It’s been a busy couple of weeks here at Maison Broom, what with building works and getting the garden ready for spring.
The hobby mojo has disappeared entirely for now, but fortunately gaming of sorts has continued through remote stuff with Max Foy and my ECW campaign - an update of which I present below.
Background fluff update.
King Charles was greatly disappointed by the Autumn reversal in the south west and reluctantly instructed Hopton to consolidate the gains he’d made rather than advancing to link up with the Royalist forces around Bristol.
Fortunately for Hopton all eyes at court were soon focussed on the rapidly approaching army of General Waller. In a few short months the man had marched almost unopposed across the midlands and had garrisoned Banbury and a sympathetic Coventry - right on the doorstep of Charles’ new Birmingham capital.
Such a situation could not be allowed to stand and the Kings nephew Rupert of The Rhine led elements of the new Birmingham field army to interdict Waller’s extensive lines of supply. By mid December the situation had become untenable and Waller withdrew in good order back towards London. Both abandoned sites were garrisoned by the King within a week of Wallers withdrawal but Coventry, a hotbed of Parliamentary sentiment, was to prove an ongoing problem with numerous acts of dissent and constant heavy handed suppression required to maintain order there.
Anxious to retain some credit at court Hopton eventually coordinated a daring seaborne raid on the isolated Parliamentary garrison in Pembroke south Wales. The destruction caused by his landing parties was only minor but its purpose was a mere diversion, for the main blow came from royalist units marshalled in Carmarthen. The towns distracted defenders were caught off guard and the town fell within hours, extinguishing the last pocket of Parliamentary influence in the Principality.
In some ways this action was a copy of landings effected by Parliament earlier in November. On that occasion their forces landed by arrangement with sympathisers in Liverpool and by the time Waller had begun to withdraw from the midlands uprisings in Manchester and Preston had raised their own milita and secured the two towns for Parliament's cause.
At the end of the year the situation had largely stabilised and bad weather eventually forced both of the major combatants into winter quarters. Despite having failed to secure an outright victory over each other both sides had cause for some celebration. The King had secured a new capital, and the enormous industrial potential of both Bristol and the midlands - his army though modest in size slowly filling out as recruits drifted in from Welsh towns that were ‘squeezed’ into open support of the Monarch.
Apart from victory in the first major battle, Pym and the Parliamentarians had secured London, opened a second front in the north west and unsurprisingly, given popular sentiment in the region, seen the formation of an Eastern Association of towns geographically secure from the Kings forces. The only fly in the ointment was an unexpected outbreak of belligerent neutrality around Guildford that soon spread to neighbouring Tunbridge Wells.
On one incursion to secure unpaid taxes, a regiment of trained band soldiers was turned back by nearly 4,000 angry country folk armed with home made weapons and a banner proclaiming…
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| The Good burghers of Guildford give Parliament ‘the bird’ |
With the discontent rumbling on Winter slowly gave way to Spring. New army’s were assembling and plans laid for victory in ’43.
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| Areas under control Dec 31st 1642 |
Toodleooh.