More Gendarmes

Here's some more Catholic Gendarmes for my French Wars of Religion project. All are converted more or less, from French and English cavalry of the TAG 1540's ranges, "Valois" and "Tudors". They're nice figures certainly, although the lances are prone to bending and breaking at the point where the handgrip enters the guard. They're OK if you replace these parts with brass rod. 

As mentioned previously the heavy cavalry on the Catholic side seem to have retained the lance throughout the period. Each company of gendarmes wore its own colour of cassock with contrast braiding, the colour scheme reflecting the commander's livery. Every colour of the rainbow was used, but sadly we don't often have information to identify particular colours with particular lords. Never mind, we get to make them up! Catholic/ royalist cavalry usually wore a white cross on breast and back, though I mostly didn't bother on the backs as it's too hard to get at them between the hanging sleeves.

The same two stands from the rear. The characteristic hanging sleeves had to be added from paper. The lance pennons usually reflected the cassock colour, which makes for an attractive unit. I actually doubt if such extravagant plumes were often worn on campaign, except for commanders, but we have limited choice of figures to use and so, oh dear, we must go along with it. 

A second unit, this time of nine figures. I particularly like how the golden yellow cassocks of the third stand have come out. In this case they must have broken their lances in an earlier charge and are down to hand weapons.

The centre stand, and the trumpeter of the right-hand stand aren't wearing cassocks, but a slightly earlier equivalent called a "hoqueton" (I don't know the English equivalent of the the term. This was probably still to be seen early in the FWOR period, but had become a little old-fashioned. The main difference to a cassock was the sleeves, which on a hoqueton were short and wide rather than the cassock's long, thin, mostly false, hanging sleeves.