"WSS Dutch Guards" Topic

Hall's new plates show the Dutch Guards as having Yellow cuffs, facings, waistcoats and pants.

Condray and Grant say they are Red cuffs and facing, Blue waistcoat, White pants.

Anyone know who's correct?

Here is a link to a Dutch re-enactment group of the "Blue Guards" dating to the WSS period. They show the red cuffs. If they are Dutch re-enactors they may have an inside track.

link

One possibility is that there could have been more than one regiment of Dutch Foot Guards. I do not have access to my reference material as I am writing this but will check this evening and will post if I find anything.

The yellow facings seem rather odd. Could they be the result of an error in the printing process ? From what I have read, the Dutch Foot Guards originally wore blue coats lined orange as those were the colors of the livery of the House of Orange. After William's death in 1702, the Guards appear to have switched to blue coats lined red (with white stocking), blue red and white being the colors of the United Provinces. Wagner certainly gives the regiment in blue coats with red cuffs and linings for the WSS.

I just don't know. I just ordered and received the new Hall Plates for Ramilles, and the "Dutch Guards" are clearly known Blue Coats with Yellow facing/cuffs.

The new painted figures on Bryan Phillips site are also the Blue/Red.

Also, Hall shows the Guards' grenadiers with Bearskin hats.

Does the Hall plate indicate its sources ?

The bearskins seem even stranger to me than the yellow facings, as Dutch grenadiers normally wore cloth caps with stiffened or metal fronts.

Don't have it in front of me, but I will post those when I get home.

Hall has the following info on the Plate NL02

Netherlands: IR Dutch Guards & IR Nassau-Usingen (pictures of both)

On the original Plate for the "Dutch Guards", the all the Pants/Facings/Waistcoat/Cuffs are all Yellow (you could squint and call the Waistcoat and Pants a Yellow-Orange, but only if you squint).

Source: Belaubre, Golberg, de Wilde, Sapherson

I think there may be confusion regarding guards, grenadiers and fusiliers. Every source I have seen gives the Dutch Foot Guards Blue coats, with orange or yellow orange cuffs, waistcoats, breeches and stockings. This is during the reign of William III. Later in the WSS, there is a change from red or vermillion cuffs and to white stockings. The blue coat remains.

But I don't know.

There are very few sources, and very many errors.

I once had the incredible luxury and pleasure of haunting the Austrian Army Museum in Vienna for nearly a week. It was staggering seeing the contrast between the few and fragile, poor condition displays from the WSS era, compared to the many excellent specimens from the SYW.

My solution has been to gather the likely/plausible sources, then pick the most aesthetically satisfying in context of the whole army. Not scientific, but science will never be able to answer all of our questions of such minutiae.

Orange was a difficult colour to achieve consistently prior to 19th Century advances in dyeing technology (IIRC, one of the reasons the United Provinces switched to red-white-blue). In earlier ages it could vary from a yellow ochre to light brown in a military context – certainly that was the case with the British 35th Foot at various times during the 18th Century.

I have emailed Robert Hall. I will see what he says.

P. Kannik (Uniforms of the World) lists the Dutch Guards as having Blue coats with Orange facings for the War of the League of Augsburg (1688-1697), and that sometime after (1702 and the death of William III?), they switched to Blue with red facings.

In the later WSS, they definitely went to Blue and Red. C.P. Goldberg also lists their uniforms as Blue with Red facings. But in the Hall images included in the Osprey images on the Boyne (and in the Ramilles series prints), the Dutch Guards have yellow facings.

I think the yellow comes from a contemporary print as seen in the Vinkhuizen collection – and this may be a faded orange, as Supercilius suggests. They used vegtable based dyes in those days, so lord only knows what the uniforms look like aftr a couple of compaigns. Personnelly, I apply Blue with Red Facings for War of Spanish Succession, and Blue with Orange facings for League of Augsburg period – but lighten the orange. Scan the link below and you can see some of the uniform changes for the period

link

I think the Robert Hall plate shows them in orange it is washed out in the printing process, as for grenadier in a fur hat that comes from a tapestry, I do not have my Marlbourough's army Osprey in front of me a quick scan of the black and white prints plus look at the descriptions will find it. I think this is a unit u could do in red or orange facings, neither would be wrong. After all red fades dependant on dye used would depend what colour it fades to.
Also as I have done Dutch Swiss and Walloons in blue cost with red facings doing them with orange facings makes them stand out.
Let us know what Robert Hall says.

From Robert Hall:
I used as a basis the reconstructions of the uniforms of 1688 done in Armamentaria #23 and said to be based on drawings existing there as well as references in England to the "yellow guards".
Belaube/Golberg say blue/red and quote a print in the National Library at Paris. I take it that Sapherson, with whom I corresponded on the matter, followed them and Kühn certainly did.
The Gerpines list merely states "blue".
Lawson, vol.I, says blue with yellow/orange for 1691, saying that orange was reserved for the guards and cites a print in the Dutch War Ministry which I assume to be the one cited by Armamentaria.
It would therefore appear to have been a deep yellow, perhaps originally orange.

I am afraid I have not seen either of the quoted prints to judge for myself whether red or yellow but assuming the authors of the Armamentaria article were closest to the source I took their version although I tend to agree with Lawson that, even if perhaps yellow now, it was originally intended to be a shade of orange but that would be speculation.

I have to decided to paint their facing orange. How often to you get to paint that color?

Duke,
Thanks for posting reply, I am sticking to orange as per the Osprey and make them different to others as mentioned above, orange is the Dutch colour so seems most likely to me.

Robert Hall also cites the same source for the Fur Grenadier hat.

Need help. I found a picture of my deceased father in a uniform with a tall, somewhat rounded fur cap. He always mentioned being in the Royal Dutch Navy as a young man, but my brother found a website that showed a sketch of a uniform very similar to the one he's wearing in the picture, and the uniform is referenced as being that of a Dutch Grenadier. Only when I Google Dutch Grenadiers, all of the articles are about what happened in the 1800's. This picture is from the mid-40's to early 50's. Are the Dutch Grenadiers still around and would they still have been wearing stuff like that inthe 40's & 50's?