"Karl X bodyguard" Topic

I'm trying to find more about the guard units of the Swedish king Karl X Gustav. From what I've gathered, he had in his employ both his cavalry "Garde du corps" (with its two companies of Germans and Swedes) and a foot "Kungl Majt's Livgarde till fots", besides some Drabants armed with Halberds/Partisans. Is that right? Also, would his cavalry "Garde du corps" wear uniforms? And about his foot Livgarde and Drabants, are their uniforms known?

EDIT: While searching for information about his drabants, I found this picture:

The model seems to be carrying a poleweapon very similar to this, which seems to be the one carried by Karl X's drabants:
link

Is this really a accurate model of Karl X Gustav Drabants?

The Garde du Corps was a single company led by Mörner, it was formed by using the existing Drabants as the core of the new unit. The "Leibkompanie zu Ross"/"Leibkompanie zu Pferd" was a separate company enlisted in Germany and was commanded by Von Fersen.

The Cermonial weapon of the Drabants was the partizan, the model seems to have a reproduction or even an original of the 1654 pattern.

Daniel, is the uniform of the model also right for Karl X's drabants? And would the Garde du Corps and the Leibkompanie zu Ross have any distinction in their dress from the "buff coat and cuirass" of the regular swedish cavalry? Perhaps hat lace?

I found one engraving which seems to show some halberd-carrying drabants in cassocks with a royal cypher in their backs (However, it's not colored. Are the colors of the model above right?):

And in this link ( TMP link ), Travellera mentions pale blue as the coat color of the foot guards.

However, I still haven't been able to find anything about the dress of the horse guards. Would they dress the same way as the regular swedish cavalry?

Without knowing which style of clothing they are trying to recreate on the model it is impossible to comment on it's accuracy. The wool colour seems modern however but it could be due to the camera or even they way the photo is displayed on diffrent monitors.

It could be that they are attempting to recreate the dress worn by the drabants at the coronation in 1654. That year the drabants were issued with open French style breeches as seen on the model, they had buffcoats with velvet sleeves (a buffcoat seems to be showing close to the neck and a "kappa". The later is a difficult word because it is used both for an ordinary cloak as well as for other garments. In this case the drabants were actually wearing a sleeveless tabard. If the models is intended to show the 1654 cornonation uniform the colour is wrong and there is too little decoration on the tabard and the breeches. The breeches alone had almost 19 metres of gold braid while the Tabard had an additional 20 metres.

The colour of the wool cloth used for the tabard and breeches was "blommerant", Swedish for " bleu-mourant" and the velvet sleeves of the buff coat was the same colour. Also the stockings were yellow, not white with red decorations.

The dress worn in the field is extremly hard to trace. However we do know that the Garde du Corps recieved black clothing in Krakow 1656 and both Dahlberg and Kurck refers to the horse guards as "black coats". However it is not clear if they are speaking only about the Garde du Corps or are refering to the Leibkompanie zu Pferd as well. (Terminology used in letters is very sloppy and both companies had 3-4 alternate names each)

The Foot Guardswas issued cloth for new uniforms in Stralsund 1655, the issue was made up of diffrent qualities of blue and yellow cloth but what kind of clothes it was made into is not clear. Some of the cloth was only fit for use as lining, my personal interpretation is that the uniforms were blue with yellow lining since this fits well with the instructions from the Autumn of 1656 when the Foot Guards were to be issued blue wool cloth together with as much yellow cloth for lining as was needed.

Thank you very much for the info, Daniel! By the way, I found it curious that the horse guards had coats, instead of the buff coats of the regular cavalry!

As for the 1654 coronation uniform of the drabants, would they have the Royal Cypher on the back of their tabards, like in the engraving I posted?

Again, thank you very much! It was being extra hard to find something about those uniforms even on google books! (:

They could have had buffcoats as well, the black coats could have been worn over the the buff coat. And we don't know how widespread the use of the buff coat was among the regular/native cavalry.

That's true! But in that case, wouldn't the buffcoats be worn over the black coats, like the 1670s french cavalry?

What is your source for the French wearing the coat under the buffcoat? I have no images of that being done in my collection though the coverage of French troops is far from perfect. Asa rule the buff coat is either worn alone or under the now fairly large coat. To be effective and easy to wear and fight in a buff coat needs a close fit and wearing a wool coat underneath would impair mobility in the arms. The buff coat would also be exposed to the weather. While the occasional rain shower is not a problem the buff coat will soak up water like a sponge in rainy weather and takes forever to dry. A wool coat or cloak worn over it provides much needed protection.

My mistake, Daniel. After looking at my notes and bookmarks, I realized I mistook the buff colored coats of the 1670s french cavalry for buffcoats being worn over the normal coats! x_x
(The only real reference to buffcoats being worn over the colored coats I found in this site: link . However, it seems clear now that most cavalrymen would not have worn their buffcoats like that )

And Daniel, do you know If Karl X Gustav's drabants would have had his royal Cypher on the back of their tabards during the 1654 coronation? (Like in the picture)

No cyphers mentioned on the 1654 uniforms but such things were not always recorded in the Royal Wardrobe accounts. Cyphers did appear in some form on the cassocks that were issued in 1656 (But those were only issued to the men in Stockholm)

And what were the 1656 uniforms like? And if only the drabants that remained in Stockholm got the new uniforms, the ones that accompanied Karl X in the war would still have the old 1654 uniforms, at least in theory, right?

Daniel, besides cyphers on cassocks, do you know how were the 1656 uniforms like?

Keep in mind that these were cermonial uniforms and therefore not for everyday wear, often such cermonial dress was the property of the Royal Wardrobe rather than belonging to the drabant. Other clothing was issued for everyday wear. A good example of this is the escort sent accompany Hedvig Eleonora to Sweden for her marriage to Karl X and her cornonation as queen. The drabants were issued with a cermonial uniforms similar to 1654 cornonation uniform but without buff coat. They also had traveling clothes made up of doublet, breeches and cloak, all made of grey wool.

There is no record of the 1654 uniform being used by drabants escorting the King during the Polish war but there is also no record of them not having it… Simply impossible to tell due to a lack of evidence. In theory 1656 uniforms could have been made for men in Poland as well but again the records are silent. Images of Drabants during Polish war show only coats and ordinary clothing but are made much later so have very limited value as sources.

Daniel, is there any other records of the everyday coats of the drabants during Karl X reign, other than the grey clothes of Hedvig Eleonora's Escort? Also, would the Garde du Corps/ Leibkompanie have had cerimonial uniforms other than the black coats?

I found this very interesting link ( link ). The drabants in the second post seem to have dark coats, with yellow spcks and sash (jugding from the man between the two leftmost halberds)

Engravings and paintings made later in 1680s and 1690s for the most part. Some from 1670s

I know, but dont they have some historical value? D: The dress of the royal bodyguard probably wouldn't be forgotten so easilly… And they don't se em to be Karl XI drababts, at least according to their description in my scanian war book (Also, they have yellow stockings, like the 1654 drabants!)

You make the misstake of assuming that there was any interest in portraying the 1650's uniforms to begin with. There wasn't, 17th C viewers was not in the least bothered by having events portrayed in contemporary dress including plausible fictional uniforms.

Lemke who painted the battle paintings which can be seen in the link started working for the Swedish court in 1683m, before that he had never set foot in Sweden. He had never seen the soldiers of the Deluge period since he was in Italy from 1653 to 1673. Military uniforms are all in 1680's style with the odd adjustment of details to fit events such as colour of field sign or in the case of the drabants the black uniforms that Dahlberg described. (But on the painting used as year earlier than they were issued)

The paintings have some historical value but only for general information about the shape and cut of military dress in Sweden during 1680's and only when carefully used together with written sources. Their value for the study of military dress during the 1650's is zero and their use in older works has aldreay damaged the study of the period due to the errors introduced that way.

Thank you for explaining, Daniel! So the only accurate artwork for the military dress of Karl X period would be the engravings by Erik Dahlbergh, right?

Those are of very limited value as far as the study of military dress is concerned as well since Dahlberg did not witness a lot of events he drew and he did not decide the final apperance of the soldiers. The engravers did that. Which is why troops look diffrent in the 1st engraving of the battle of Warsaw (engraved 1668 in Paris) compared to 2nd and 3rd engravings made in 1689 in Stockholm. There is one or two platse that were engraved just after the war that have some value but again they were engraved by men far from the actual events. Battle of Golab plate is one but without my notes I can't recall the other.

Had Dahlbergs original drawings survived those would have been of much greater value, particularly those of events he did see with his own eyes.

Got it! Thank you, Daniel.

On the subject of Karl X Gustav troops, from what I understood of this forum ( link ), there was another uniform regulation after the 1655 one (but before the 1670s regulations of Karl XI), in 1656. Is that true?

To anyone interested in the subject, I found this ( blogg.tacitus.nu/?p=826 ) great post at the Tacitus blog, which answered my last question (: