First Foote Guardes

Pikeman (no armour, helmets or gloves by this period)

I actually managed to get some painting done today for the first time in a month. What with being in Canada for two weeks (and all the follow up) then having to deal with a domestic Swine Flu crisis (I spend two weeks avoiding anyone who speaks Spanish on my trip and someone on my daughter's school coach infects everyone!). This resulted in my daughter's subsequent homework/revision crisis so that she needed the internet a lot hence no access to my desk. Then the new bolier saga meant that huge amounts of stuff had to be temporarily shifted about. I feel shattered!

So, it was good to get out to Loseley Park yesterday for the Sealed Knot day and it has enthused me enough to actually pick up a paintbrush again. I got up early and did some work on four Renegade ECW Musketmen who have been on the work bench for a year. I just need to complete them to finish my second ECW Foot regiment and got well on the way today. I also did a bit on my Musketeer GNW Russians and have ordered some of the new pikemen.

Then it will be back to the Louis XIV figures from Mr Copplestone. From the same period (OK slightly later) were a Sealed Knot unit at Loseley yesterday; the 1st Foote Guards who represent a British force from the period of the Monmouth Rebellion and, therefore, the last pitched battle fought on English soil Sedgemoor (1685). I have always been interested in this battle as I used to have a girlfriend who lived in Somerset and I had to drive past the battlefield at Westonzoyland to get to her house. I have always been a fan of Pirate books and films and, of course, in Rafael Sabatini's Captain Blood Dr Peter Blood is sent to the Caribbean sugar cane fields as a slave by the Bloody Assizes for tending to one of the rebel soldiers at Sedgemoor.

The grenadiers already have flintlocks and plug bayonets whilst the "hatmen" still have the old matchlocks.

These are the sort of figures I need for government troops for my pirate games so let's hope Copplestone come out with something like this as nice late 17th/early 18th century are in very short supply for this purpose (in fact I can't think of any).