Colonel Anthony Byerly's Regiment of Foote

The White Coats or Newcastle's Lambs are well known in ECW circles, mostly for how they died at White Skye Close almost to a man. This being very unusual in battles as most Regiments would surrender if their army was defeated and only when routed and pursued would casualties be great. But many wargamers of the period believe that the white coats were a single regiment when in fact a fair part of Newcastle's regiments were clothed in either white or undyed wool. (often plundered cloth taken from the cloth making region of the north that was strongly Parliamentarian in stance). So the Regiment depicted here is one of many. The Standards of Col. Anthony Byerly held a red cross with a blue background which in some cases were replicated in silk on the coat sleeves (shoulder) of the men. This lead to the belief that the regiment was Catholic led or had a high number of Catholic recruits though this is unlikely. The regiment was raised in January 1644 and got for themselves the nickname "Byerley's Bulldogs", wiki has it incorrectly - as do others, that this was a Horse Regiment. initially it was raised to act as a garrison unit of the Col's home of Middridge Grange in the area of Bishop Aukland, County Durham so was probably relatively small. Later in the year it joined Newcastle's Army in the defence of York and the disaster of Marston Moor which it survived but was disbanded soon after as the whole of the north fell under Parliament's sway.

It's possible that the background colour for the Standards would have been yellow, not the white as I painted it. It's far less likely that the pikes were painted white either, that is my personal licence. Despite the Bulldogs reference I would use this unit on the tabletop as average as I doubt they would have seen enough combat to prepare them for any major action never mind Marston Moor.