Robert Hall plates for the period

[barr7430]

I know the Hall plates are extremely popular so this is not a question about taste or style. It is rather a question about content. Having once again read my McNally on Aughrim I glanced in more detail at the uniform plates. Hall has illustrated Kirke's Lambs with an English Civil War style colour which is very much out of step with the developing pattern of English Army colours of the period. The indiciation of 3rd Captain I think is shown using the ECW convention of three lamb symbols. In early research on the period particularly around the uniform detail and colours of units at Sedgemoor I have seen previous conjecture about the use of the pascal lamb which had allegedly spawned the nickname. Another apocryphal story is the brutality of Kirke's in the time following the end of the 1685 rebellion gave the nickname. Back to the main point. Other more up to date sources including Ede Borrette, Mark Allen and Sapherson all show a more conventional style of red cross of St George fimbricated white on a green field. I am very curious as to the verification of this early style of Colour.
I am also curious about the detail showing Lord Louth's Jacobite regiment with an orange colour and faced orange. I have never previously seen any documented evidence of uniform details for all but a few Jacobite units, nor detail of Louth's colours in orange before..

Not having a pop... genuinely curious

[barr7430]

OK, a little more cross referencing and RH is interpreting Filamot as orange.. fair shout.

Would be interested in the Kirke's data though

[CoffinDodger]

fimbricated?

Is that the same as miroculous?

Jim

[Churchill]

Ray.

[obriendavid]

So to me it looks as if Hall messed up on his research for this regiment even though he quotes "Lawson, Barnes, Kuhn, Sapherson and Grant" as his sources.
It just makes me wonder how reliable are the Hall plates???
Ray.

I've noticed a tendancy on many threads that the Hall's plates are held up as being the definite source on the period to the detrement of all other sources. I'm not sure if this is because he puts lots of detail in them so everyone just assumes he must know what he's talking about or are a majority of wargamers lazy and just prepared to accept what looks at first hand a great source? Before I start getting death threats I'm not suggesting that Hall's plates are wrong but a bit extra research might also be useful.
Cheers
Dave

[Churchill]

Ray.

[Arthur]

Through my own research they became John Coy's regiment in 1688, then the Earl of Arran's in 1697 and finally Cadogan's in 1703. Facing colour seems to have changed quite a bit over the period, being given as buff for Shrewsbury's in 1686, then changing to white for Coy's in 1688 and back to buff in 1692. The green facings appear to have come rather late, circa 1710/1711 depending on which source you believe.

Déjà vu

[barr7430]

Hmm, this is substaniating something I have suspected for sometime. I got pelters once for calling into question the Hall plates and so wound my neck in for a couple of years. The Kirke's issue however makes me want to re evaluate. I have never been a fan of the style of the plates but that is neither here nor there. As many gamers are not that interested in the research, inaccuracy can become accepted as fact.
The uniform for the Danes, Prinds Frederik is also at least 'questionable'. I have only ever found one reference to Danes wearing blue and that was rey-blue. The unit was not Prinds Frederik. I may however be wrong on that too.

[conflans]

I think that Hall does a very good job in his research overall and has certainly opened up new sources of information for his work on the French army of the period. Like any scholarship, better information may be subsequently found, or, particularly with respect to arcane matters such as miltiary uniforms, some sources may be unknown or overlooked and the information presented will be the best available to him. Boards like this are valuable because they do help spread more information and sources of information.

Things can happen, one of the funniest being that the Danish regiment Prince George has been painted in green coats faced orange for years. They actually wore grey faced orange; however, Col. Vaupel's publisher mistook his handwritten "steel grey" for "steel green" and the error stuck. I actually like the green faced orange better.

With respect to orange for feuille morte, that may be a printing problem. An article in the Company of Military Historians work (I'll find it and give a citation later) contends that orange facing for British regiments in the AWI was actually an orange brown due to dying materials and techniques of the time. I've always wondered if French feuille morte was the English orange? Does anybody have any information on this?

Thanks.

[Arthur]

These exotically named colours have always been problematic, even for specialists. Poetic though they may sound, feuille morte, isabelle and ventre de biche are hard to define with any degree of precision : I've seen renderings of isabelle that veer toward a sand colour while others are a distinctly brownish dark buff. Look at colour pics of the Condé livery, and you'll see everything from pale buff to bright yellow. Same for feuille morte - dead leaf - which should normally be a rich shade of orange brown but which is sometimes rendered as either a dull orange or a mid-brown, either because the artist was unsure of the exact hue or because of the vagaries of the printing process. Add to this uncertainty the usual variations induced by the non-fast vegetal dyes of the seventeenth century and you have the perfect chromatic nightmare.

I'm not sure there's much of a point in comparing feuille morte to the orange tawny facings of the British troops in the AWI. The hues may or may not have been similar depending on the dyes at hand and the degree to which they faded in the field because of exposure to sun and rain. If the two colours looked similar, which may well have been the case, I doubt that was intentional.

[barr7430]

As long as the challenges are made respectfully I believe they MUST be made, otherwise, as has already been mentioned, conjecture or mistakes can be taken as the truth. The Blenheim Tapestry Pike thread is a great example although it seems to have been a bit too robust for one of the participants who has alas withdrawn from combat permanently.

No one has as yet made any comment on my original comment... The Lambs!

[Arthur]

As long as the challenges are made respectfully I believe they MUST be made, otherwise, as has already been mentioned, conjecture or mistakes can be taken as the truth.

Seconded. Provided the discussion is kept civil and does not degenerate into a PMT-type virtual bar brawl, challenging someone's conclusions does not mean you're out to ruffle feathers. It's called intellectual debate and it's been known to work satisfactorily for a few thousands of years.

No one has as yet made any comment on my original comment... The Lambs!

Actually, Sapherson also shows the ECW-type standard for Kirke's, although in all fairness he only lists it as a hypothetical one. Stephen Ede-Borrett describes the sea green flag with fimbricated St George's cross you mention for the Queen Dowager's regiment of foot in 1685. I'd go with Ede-Borrett on this one as his design seems much more in keeping with late seventeenth century conventions. Hall most likely used Sapherson as his source and did not bother to look any further.

[footslogger]

One of the reasons I prefer Hall is that he quotes his sources which is worth a lot. When he quotes Grant as the only source, I'm guessing we're dealing with gamer history.

I haven't found many things in Hall I wonder about, although I'd like to know what to do about Greder Suisse. In his plate he depicts the earlier uniform as red with green facings, but in the text he lists the two sources as blue with green facings. I'm assuming the text is right.

Questioning info is how we move forward.

[barr7430]

Source citation is important. On the basis if what has been written so far in this thread alone, I think there is a real danger of 'compound fractures' in source material..

The fact that Hall cites Sapherson and Grant (are we talking here about Charles S Grant?) is a little bit of a concern. I have the greatest respect for the former and am a personal friend of the latter but CSG will tell you straight that when he wrote From Pike to Shot his source material was very thin on the ground and caused no end of frustration and problems. Sapherson uses Tilroy(a contemporary source) and Belaubre (a modern source) for much of his material. Research of the very detailed and painstaking nature required to verify old and obscure data which is not in 'modern' format is rewarding (possibly not financially) but extremely labour intense. The citing of such sources would not give me confidence because much, most, all, is secondary, tertiary or even further removed.
The discussion on colour interpretation with input from Arthur, Conflans and others is VERY necessary, enlightening and insightful. Wargamers have, in their curious way a habit of quoting from books as if THEY themselves found out the information. I have had this inflicted on me several times. It is not pleasant, chiefly due to the delivery style. There are many sources which should be cross referenced and their provenance scrutinized thoroughly before conclusions are drawn.

I will give two brief examples of inadverent hares which I myself have set running without any intent.
1. The mischief of painting the pikes on a Landsknecht unit in alternate red and yellow horizontal bands because I was bored with the models and wanted to jazz up the unit which I did not like - This prompted one casual observer to visit another Italian Wars demo at the same show and tell the hapless exhibitors that their pikes were WRONG because pikes had coloured bands

2. My desire to give an Irish Jacobite unit a Catholic style flag for want of any available information. I painted a large heart wrapped in thorns with the motto Jesus Sacre Cour. I had two emails from serious research students asking if I could provide my source as they wanted to include reference to it in their current works I mean.............

So, questions about the sources for Hall are extremely relevant. If it is only Hall's interpretation of Mark Allen's interpretation of Sapherson's, Grant's or Ede Borrette's interpretations then the answer is a definite maybe it's accurate.. no disrespect to any of the above gentleman all of whom contribute immensely to our hobby.

If Sapherson is the sole source of the ECW style standard for Kirke's that would not be enough for me.

[footslogger]

The example of citing Grant is on the description of Regiment Gondrin in his book on French infantry. He has two drawings. The first is for a musketeer and he reels off all the good sources: Mercure Galant, Corfey, and "Etat des troupes de France 1702". The second drawing is for the tambour and it shows reversed colours with a sole source of Grant.

He has a 3 page bibliography describing his sources so you can cross-reference with what's on the plates and in the accompanying text description.

I don't plan to give the musicians for Gondrin reversed colours, fwiw.