"Brown Coat Color" Topic

I've looked a little but not found an answer. Did any regiments where a brown coat? What about black? I picked up some painted figs in these colors and was just curious.

Thanks

Black was an expensive dye, and not found that frequently among ECW regimental coat colours.

IIRC a Scottish Covenanter regiment had black coats, the material donated by Scottish clergy with which it had connections. And one of Newcastle's Northern Royalist (Conyer's I think) regiment's had black coats; again because of its connections with Durham Cathedral. (So at least one of Newcastle's lambs was the black sheep).

As for brown: Scottish 'hodden grey' could come in many shades, including brownish-grey.

I'm sure others, with more knowledge, will chip in.

Thanks for the info. I like the idea of a norther royalist unit associated with Durham Cathedral, that makes sense. I would agree that the hodden grey could be this color, but this is not a Scottish but an English regiment. I might dry brush a faded yellow over it and see if I can save a lot of re painting and use it as a dull yellow coated unit…we'll see.

We do hear of "The Queen's black regiment under Colonel Blackwell" ( link ) but as the BCW wiki says, this may refer only to their flags.

For the clerical Scots regiment, see link

Can't think of any brown regiments, other than the hodden grey Covenanter coats.

Black – only the possibility of the Ministers' Regiment (as linked to above).

No definitive English references to black coats: not heard or seen the Conyer's in black reference; Blackwell's and River's often claimed to be black Regiments, both had black colours, no known coat colours for Blackwell, River's had blue or red (Peachey and Prince)

I expect you could change the brown coats to tawney without too much work.

Timmo has the right of it!

Digging in a little bit more, what about the russet colored coat of Thomas Grantham's regiment?

Yup, that would be another relatively easy option.

Referring to the royalist attack on Tadcaster in Dec 1642, Fairfax mentions that one of the two regiments involved in the assault had black coats.The other, described as Newcastle's 'life guard ' wore red coats, implying that it was other regiments (from Northumberland and Durham)in the Northern Royalist army that wore the later-to-be-famous white coats.

[See: The Fairfax Correspondence.]

Thanks 4D for the reference

A brown coat may be a civilian coat if the regiment was experiencing supply (or financial)difficulties and you can use the figures for that. Quite often the 'colours' referred to the flag only. Russet would probably be good brownish colour but black as has been said would be unusual as due to the cost which I believe involved iron in the dye.

Pretty sure there were regiments in brown coats – certainly I have seen ECW re-enactors in brown (or russet). Try here:
link