OR A TRUE RELATION OF STRANGE PROCEEDINGS IN A SOMERSETSHIRE LOFT AND THE FIELDS ABOUNDING

Saturday 11 June 2011

A LITTLE LIGHT READING...

Not much time in the Growlery today, as it was Thing 2's fifth birthday today, but having packed him and his brothers off to bed I thought I would post a few pics of my ECW inspirational reading and viewing. Having spent many happy years of my youth re-enacting the English Civil War it always amuses me now to hear the same old squabbles among re-enactors about the authentic sort of button they should have on their doublets and soldiers coats or what sort of hat musketeers should be wearing. The arguments now are the same as they were 20-25 years ago when I was an active musketeer (fighting for Parliament naturally).

So it is quite refreshing to get back to basics with this project and distinguish Roundheads from Cavaliers by the amount of feathers and lace they have, and if they have hats or helmets.  The ECW re-enactors bible in the mid 80's was this book
which given it's age is still surprisingly good. Most of the ECW figures manufactured by A Call to Arms seem to be based on plates from this book.
Another ECW icon to come out of the 1980's was the television series By the Sword Divided
This really did ham up the Romantic Royalists and Rotten Roundheads, but again given it's age the costumes were surprisingly good and the climatic siege of Arnescote Castle is excellent. The second series is shot in a much darker manner, no doubt to emphasise the gloom cast over the nation by the killjoy Puritans.

The next book was recently mentioned in Old Tidder's blog, For ye Kinge, but as it is so good I will give it another plug.


This features my local and favourite campaign in the ECW, The Battle of Lansdown and is rammed full of ideas and great illustrations (it takes the form of a cartoon strip).

Finally a teen novel which I re-read now and again which has a great plot and at the start an amusing description of a Sealed Knot battle. It's full of inaccuracies but captures the flavour of Seventeenth century England and has a wistful dreamlike quality about it.

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