish cross". Hayes-McCoy and Gush both think this is a form of Maltese Cross while Stuart Reid and others believe it was a St Andrews Cross. Yet it is definitively stated that the latter is correct and this has(alas)been repeated in a number of subsequent books on the period as a definite fact.

Thanks – that's very helpful.

Cheers,

David
nba-sywtemplates.blogspot.co.uk

1ngram, I think once again you are highlighting points of conjecture. There is very little that could be called definitive when discussing the Irish Brigade. Reid does in fact discuss each if the issues you raise and quotes the evidence he uses to draw his conclusions. Yes he can be an over confident writer considering the scant evidence but that is no different from the confidence you exhibit yourself. I don't always agree with Reid but his arguments are usually well thought out and his selected sources are clear. The only publication if his which had an outright error in it (as opposed to confident conjecture) is the original partisan press wargames pamphlet on Justice Mills 1644. In this he states the Fife regiment was Lord Elcho's. It was in fact Lord Burly's. Once his more rigorous academic career as historian begins he gets far more reliable.

One has to go with what the contemporary sources say, not with what one would like them to say. One only has to remember "hasta longa" and his "short pikes" supposition to see how easy it is to go astray once one leaves the secure footing of the sources. I feel confident only when I can quote the sources which back me up. As an example the recent book on Benburb quotes a contemporary drawing of a battle in Ireland (I don't have the book to hand otherwise I would say which) which has minute flags flying over Irish Confederate regiments which seem to show St Andrews crosses in their cantons. I am thus much less sure about what the "Irish Cross" is than I was twenty odd years ago.

Stuart Reid has indeed written some excellent stuff but he has always suffered from pretty explicit "black holes" throughout (highlanders as "a pretty useless mob of peasant levies from the Western Isles" for example) which, while colourful, often offend against not merely the impartiality we should expect from a historian but, more importantly, the very sources themselves.

Fair comment from 1ngram on Stuart Reid I share the same view.

That said I like his Auldearn book for Osprey. Even then though the subjective bias shows in the language used.

I did not know there was a contemporary drawing of Benburb I would be interested to track it down.

No its not a drawing of Benburb but of another battle in Ireland mentioned in the Benburb book. I've lent out my copy of the book and until I get it back (next tuesday)I can't recall which battle it is.

Cheers 1ngram.

Well put 1ngram. I fully agree with what you are saying and don't want to come across as a Stuart Reid apologist. It's just that having read many of the primary sources used to piece the details together I am aware how much room there is for informed speculation. As to his views on highlanders – that shows a clear negative bias – maybe he was bullied at school by a gaelic speaker from Ullapool?

Canton crosses on Irish flags. The Benburb book shows part of a contemporary print of the siege of Duncannon fort in 1645 by the Confederate Leinster army under Thomas Preston. There is a flag in amongst the body of Confederate soldiers.
It has a St Andrews cross in the canton not a Maltese cross.

Thank you all very much! I'll order them as soon as I can.

Jeeze all this wants me to find some bangers and mash. WHY DO I LIVE IN THE F FFFFF USA???? I mean whats the point of living in this historically.. oh nevermind.

I've just picked up the Osprey "Scottish Armies of the ECW" and was slightly surprised by the controversy surrounding Reid's views.

I note he states of the Scottish infantry that none wore armour (apart from some halberdier detachments formed 1647). Most figure ranges seem to include armoured and unarmoured pikemen. I've read elsewhere that infantry armour was less common and/or fell into disuse more quickly than might previously been thought. Is there any consensus as to when Scottish pikemen may last have worn armour?

He also states that musket rests weren't used after 1639/40 – elsewhere I've seen comments that in the ECW generally their use might have lasted longer than previously thought, what is current thinking here?

Both this Osprey and the ECW artillery volume mention the Scottish frame guns. Can anyone recommend a good source for illustrations of these to get an idea of their overall size?