The Earl of Oxford's Retinue

This may be my last post for a little while as I hope to be buying a house next week. Time will tell, these things are never set in stone!

The main reason for this post is to show off what one contingent would look like for the battle of Exeter. Each battle has three contingents or retinues. I am still deciding whether to replace Oxford's bowmen with the crossbowmen sitting on my painting table or keep his bowmen. The bowmen may form part of Jasper Tudor's mercenary retinue.

John De Vere, 13th Earl of Oxford (14443 - 1513)
John was the second son of John De Vere, the 12th Earl of Oxford, a prominent Lancastrian, who together with his eldest son Aubrey De Vere, was executed in February 1462.

John was attainted, but two years later was restored as the 13th Earl. His loyalty was suspected, and for a short time he was at the end of 1468 he was put into the Tower of London. He sided with Warwick, the Kingmaker, in the political movements of 1469 and accompanied him in exile the next year. He assisted the Lancastrian restoration of 1470 - 1471. As Constable he tried John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester who had condemned his father nine years earlier. At the Battle of Barnet Oxford was victorious in command of the Lancastrian right, but his men got out of hand and before they could be rallied Warwick was defeated. Oxford escaped to France.

In 1473 he organised a Lancastrian expedition, which, after an attempted landing in Essex, sailed west and seized St. Michael's Mount in Cornwall. It was only after a four month siege that Oxford was forced to surrender in February 1474. He was sent to Hammes near Calais, whence ten years later, in August 1484 he escaped and joined Henry Tudor in Brittany. He fought for Henry in high command at Bosworth and was rewarded by restoration to his titles, estates and hereditary office of Lord Chamberlin. At Stoke on the 16th June 1487 he led the van of the royal army.

(This information has been take from the Luminarium website without permission. Please see the link below to take you to this very informative site about the War of the Roses)

Oxford was the perennial thorn in the side of Richard III. He was perhaps a better tactician than Richard or perhaps he commanded more respect from his retainers, especially as he was of the old nobility. As at the battle of Bosworth Field for the battle of Exeter Oxford has high command of Tudor's mercenary army.

The Battle of Exeter 1483

For some time I have been reading the book Buckingham's Rebellion. The rebellion took place in 1483 not long after Richard had ascended the throne. Henry Stafford the Duke of Buckingham through in his lot with Henry Tudor. The rebellion did not last long, for although it had political clout, especially in the south of the country it did not have the military backing it needed in order to force Richard into open battle.

With this in mind I have thought about 'what if it did have the military support?' To this end I am re-focussing my direction for my late period War of the Roses on this fictitious battle which took place outside the walls of Exeter on the 9th November 1483.

I will update soon with the orders of battle for the three factions with a timeline of the events leading up to the battle.

Beaufort's Waterloo

A couple of weeks ago I ran another game of A Coat of Steel at my local wargames club (The Jersey Privateers). Fortunately I was able to run the game with the same players as the battle of Sodbury Marsh. In the interim time between meetings I re-read the rules too to identify where mistakes had been made. The game ran smoothly, much better than the previous game. All in all it was an extremely bloody affair.

I pitched the game in the earlier years of the conflict, the year was a 1459 and Richard, Duke of York was facing off against the 3rd Duke of Somerset. Both armies were high in morale, perhaps too high for the battle. This is an area that I am looking at more carefully. Units with high courage will last along time, and this makes for a bloody affair when engaged in close combat.

The Lancastrians pretty much ran across to meet the Yorkist line. They dispensed with bow fire completely. I did think that they were going to have to return fire on one occasion, but they passed the necessary check.

Meanwhile the Yorkists poured bow and cannon fire on them. This was made ineffectual due to the prevailing winds. Perhaps God favoured the rash! The melee that ensued was a complete bloodbath, with Richard taking a wound and the Yorkist main ward losing their prop. However the Duke of Somerset met his demise in the latter stages of the battle. Despite this the Lancastrians held their nerve and kept on fighting to the bitter end.

It was an enjoyable afternoon with plenty of positive feedback, which I am really pleased about. I look forward to the next game. In fact one of the more seasoned gamers brought up his collection of DBA based War of the Roses miniatures for me to take a look at. He went away with the base sizes I use so hopefully in the not to distant future some larger games may be played.