"ECW personal standards" Topic

Other than the King, did senior field commanders, such as Prince Rupert, Essex, Hopton or Waller have personal standards accompany them on the battlefield, and if so, where can I find information on them?

Yes, they had their own cornets that may have been carried before them or with their lifeguard.

I've gleaned info over many years from many places. For example, IIRC Waller's is in Haythornthwaite.

Around 1977 Military Modelling magazine ran a series of articles on ECW flags, illustrated by Tony Barton (AB Miniatures), these articles are still very useful and I'd recommended trying to get a sight of them.

I can't think of one single volume thought that has all you want. ECW infantry flags are rather easier to recommend a single book for.

Two types to consider here,

First was the standard, which was a big 18-foot long thing probably set up on a flag pole stuck in the ground. The King had one (raised at Nottingham in 1642 and promptly fell down in a storm) and Prince Rupert had one (mostly black with the arms of the Palatinate etc, at Marston Moor and Leicester iirc). There's no mention as far as I know of any other Generals having something similar.

The other type is the cavalry cornet, and a matter of debate as whether you'd consider it a personal standard. Most generals had a troop of Lifeguard cavalry, often sort of semi-attached to their own cavalry regiment. Each troop of horse had their own cornet, so the Lifeguard troop' s cornet could also be viewed as the General's personal standard.

As for sources, the old Mil Mod ones are v useful. There's a very weighty (and correspondingly expensive) tome called the 'Index Emblematicus' link that shows the known flags with emblems. There are a bunch spread throughout various Partizan Press and Stuart Press publications and persistent rumours that someone is writing the definitive book on the subject……

PS. I'm hoping to get at least written descriptions of cavalry cornets up online at the BCW Regimental Wiki wiki.bcw-project.org/start but realistically it'll be a while before we get that far. All volunteers gratefully accepted of course! ;-)

Brilliant project. Really looking forward to seeing this develop.

There are also recorded personal flags for Skippon and Fairfax at least with other standards being attributed to regiments that may be personal standards. It is about time someone published a decent book on the subject

We have had this thread at the tail end of last year,

There is a record of various generals having personal standards, they belonged to there troop/life guard,

As a wargamer I have used cornets and trumpeter on a generals stands to improves the look of the stand.

As they were only about 2ft square,with 28mm figs it makes them about 10mm square.
I would always go over size on them.