"Wars of the Roses skirmish cavalry" Topic

I was having a conversation about skirmish cavalry and whether they were used in the Wars of the Roses . As far as I knew there were no real dedicated skirmish cavalry types ( other than perhaps the border horse) however, this is not my period so I was hoping that some of the people who know more than I do can perhaps correct me.

Were skirmish cavalry deployed during the Wars of the Roses

"Light" cavalry in the WOTR were known as scourers or prickers. They were not really "light" horse in that they could actually be quite heavily armed and armoured. They did not fight in the line of battle:

"‘There was an enhanced need for troops of light horse – "scourers" (also termed "aforeriders" or "prickers") to protect the flanks of footmen and waggons, and maintain contact between columns, as well as watching enemy movements and reconnoitring objectives.'" (Anthony Goodman)

Perry has a nice plastic set of lighter cavalry for this use. They can be equipped as mounted archers, crossbowmen or lancers. In practice the archers and crossbowmen would not fire from the saddle. There is a set of WOTR mods for Lion Rampant that I use. LR does not do mounts and dismounts so the mounted archers end up being a fragile set of dragoons. The prickers are good for clearing up a broken unit, but not something you would use to break a line.

The Border Horse were the nearest but I must also point out that mounted longbowmen – known as hobilar archers were used in the 14th century and may have served the same purpose.

The Border Horse may have served in Margaret of Anjou's army which swept south to 2nd St Albans – looting all the way by most accounts – and they may also account for Margaret's ability to outflank the Yorkists at 2nd St Albans and 'roll them up'.

Remember also that hobilars, prickers, scourers and staves also functioned in a skirmish role and we have mentions of 'afore riders' and 'behind riders' in The Arrival of Edward IV which is an account of his 1471. This may be the same 200 cavalry which then staged the surprise ambush at Tewkesbury which hit Somerset in the flank.

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Barry

>> LR does not do mounts and dismounts so the mounted archers end up being a fragile set of dragoons.

Sensing impotence here- surely it's not difficult to add a rule; say half a move to dismount/mount and disordered until next bound, then foot can advance/shoot formed etc.

Horseholders in rear~100mm or whatever safe move away.

Not that big a deal to modify rules to suit what in reality was probably a common feature.
Not that I'm any kind of expert on this period… but I've been known to make rules work,
cheers dave

With the figure and ground scale so small in LR you have to separate 'strategic manoeuvre' from 'tactical manoeuvre'. The troops are too close together for mounted crossbowmen to chop and change with any real benefit on the field. They really would not work unless perhaps you were doing an ambush scenario catching enemy troops on the march and they started off mounted…
I had exactly the same thought process for my Jersey mini campaign c.1460.