Friday 4 December 2009

Scots










Between 1418 and 1436, the Armagnac faction of the Dauphin Charles, sought to renew ‘the auld alliance’ and recruit Scots to bolster the fighting against the English and Burgundians. This was despite the fact that James I of Scotland was still captive in England, as he had been since 1406. Around 5,000 Scots were involved in campaigns, contributing to the French success at Bauge, but suffering heavy casualties at Cravant in 1423 and Verneuil the following year, after which their numbers and importance don’t appear to have recovered.
This first contingent are spearmen, continuing the tradition of the Scots ‘schiltron’. However in the first quarter of the fifteenth century they had a mix of arms. It appears that higher numbers of archers were recruited, presumably to deliberately counter the English longbows.
These Perrys have been painted by Jim Bowen (with 3 added by me, as I realised when basing up that I’d miscalculated how many I needed!), many of them bear the Scottish ‘saltire’ badge, although I decided to have them fighting under a French flag.
Scots archers and men at arms to follow.

2 comments:

Christopher(aka Axebreaker) said...

They look very nice!Nice shade of blue as well.

Cheers
Christopher

Sire Godefroy said...

Nice idea to have the Scots portrayed as still using some kind of schiltron.
I keep coming back to your site because there's always a fair bit of inspiration. :-)

Cheers
SG