The French Wars of Religion

I know, it's been six months since I last posted, and back at the end of October I was promising to show something from a new wargaming period that I'm starting. I actually had a small first unit (12 infantry figures) almost painted then, but I kept adding to it and thinking "when this next bit is finished I'll do some photos and post them". I kept on painting: it was twelve, then twenty-four, then forty-eight, then I rushed on to a second unit of 48 figures and finally a first cavalry unit. I don't normally paint figures in such numbers. But here we finally are.

The new period is the French Wars of Religion (FWOR), 1562- 1598, contemporary with the Dutch Rebellion against Spain and several other wars between that over-mighty empire and Elisabethan England, France and others. The figures are suitable to do all these conflicts, but it was the FWOR that inspired me so I'm starting there. There were no less than eight successive wars fought across France in the late sixteenth century, partly as a protestant vs. catholic thing and partly to do with brutal rivalries between the leading noble families of the kingdom. The Valois dynasty died out as France's royal family, to be replaced by the first of the Bourbons, Henry IV, already king of the tiny land of Navarre. He was one of the many swashbuckling characters who strode through the thirty-odd years of savage wars, assassinations, duels, invasions and massacres. Dozens of battles were fought, hundreds of towns and cities besieged.

And all this was done by armies of the greatest colour and variety: the first versions of France's classic infantry regiments, Swiss pikemen, Landsknechts, Spanish Tercios, Italians sent by the Pope and English sent by Queen Elisabeth. Pike and shot yes, but with a much greater variety of mixes than usual: from 90% pikes (the Swiss) down to 0% (Protestant French). And when it comes to the cavalry it gets more interesting again. There were lance-armed gendarmes versus pistol armed ones, plus both flavours in lighter form: "chevaulegers". Then you had thousands of black-armoured Reiters, mounted arquebusiers and Stradiot light lancers. So more different troop types simultaneously on the battlefield than any other period I can think of. 

The action took place of the whole of contemporary France, so there's an enormous variety of local building styles that I will be choosing from eventually, to say nothing of the chateaus. 

Here's the first unit, 48 catholic French infantry, "gens de pied" as they said. Red sashes were worn by the catholic side. The proportion of pikes seems to have varied from up to 50% early on, down to none at all in some later instances. So some pikes but a minority is the most typical therefore, here 16 pikes to 32 arqubusiers.

Each actual company had one flag, and those of catholic infantry featured a white cross. The background colours and patterns are little-known, but typically each was a variation on a common theme. Here I've started with red for the four "cantons", with a different pattern on each. These might be a very early version of the Regiment de Picardie.

I've organised the bases and the positioning of the flags to allow units to split down into two smaller ones. My figure scale is one to fifty men, so the full unit equates to 2,400 men and divides into two of some 1200 soldiers. There was a broad trend over the period for more but smaller regiments.

My second unit is of protestant infantry. That side were known as "huguenots", though no-one is really sure where the term comes from. Anyway their infantry had very few pikes, or mostly none at all. This gave them high firepower and worked well for sieges, skirmishes and defending obstacles, but they were in big trouble if caught on their own by enemy cavalry. The huguenots' symbols were white sashes and a white diagonal (a "bend" in heraldic terms) on their flags, over a plain or striped background. Inscriptions were rare on infantry flags at this time, but this one "Tout pour dieu et le roy" was shown in a contemporary painting.

Sometimes uniform clothing was issued to the rank and file, though sadly we know almost nothing about the colours. Uniform might go to one or more companies or a whole unit, and it might be a single garment or a suit of clothing. Here I've given the subunit at the back dark red doublets and the one at the front has light blue doublets and breeches with "tawny" jerkins. These colours are known to have been widely used in the Elisabethan infantry of the time as the dyes were cheap and readily available. In general all clothing was of soft, low-saturation colours, although wealthy commanders could afford more vibrantly coloured dress.  Infantry officers were usually armed with spontoons and swords, together with a shot-proof buckler. 

The trend for smaller units was more marked amongst the protestant infantry, so this unit breaks down into two of twenty-four figures or four of twelve, as here. 

The figures are mostly TAG, sometimes with slight conversions. But for variety they are mixed with Wargames Atlantic plastic conquistadores. I also bought a bag of 30 Old Glory arquebusiers, which I came to regret! Their heads are oversized and all needed transplants, although thankfully the conquistador box has lots of spares. They blend in tolerably but are just not very nice figures at all by modern standards. I used 17 but then binned the remaining 13!

Here's the first cavalry, which are pistol-wielding protestant gendarmes. Wargamers call these guys "millers", although this term wasn't used at the time. It refers to their white coats, properly called cassocks, this being an overgarment with hanging (ornamental) sleeves at the back. The cassock was always worn over the breastplate but under the shoulder armour for some reason. Fashions changed over the period, starting with a close fit and flared skirt reminiscent of those worn in the Italian Wars, then becoming looser, perhaps open at the front and slit at the sides too. 

Now you would think that the haughty gendarmes would be the last people to wear uniforms, but not a bit of it. Each company of gendarmes ( maybe 60 men), and some of chevaulegers and mounted arquebusiers wore a cassock in its own uniform colours. The protestants were nearly always white but the catholics used every colour of the rainbow, sometimes with a white cross on the breast. On both sides the base colour was set off by contrasting ornamental braid. So one stand here has red braid and the other blue. Trumpeters wore no armour or helmet, but the same cassock as the rest of their company. 

The gendarmes of both sides started off armed with lances plus perhaps a single pistol and a mace, cutlass or warhammer. For various reasons the protestants dropped the lance and used a pair of pistols, the change coming apparently between the two battles of Jarnac and Moncontour in 1569. The catholics seem to have kept their lances to the end, although the evidence isn't chrystal-clear.

Quite seperately there was a trend away from forming just one or two ranks deep, "en haie", to being in six or seven ranks which was referred to as "en escadron". The trend was uneven and quite separate from the abandonment of the lances so apparently at Moncontour the protestant gendarmes were en haie but armed with pistols and the catholics en escadron but lance armed. This seems odd but it was recorded by Francois de la Noue who was in the thick of that very battle, so he should know!