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Friday 22 March 2013

De Valence's Retinue - work in progress

Hot on the heels of Gloucester's body of cavalry comes the front rank of De Valence's, with the heraldry taken from the Osprey Campaign book on Bannockburn.

Now, before you all go rushing out to buy said book expecting some lovely colour piccies of various shields, let me just point out that the image showing the heraldry is in black and white! What I have done (and I hope accurately!) is gauge the shades of grey against known each other, using liveries I know to shade match.

As a back up, check out websites such as the Danish Miniature Wargames one (www.krigspil.dk, I think), other literary and web sources, heraldic and genealogy sites, etc.

Needless to say, any errors made are entirely mine.

So without further ado, it is time to meet and greet the three extra knights I have painted to accompany Thomas Ercedekne, Thomas de Berkeley and Aymer la Zouche from previous posts to form the first half of De Valence's cavalry.

For those who know the battle, and indeed those who do not, Aymer De Valence (aka the Earl of Pembroke) led the valiant though costly rearguard action that allowed Edward II to escape the field. A command base depicting him will join the ranks at some point, along with Hereford and Edward, so stay tuned.

By the way, thanks to everyone who posts comments about what I do. I enjoy painting miniatures and I am continually trying to improve as much as I can, but all comments received are excellent motivation, whether favourable ones or not! I am always open to new ideas, suggestions, critiques, etc. Thanks guys.

G


Nicholas Kingston, distinguishable from John Kingston by virtue of the red rather than white label.

I had to use the morning star mace arm from the Fireforge Teutonic Knights box at some point and Nicholas got the honour.

The tri-coloured lance referred to in a previous post, going one better than the one I did for Gloucester by the addition of some black bands! This is William Vescy.

Vescy was just 21 years of age when killed at Bannockburn.

I believe this heraldry depicts Giles D'Argentan, who was killed during the aforementioned rearguard action, but I have not yet verified it. This figure features in a colour plate in the Osprey Bannockburn book, in the same plate actually as De Valence, Edward, Ercedekne, Despenser, La Zouche, Berkeley and others.

D'Argentan was described as one of the three best knights of Christendom alongside Robert the Bruce and the Holy Roman Emperor Henry VII. If this is not him, then I ought to paint up a figure to represent him should I discover his heraldry at some point.

4 comments:

  1. Lovely paint work, very impressive, especailly with the yellow.

    I must agree, the lack of colour in the Osprey book is very frustrating!

    Hopefully I don't wish to appear to be a pedantic rivet counter (which I probably am tbh) but I believe the heraldry on the right hand (dexter) side of the horse barding would be reversed. I'm basing this assumption on the image of Sir Geoffrey Luttrell of Irnham in the famous Luttrell Psalter where the right side is illustrated. His wife Agnes Sutton also displays the green twin tailed lion on her dress, a branch of the same family produced the better known WoTR combantant, Lord Dudley.

    Regards,
    Matt

    ReplyDelete
  2. Matt,

    Not pedantic at all and you are quite right. I somehow feel correctly reversing the arms looks right however, just don't ask me why. I did it on my first few 15th century figures and turned agianst it.

    Gary

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  3. Gary, Ignore my previous comment - I was talking out my backside. Your gut feeling was spot on. I recently saw a medieval illustration that clearly shows the right hand of a horse's barding showing the device (a lion rampant) just as you've painted it.

    Regards,
    Matt

    ReplyDelete
  4. I was looking for images of D'Argentan and your work is both inspirational and impressive!

    ReplyDelete