Colonel Henry Washington's Dragoons.

I have been busy painting up 96 SYW 6mm figures as part of a swap this last four days so I had t rush finishing these figures off so I had something to post. Fortunately they were about half way through so I could finish painting them fairly quickly and basing was done in the evening. Spray and tufts done in the morning. So here we have the next unit in my 6mm ECW project and as all before these are Baccus.

 

First commandeered by Colonel James Usher a professional soldier who had served in the Earl of Barrimores foot regiment in 1640. The regiment was mostly raised in the Midlands on behalf of his Lt. Colonel Henry Washington, another of the 1640 officers. Washington hailed from Packington in Leicestershire though most of his other officers came from Worcestershire and Warwicks. It is assumed that the regiment was part of Sir John Byron's force and very likely at the battle of Powick Bridge. What is certain is that it fought at Edgehill on the extreme right and not only forced a commanded musket force to retire also held it's ground when the horse of the right wing charged off in heavy pursuit of the routed Parliamentarian Horse and thus was able to give support and cover to the Royalist foot until the now blown horse returned.

Over the winter of '42-43 at least part of the regiment was involved in the storming of Marlborough  and the larger siege of Cirencester and before the '43 campaign was long underway had within Rupert's army marched into the Midlands taking Birmingham and then Lichfield were James Usher was killed in the storming of the breach.

 

Indeed such was the skill and experience of this regiment that it was involved in a number of sieges and seemed always to be part of the storming party. It's biggest role was the storming of Bristol where it mustered 7 troops which is a fair sized unit. First they captured Clifton Church of great strategic importance as it overlooked parts of the defences of Bristol and then a breach in the walls was named after the regiment! Spearheading not just the breach but fighting to the centre of the defences and attacking The Essex Work (named after a former Governor not the Earl of Essex) and then stormed the Cathedral where they fired into another smaller defencive work until it was quit.

 

The regiment was then taken by Rupert to the siege of Gloucester where it took part in manning the lines before being used in various garrisons. The last noted one being Evesham but it was not there when the King marched through during his Cropredy Campaign as it had again gone north and was soon involved in further hot work, possibly Marston Moor but certainly was at the Storming of Stockport. It is thought to have been converted to a foot regiment based on some officers being listed in Indigent Officers, though it's possible this is an error. It's last duty was as garrison of Worcester which Washington only surrendered to Parliament on the 23rd July 1646.

 

So whilst the Regiment did did not take part in the Cropredy Campaign nor was it long part of the Oxford army I have used a bit of licence to bring it into my army as it could easily have been part of the Kings Army if Rupert had not kept such a strong hold on the regiment. Clearly it was well led ad it is accepted that each of it's seven Troops was commanded by a professional officer who had previously served with the others either as part of the 1640 army or in Island.

 

The uniform of blue is a little conjecture given that most regiments of the Oxford Army wore red or blue I went with blue. It is known they were armed with matchlock muskets and not flintlocks, their standards are unknown but thought to possibly have been white as I have depicted on mine.

 

I have done the regiment as both mounted and dismounted and being a large regiment have used all the figures as supplied by Baccus. Other smaller regiments will have a few less figures to give a more scattered look.