Edward III and Philip VI

 

For my post this month and final for the year I’ve done two command bases depicting the Kings of England and France for the early Crecy era part of the 100yw. 

 They’re both by Claymore and are up to their usual standards of quality. The 100 yw is reasonably well covered in the later period (because Agincourt), but for the earlier period it’s thin on the ground. So its credit to Claymore that their one of the few manufacturers building a broad range in this area.

It was fun doing these even though obvious what you have to do in terms of painting, the coats of arms are always a challenge for me. However in each case I found it was actually fun having a stab at them, and my results weren’t unreasonable. With the more complex examples like Edward III I was able to do shapes that kind of looked broadly in the right ballpark and used armour or straps to help me mask the fact my painting is far from first class. Part of the joy of painting miniatures with their proper coats of arms is that it really brings out the vibrancy and colour of the medieval world, which is often overlooked in modern interpretations of the era.  

  

From left Edward III, his standard bearer John Beuchamp de Warwick, the standard bearer for Philip VI Sire de Hangest and Philip VI himself.

 

 

The banners and shield transfers all came from Claymore, but are done by Flags of war. They've got really vibrant colours and look amazing once they're on the miniatures. I haven't made them interchangable given I won't be using the banners on other miniatures.

Rear view of the English King. You can incidentally go and view his tomb and indeed likeness in Westminster Abbey

Philip VI, I particularly like the details of the crown on the helmet it adds an interesting feature to the miniature.

The men themselves are more complicated characters. Philip the VI often tends to get associated with his defeat at Crecy, but this is unfair. He was actually fairly canny fighting the English and avoided fighting with them, but it wasn’t ultimately enough to protect his kingdom. While the achievements of Edward III were ultimately undone by Charles V, the damage inflicted by England and other opportunists meant France at various points came perilously close to collapse. The strife of its civilian population, particularly at the hands of the routiers (be they English or French), would have been horrific and it must have been disorienting for the nobility who must have wondered if their kingdom would survive at all. Ultimately though the English never found a way to land a knockout blow on the French and eventually had their own internal problems to resolve, which left the French with the breathing room they needed to put their country back together again. So Edward III only lasting territorial legacy was really limited to Calais, which isn't much considering what he'd initially won.

French mounted men at arms

 

Having not done a post for some time I wanted to showcase a unit I’ve been working on intermittently for the last few months.

I managed to produce a unit of French cavalry, these are heavily armoured so are full blooded men at arms. They’re all Perry mostly plastics with a few metal figures included for variety. It was fun painting them, with the various armour styles and options you could have a lot of fun experimenting with painting. I will in time add more specific commands, which will mean attempting my hated coats of arms, but it needs to be done in HYW armies alas. 

Cavalry command, in this instance depicting Poton de Xaintrailles though the banners are interchangable.

In this instance I’ve done them with generic clothing so they could be any commander, though have attempted to make them look more continental with jupons and loose sleeved items of clothing. I’ve not gone in for too much in the way of patterns, though have done a little to bring them to life a bit. This is more to do with the limitations of my painting ability, I can manage simple patterns and quartering for instance, but would struggle with full blown coats of arms. In reality of course most of the garments in question would have undoubtedly been highly decorated, almost garishly so in many cases. This is in stark contrast to the almost monotone way they’re often depicted in film and TV, if someone actually troubled themselves to make a movie capturing some of the vivid colour of this period I think they’d set themselves apart. 

Close up of the unit.

 

Two men at arms in all their glory, note the barding. Barding would apparently mostly have been used on the outside of the unit, with the more lightly armoured horses protected when the unit clustered together on the charge.

 

 

 

Nice close up of the unit from the front.

 

An interesting question to ponder is why the French didn’t manage to develop an effective counter to the English tactical doctrine of dismounted men at arms flanked by wings of archers? I won’t get into all the details of why, but the French did apparently experiment with different ways of countering it by outflanking etc. What seems to have really done for them more than anything (this is true in almost all the major English victories) was a lack of effective coordination between their battle formations for various reasons.  This was mostly either due to poorly defined command structures, terrain or over eagerness to engage. In all these instances (Crecy, Poitiers, Agincourt, Verneuil) it led to a pell-mell attack that denied the French the opportunity to attack with the full force of their superior numbers.

The French did however work out a very effective strategy that was even employed right at the start of the war by Philip VI, which was to simply deny the English a pitched battle. Philip had used this effectively before Crecy and the wily Charles V used it more effectively after he took the throne in 1364. It was difficult to maintain the discipline, effectively allowing the English to ravage the land, but it meant that eventually they’d run out of money/resources and be forced to retreat. Through using this strategy of non-engagement (well not completely, they still attacked where they could and used sieges extensively) Charles V managed to undo almost all of the English conquests, except a small portion of Bordeaux and Calais, before Henry V re-started the war in 1415 some 35 years after his death in 1380. 

 

The coronation of Charles V 19 May 1364, who proved a much more wily adversary for the English.

Anyway hope you enjoyed more of my ramblings and the Miniatures I’ve produced, I’ve got a small project for the earlier period that I’m working on that I’ll hopefully be able to post next month.