John Tincey - Böcker

In March 1642 King Charles I, believing that Parliament had gone too far when it issued the Grand Remonstrance, moved to arrest John Pym and four other leaders.That summer Parliament, fearing military action, tried to seize control of the army by issuing orders for soldiers to report to Parliamentary, rather than royal, representatives. The King countered by ordering the bill ignored and raised his own army. Some turned out for the King, some for Parliament, and so the war started.This book examines how the cavalry soldiers of 1642 expected to fight the Civil Wars, and how experience changed their ideas.

Many types of cavalryman are established in the imagination of the British public, but the Ironside retains his place as symbolic of the one occasion when the army took an active role in British politics. One reason is that he represents a unique period when ordinary people displaced the established order to take political control into their own hands. In the 19th century a rash of historical publications, paintings and statues with a civil war theme reflected the political divisions of Victorian society and Royalist and Parliamentarian causes were argued over again, reflecting the subtext of contemporary political struggles. This book attempts to take a wider view of the Ironside as a warrior who evolved from the experiments of the 16th and early 17th centuries to combine firepower with the armoured cavalryman. It reflects his wider service in the Royalist as well as the Parliamentarian armies and beyond the civil wars.

This work shows that the entry into the English Civil War of the Scots on the side of Parliament radically changed the balance of power in the North of England. The Royalists were forced onto the defensive and the Marquis of Newcastle found his army besieged in York. Prince Rupert proposed a bold plan to relieve York. He succeeded beyond all measure and entered York. Rupert then decided to march out to attack his enemies. After a desperately hard-fought battle the Royalist army broke. The loss of the North had decisively tilted the balance of military power in favour of Parliament.

In 1701, the nations resisting Louis XIV's attempts to secure the throne of Spain had formed a Grand Alliance. Yet by late 1703, despite some successes, the overall outlook was unfavourable. Marlborough and Eugene of Savoy developed a plan to change this and knock Bavaria out of the war. On 13 August 1704 at Blenheim, Marlborough and Eugene attacked the Franco-Bavarian army. Marlborough captured Marshal Tallard, 40 generals, 1,150 officers, 13,000 soldiers, 60 cannon, 300 colours and the French camp, hence destroying the myth of French invincibility. This book demonstrates how this success came about, with illustrated analyses of this major campaign, focusing on battle strategies, tactics and conclusions.

The period between the Restoration of Charles II in 1660 and Marlborough's decisive victory at Blenheim in 1704 is often seen as something of a 'backwater' in military history.However, this 40-year pause saw the birth of the British Army in its modern form, and the establishment of many regiments that survive to this day. This book examines the uniforms and equipment of the British Army during this eventful, if often overlooked, period of the reign of Charles II, James II and William III.Colour plates, illustrations and photographs portray infantry uniforms and equipment, as well as the uniforms and weapons of the horse, in vivid detail.