Being a uniform and flag design service to wargamers and to the imaginary crowned heads of 17th and 18th Century Europe, especially of the Seven Years War period - now By Appointment to the Court of Saxe-Bearstein! (But please note that the uniforms and flags presented here are not fictional - they are genuine 17th and 18th Century uniforms and flags that are as authentic as I can make them from my sources.)
I was asked in the comments on the previous flag if I had any ideas for a speculative Colonel's flag and yes, I have. Here it is, based on the style of many Dutch flags where the Colonel's flag is largely a version of the regimental flag with a white background. I have also added the coat of arms of the province of Holland, as the provincial coat of arms is a common feature on Dutch flags and it livens up the plain white background of this flag.
Back to the Seven Years War again with another set of colours inspired by the Napier illustration from the JSAHR article from Vol. 9, No. 38 (OCTOBER, 1930), p. 243. Good to depict a regiment without a blue regimental colour!.
Again, no point re-inventing the wheel with a long text as there is the detailed Kronoskaf page on the regiment here with uniform details too: https://www.kronoskaf.com/syw/index.php?title=27th_Foot
This is from the details in Hall, Stanford and Roumegoux's book on the Dutch Army 1685-1715, where they cite unverified information from August Kühn on the general design of the Huguenot regimental flags and give their own tentative reconstruction. I have already presented my version of the flag of Dutch Huguenot Regiment Lislemarais.
This is an update of a stray version of these colours I did many years ago, then designed specifically for the American War of Independence. In the Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research Volumes 7-10 for 1928 to 1931 there are shown illustrations of the Napier images from 1747 in articles by J Leslie. These are the definitive versions of these colours for the mid-18th century and I have updated these 4th Foot colours accordingly. There are still a number of the Napier versions of colours for me to create, of the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th, 7th, 18th, 21st, 23rd, 27th and 41st Foot. I am still trawling through the JSAHR volumes looking for articles like these; I am sure there is much more to be found. It is a fairly large task as the Society has produced 4 journals a year for the past century!
This is the Kronoskaf page with details of the unit's history and service and the uniform worn in the SYW: https://www.kronoskaf.com/syw/index.php?title=4th_Foot
One curious feature of the Napier drawings from 1747 is that on some of the colours a blank scroll is shown. The 4th Foot is one such regiment. There has been much debate amongst the authorities on flags about whether or not these actually featured on the real colours; the colours with scrolls and mottoes on those scrolls are, of course, more convincing. So for completeness here is the set with the blank scroll depicted for those who would like to use it.
This is the last of the SYW British infantry colours I did a couple of years ago, although I plan to do more sometime soon. There is some doubt about the details on these colours; I have omitted the royal ciphers in the three corners from the regimental colour as they were probably not there until around 1768. This is a larger file than the previous ones as to show the details of the St Andrew beneath the central device required more pixels!
The Kronoskaf page has details of the regimental history and uniform here: https://www.kronoskaf.com/syw/index.php?title=42nd_Foot
This is another flags set originally done as a favour a couple of years ago and now improved by me. It is stonkingly hot here and therefore not the weather to attempt a long text or uniform plate so here is the link to details about the regiment on the Kronoskaf SYW website:
https://www.kronoskaf.com/syw/index.php?title=1st_Foot
This is another set of British Seven Years War colours I created back in 2024 as a favour. As with the previous set, I have been tinkering with them lately, improving them (well, I think so! ;-)).
Again, rather than reinvent the wheel by writing a long text of my own here (which eats up valuable flag creation time!), I suggest that the Kronoskaf page on the 1stFoot Guards is the best place to go for a detailed history of the regiment in this period:
https://www.kronoskaf.com/syw/index.php?title=1st_Foot_Guards
I did these as a favour a year or so ago and have been tinkering with them lately, improving them (well, I think so! ;-)). I thought I might as well post them in case anyone wants them; I have a few more SYW British colours I could and probably will also post (1st Guards, Royal Scots, 42nd Highlanders), just to show I have not lost interest in my "core period" despite spending so much time in the late 17th and early 18th centuries of late.
Rather than reinvent the wheel by writing a long text of my own here (which eats up valuable flag creation time!), I suggest that the Kronoskaf page on the 2nd Foot Guards is the best place to go for a detailed history of the regiment in this period:
https://www.kronoskaf.com/syw/index.php?title=2nd_Foot_Guards
First raised 1688
Colonels:
Albert Ferdinand, Graaf van Berlo, Killed in Action Fleurus 1st July 1690
George Frederik, Prins von Waldeck Pyrmont und Culembourg Died November 1692
Daniel Wolf van Dopff From 1693
Guidon as depicted in the Triomphes Louis XIV:
First raised 1678 as The Earl of Mars Regiment of Foot to fight against the Covenanters. 1679: Battle of Bothwell Bridge. [More detail at Kronoskaf WSS page.]
The colours depicted here are recorded in 1685 but may have been carried for much longer. In the absence of definite information they can be carried by units in the War of the Spanish Succession. (Robert Hall shows them in his plate for the regiment at Ramillies, for instance.)
1685 Renamed Scots Fusiliers Regiment of Foot. and helped crush Argyle's Rebellion in Scotland.
Further Service:
1689 Nine Years' War: Battle of Walcourt
1692 Battle of Steenkerque
1693 Battle of Landen
1695 Regiment captured at Deinse
1697 Returned to Scotland
Two colonels of the regiment were killed in action: Colonel Archibald Row killed Blenheim 1704 and Colonel Sampson de Lalo killed Malplaquet 1709.
Service WSS:
1703 Sieges of Huy and Limbourg
1704 Combat of Schellenberg; siege of Ingolstadt; battle of Blenheim with heavy casualties
1705 Expedition up the Moselle; forcing of the French Lines at Helixem and Neer Hespen
1706 Battle of Ramillies; capture of Ostend, Menin and Ath
1707 With the union of Scotland and England flags changed and the regiment became the North British Fusiliers
1708 Battle of Oudenarde; siege of Lille with fairly heavy casualties
1709 Siege of Tournai; battle of Malplaquet; siege of Mons
1710 Passage of the French Lines at Pont a Vendin; siege of Douai; sieges of Saint Venant and Aire
1711 Passage of French Lines at Arleux; siege of Bouchain
1713 Renamed North British Fusilier Regiment of Foot and became Royal around the same time
And the uniform in the WSS was probably like this (after plate by Robert Hall):
The Kur-Trier flags are ones I had planned to do for some time but it was a commission from Lewis Simpson-Jones that finally prompted me to complete them. As with other commissions from Lewis we agreed I'd post them on the blog soon after so thanks are due to him for their appearing here at last. There seems to be no definitive information available on these flags so I have done three variants of the heraldry, based on information I have found from portraits of the Archbishop of Trier in the mid-18th century and from coats of arms from the period on extant buildings. I have also produced three sheets, with the flags showing the two sides the same in two instances and one with flags with the two sides different. In the absence of any firm evidence it is therefore for the gamer to use the flags as he or she sees fit. Please free to view that as a) my avoiding responsibility for how the flags are used because frankly I do not honestly know or b) offering the ultimate in flexibility. :-) (I also created an entirely speculative blue with white border version of the flags to contrast with the white for Lewis but I have not posted that here.)
The versions here are jpegs as the originals I sent to Lewis are enormous PNG files; it does not seem to me that much detail has been lost in the conversion.
The Archbishop of Trier raised this unit for service with the Reichsarmee in the Seven Years War. It consisted of two battalions with a theoretical strength of around 1200 men; each battalion was of 4 companies with 2 3 pounder guns but no grenadier companies. The Archbishop "pulled out the stops" to supply the regiment but it was a very raw unit and Soubise rated it as "very bad", which, as Christopher Duffy said (in Prussia's Glory), would have greatly upset the Archbishop who had made such great efforts to complete it ready for service.
In 1757 the regiment was with the Reichsarmee in Thuringia and Saxony. At the battle of Rossbach on November 5th that year its performance was less than impressive. Chrustopher Duffy describes in Prussia's Glory (page 83) how there was "panic in the regiment of Trier, whose commander Colonel von Coll describes how "the Prussian musketry was continuous, and not delivered by volleys on command. The regiments of Würzburg, Kronegk, Ferentheil and Trier had been standing in the first line, but all of a sudden Würzburg and Trier found themselves alone, and therefore exposed in this weak state to the Prussian fire. Major Lombardius was shot through the shoulder. Ensign Trapp wounded in the head, Captain Kalkum and Ensign Lohr shot through their coats and waistcoats, and Corporal Bletz through both his legs". Out of its combat strength of about 1040 personnel the regiment of Trier actually suffered no fatalities, and only twenty-seven identifiable wounded, but the shock and sense of isolation were overwhelming. The troops fired a single volley, then fled into the regiment of Varell in the second line, carrying away all but sixty-three of its files. All three of the regiments of the Franconian Circle (Kronegk, Varell and Ferntheil) were now out of the reckoning, together with Trier".
Trier was part of the garrison of Torgau which capitulated to the Prussians on 31st August 1759.
It was also at the combat of Strehla on 20th August 1760; Duffy's account in By Force of Arms makes no mention of the unit, where an outnumbered Prussian force gave a very good account of itself, causing far more casualties than it suffered.
The regiment's glory day was at Freiberg on October 29 1762, where, along with Reichsarmee units Rodt and Baden-Baden, it held abattis in the centre of the battlefield. Duffy By Force of Arms describes the action thus: "Rodt's Reichstruppen fought back unexpectedly hard, and [Prussian commander] Jung-Stutterheim had to bring up reinforcements to evict the Reichs regiment of Baden-Baden from the redan. The dislodged troops fell back to the regiments of Trier and Rodt, and the three regiments held the abattis until the Prussians, who were being constantly reinforced, drove them back. The defenders were now bolstered in their turn by a battalion of the Austrian regiment of Salm [14], which came up on the right of Trier, and by Prince Stolberg in person who brought a battalion of Reichs grenadiers against the enemy right flank, and led a general counterattack, pistol in hand. This action, probably the finest of the Reichsarmee in the whole of the war, ended with the Prussians being forced from the wood and all the way back to Klein-Schirma".
The uniform in the Seven Years War was probably like this:
First raised 1690; disbanded 1698 but re-established 1701. The regiment was 3 squadrons strong at Blenheim but served dismounted as its horses had died from disease, probably glanders. It was posted between the village of Blenheim and the River Danube along with three other similarly dismounted dragoon regiments to a total of 12 squadrons, behind a barricade. Iain Stanford's booklet "Marlborough Goes To War" gives a total of 40 officers and 290 rank and file captured from the regiment, based on a contemporary source. The unit was exchanged in 1705 and went on to serve at the battles of Ramillies and Oudenarde, as well as elsewhere up to 1713.
The guidon is illustrated in Spofforth's famous broadsheet showing flags and standards captured by the allies at Blenheim and that is the source of my version of the guidon.
Robert Hall and Giancarlo Boeri's supplemntary volume on "Flags and Uniforms of the French Army under Louis XIV 1688-1714" tells us that the tegiment wore red with white facings.
A detailed account of the unit can be found on Kronoskaf here: https://kronoskaf.com/wss/index.php?title=Sainte-Hermine_Dragons
First raised 1635 (Mugnai says 1625)
Details from Hall, etc.
Colonel 1667-1693 George Frederik, Graaf van Waldeck-Pyrmont en Culemborg Born: 8/2/1620. Field Marshal. Died: 19/11/1692
Standard captured Fleurus 1690 where the regiment was badly mauled and depicted in the Triomphes Louis XIV along with another standard which I shall depict later. A later standard of totally different design was also depicted in the Triomphes and I shall also depict that one eventually. The regiment was also at Blenheim 1704 and Malplaquet 1709
Earlier Service:
1688 Landed at Torbay with a strength of 4 companies totalling 208 men
1689 Battle of Walcourt 3 squadrons strong
1690 Battle of Fleurus 496 officers and men strong; losses 181 killed and missing in action, 37 wounded in action and 46 prisoners of war
And the uniform was like this in the 1690s:
First raised 1701 and in Dutch pay to 1717 when it was disbanded.
Two of its colonels were killed in action; William Borthwick was killed at Ramillies in 1706 and John Hepburn at Malplaquet in 1709. Two lieutenant colonels were also killed in action; James Colyear was killed at Kaiserswerth in 1702 and John Hamilton at Malplaquet in 1709.
Service and actions (extracted from Hall, Stanford and Roumegoux):
1702 Siege of Kaiserswerth; battle of Nijmegen (always one battalion strong)
1706 Battle of Ramillies 33 killed in action and 53 wounded in action; siege of Ath 5 KIA and 15 WIA
1708 Battle of Oudenarde 2 KIA and 12 WIA; siege of Lille 11 KIA and 46 WIA
1709 Battle of Malplaquet 63 KIA and 203 WIA
1710 Siege of Bethune 18 KIA and 98 WIA
1712 Battle of Denain 390 prisoners of war; defence of Marchienne
And this was the uniform in the War of the Spanish Succession:
UPDATE Monday 11th of May: I've now been offered a lift by Steve (of enjoyable wargames blog: https://wargameswithtoysoldier1685-1985.blogspot.com ) so am very much looking forward to meeting him and seeing the show next weekend! I hope to take a lot of pictures... :-)
I've not been to a wargames show for decades and would rather like to see one! Also my flags will be on show in Simon Miller's game and I'd like to see them in use, plus the chance to meet various people and see various games. If anyone is happy to offer a lift you can contact me via my Contact Form in the left side of the blog. Thanks in anticipation!
NOTE: There was a slight glitch on the plate, now corrected; see below. Comes of being too hasty posting when tired! Tut tut...
First raised as a full regiment 1684. Originally a largely Catholic regiment under James II but purged of Catholics under William III.
Service (for fuller details see Kronoskaf WSS (from which the details below were extracted) here: https://kronoskaf.com/wss/index.php?title=Royal_Regiment_of_Ireland ):
1689 Siege and capture of Carrickfergus
1690 Battle of the Boyne; capture of Castle-Connell; siege and capture of Limerick; relief of Birr.
1691 Siege and capture of Ballymore; siege and capture of Athlone; battle of Aughrim; capture of Galway; siege of Limerick.
1692 Nine Years War: capture of Furnes and Dixmude.
1693 Served as marines.
1694 Siege of Huy.
1695 Siege of Namur; storm of the citadel of Namur (with heavy losses). Renamed "The Royal Regiment of Foot of Ireland", later changed to "Royal Irish Regiment."
1697 Sent to Ireland where it remained to 1700. It consisted of one battalion of ten companies with 34 officers and 411 men.
Colonel commandants during the WSS were; from 1692 Frederick Hamilton; from 1705 Richard Ingoldsby; 1712-1717 Richard Stearne.
Service in the War of the Spanish Succession:
1702 Covered the siege of Kaiserswerth; siege of Venloo; siege of Roermond; capture of the citadel of Liège
1703 Siege and capture of Huy; siege of Limbourg
1704 Battle of the Schellenberg where 1 sergeant and 11 rank and file were killed; Captain Lea, Ensigns Gilman, Walsh, and Pensant, 3 sergeants and 32 rank and file wounded; siege of Ingolstadt; battle of Blenheim Captains Brown, Rolleston, and Vaughan, Ensign Moyle, 5 sergeants, and 52 rank and file killed; Major Kane, Captains Lepenitor and Hussey, Lieutenants Smith, Roberts, Blakeney, and Harvey, Ensign Trips, 9 sergeants and 87 and file wounded; siege of Landau.
1705 Passage of the Lines near Helixem and Neer-Hespen (but not in action there)
1706 Battle of Ramillies; siege and capture of the fortress of Menin; siege of Ath.
1708 Battle of Oudenarde where it had 1 lieutenant and 8 men killed; and 12 men wounded; siege of Lille where it lost 2 captains and 3 subalterns killed; its major and several other officers wounded; and 200 NCOs and soldiers killed or wounded.
1709 Siege of Tournai - storming the Ravelin and Half-Moon followed by the siege of the citadel; battle of Malplaquet; siege of Mons.
1710 Sieges of Douai and Béthune; siege of Aire with 3 officers killed and 5 wounded; also around 80 soldiers killed or wounded.
1711Passing the French Lines at Arleux; siege of Bouchain where it lost 4 officers wounded and around 40 men killed or wounded.
1712-1713 Winter; a serious mutiny in the regiment incited by one man; suppressed and 10 ringleaders executed.
And the uniform for the hat companies was probably like this in the WSS (the grenadiers wore an elaborate mitre cap):
First raised 1688 as a regiment of carabiniers 6 companies strong. In 1701 3 extra companies and a company of Horse Grenadiers were added to the regiment.
Colonels: Frederik Adolf, Graaf von der Lippe (regiment known as Lippe-Holland) 1689; 1695 Arnold Joost, Baron van Keppel, Heer van Voorst, Baron Ashford, Viscount Bury St Edmunds, Earl of Albemarle
The standards are based on the reconstruction suggested by Robert Hall, Iain Stanford and Yves Roumegoux in the Pike and Shot volume on the Dutch Army 1685-1715. I have based the central motif, including the phoenix, on one depicted on a captured Dutch flag in the Triomphes Louis XIV.
Notable actions:
1689 Siege of Kaiserswerth (2 squadrons strong); siege of Bonn (same strength)
1690 Battle of Fleurus: 329 officers and men strong with 44 killed and missing in action, 35 wounded and 75 prisoners
1693 Battle of Neerwinden-Landen (2 squadrons strong)
1706 Battle of Ramillies (4 squadrons strong); siege of Ostend (the same)
1708 Battle of Oudenarde (4 squadrons strong)
1709 Battle of Malplaquet (4 squadrons strong)
1711 Battle of Arleux (4 squadrons strong)
1712 Battle of Denain (4 squadrons strong)
And this was the uniform in the 1690s and probably later:
I was recently reminded that, although I had done the standards of the Danish 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 5th Jyske cavalry regiments, I had not done the 4th, so here they are.
First raised 1670 as the 2nd Jyske Nationale Rytterregiment which was divided in 1675 into the 3rd and 4th Jyske Regiments.
Commanders: 1699 J Rantzau then R G Grabow 1708-1714
Served Holstein 1700 then in Dutch pay in the War of the Spanish Succession 1701-1713 and two squadrons strong:
Service:
1702 Siege and capture of Liège
1704 Battle of Blenheim as part of Rantzau's brigade on the right centre of the Allied line; the sieges of Trarbach and Saarburg
1706 Battle of Ramillies in Brockdorff's brigade on the left wing (the Danish cavalry especially distinguished itself in this battle); sieges of Antwerp, Ostend, Menin, Ath, Dendermonde and Oudenarde
1708 Battle of Oudenarde
1709 Siege of Tournai; battle of Malplaquet
1714 Returned to Denmark and disbanded
The mottoes on the company standards are:
IBLANT TORNE ROSEN GROER which means Amongst Thorns Roses Grow
VEL BEGIJNT ER HALV FULDENDT which means Well Begun Is Half Done
TROR VEL, RIDER HESTEN BORT which means something like I Think Well, The Horse Rides Away ?? (Someone with fluent Danish may be able to make sense of that one!)
And this was probably the uniform in the WSS:
Raised 1675 as Baudissins Regiment. 1685 Oldenborgske Kyrassierregiment. 1702 Holstenske.
Served in British and Dutch pay in the WSS 1701-1713. At Blenheim 1704 and Ramillies 1706. Siege of Stralsund 1715.
The standard may well have been the same for the Oldenbourgske Regiment earlier.
And the uniform was probably like this in the War of the Spanish Succession (although the saddle cloth detail is not known):
Provenance of this flag is disputed as with so many Spanish flags of the period. It may have belonged to the Guardias Del Rey. The Colonel's flag below is actually from an earlier Tercio of the 1630s or 1640s (see discussion in the Osprey Men-at-Arms • 481 The Spanish Tercios 1536–1704 by Ignacio & Iván Notario López Illustrated by Gerry & Sam Embleton.
We know of a fair number of Spanish flags of the late 17th and early 18th century (often from captured examples) but rarely do we know which regiments carried them. In some ways this is an advantage as the wargamer is free to allocate them to whatever regiment he/she chooses. This one is depicted in Bruno Mugnai's Wars and Soldiers in the Early Reign of Luois XIV Volume 4: The Armies of Spain 1659-1688
I had hoped to continue my plan of posting once a week but domestic and other problems since then have made it impossible. So here's my first posting in nearly two weeks.
Danish Infantry Regiment Sjaellandske: First raised 1628. 3 battalions strong, each of 6 companies, although one battalion had 7 companies, it seems, for a total of 19 companies.
One battalion fought in Ireland in English service from 1689 and was at the battles of the Boyne 1690 and Aughrim 1691.
One battalion was in Imperial service 1702-1709 at a theoretical strength of 691 men. It was at the battle of Luzzara in 1702.
Two battalions were in the service of Holland and England 1701-1714 with a strength of 13 companies and 1544 men.
Service:
1702 Siege and capture of Liège.
1704 Battle of Blenheim; sieges of Trarbach and Saarburg.
1706 Battle of Ramillies; sieges of Antwerp, Ostend, Menin, Ath, Dendermonde and Oudenarde.
1709 Siege of Tournai; battle of Malplaquet.
1714 Returned to Denmark.
Fought in the Norwegian Campaign 1718.
The flag sheet shows flags as depicted by C. A. Sapherson in his The Danish Army 1699-1715.
Uniforms: Grey double breasted coat with dark blue cuffs, dark blue waistcoat and probably blue breeches and stockings, although one source says red stockings which I have depicted in my uniform plate.
The Triomphes images do not show a damask cloth but I am presuming that the originals almost certainly were of damask so I have depicted them with a subtle damask background. Full details of the regiment's history in this period can be found on the Kronoskaf WSS site here: https://kronoskaf.com/wss/index.php?title=Queen%27s_Regiment_of_Horse
These are the colours carried by the Duke of Norfolk's Regiment (later the 12th Foot) in 1686. We do not know exactly what colours they carried in the War of the Spanish Succession but flags from this regiment were captured by the French in 1695 and are very different from these. They may represent a pattern carried as late as the WSS and I shall eventually depict them too.
In 1686 the uniform was red lined white with blue breeches and stockings.
Full details of the history of the regiment and its service can be found on the Kronoskaf website here:
https://kronoskaf.com/wss/index.php?title=Richard_Brewer%27s_Foot
The main source for the Kronoskaf account, Cannon, Richard: Historical record of the Twelfth, or The East Suffolk Regiment of Foot, London: Parker, Furnivall and Parker, 1848 can be found on archive.org: https://archive.org/details/cihm_48347.
