Figures for the War of the Roses?

[joroas]

The good thing is that you can build an army as they're released without breaking the bank.. 

[dodge]

That's so true, but I will be having that butterfly effect if I do, flitting from one thing to another never completing or gaming anything in particular.

Although just read about the battle of Towton on http://www.wars-of-the-roses.com/index.htm and it does appear to be very interesting indeed.

dodge

[joroas]

We have a Tewkesbury Battle display in July, so may wander across and get inspired...........

[dodge]

Is that down your way in Gloucestershire?

[joroas]

'Tis indeed.  10/11 July.

[Gluteus Maximus]

The only thing I see as a problem with Perry's is the lack of cavalry, they only do a couple other than mounted command

however I expect that cavalry was not that prevalent in that time? although I must admit to being quite ignorant of the period, but I do like my cavalry you know 

dodge

Most battles involved infantry almost exclusively, with any mounted troops generally having only a peripheral role. Even the Men-At-Arms preferred to fight on foot. The experiences of the French nobility vs longbows in the 100 Years War seems to have struck home with their British equivalents. Given the preponderance of longbow-armed troops in most English/Welsh armies, the general assumption was that it was safer on foot. Sometimes large cavalry actions occurred; the obvious one being Richard III's fatal charge at Bosworth. There would sometimes be a small mounted reserve of Men-At-Arms (as an insurance policy for a defeated General?), but the majority of mounted troops would be the various "light" horse used for guarding flanks, recce etc.

However, I've almost certainly made a glaring error or two, so expect to be corrected     

Hopefully we will soon see some of these lighter types appear soon from the Perrys.

[Gluteus Maximus]

We have a Tewkesbury Battle display in July, so may wander across and get inspired...........

Do you have the date? It's only an hour and a bit away from my home 

[joroas]

'Tis indeed.   10/11 July.

[Captain Blood]

Yes, the third Perry plastic WOTR box will be mounted men-at-arms (viz Kniggets) in full armour.

I've bought and been reading all the Ospreys on Towton, Tewkesbury and Bosworth - very good indeed. Some interesting stuff about the cavalry - apparently the aristocracy and gentry fought on foot in their plate armour (men-at-arms) but kept their horse near so that they could indulge their favourite activity of mounting up quickly to pursue the fleeing enemy and chop them down with impunity.

I also like the particularly evocative and highly functional names they gave to the various cavalry duties, such as 'prickers' and 'scourers'...

Not quite sure of the etymology of the lighter cavalry type 'hobilars'.

[Arlequín]

Hobilars is possibly related to the type of horse (hobby) that was used by mounted infantry in the HYW. They weren't cavalry as such but had a mobility essential to the raiding type warfare of that time. Currours is supposed to be a bastardisation of Coustilier and prickers referred to the lance or spear carried. Scourers speaks for itself really. The general term for all mounted cavalry, regardless of type was Spears, which makes it a little confusing. So when you read about a 'plomp of spears' being placed on a flank or in a wood, it refers to a group of cavalry deployed to make a flank attack.

Cavalry is a bit of a misnomer though. The better WoR troops were 'multi-role' and quite adept at fighting on foot or mounted and as most armour was what we might term 'modular' it could be lightened by leaving bits off if required. So your average man at arms could be scouting or harrying in just a breastplate and helmet on an unarmoured horse, return to camp and strap on the rest of his kit to take his place in the battle line or a mounted reserve.

A fairly current academic viewpoint is that while the initial battles of the wars were fought in the fashion of the latter HYW (Northampton is the battle of Castillon gone wrong, for example), there was increasing use of Cavalry as the standard of archery and the numbers of bowmen declined*. It appears very likely that Clifford's rearguard was mounted on its retreat from Ferrybridge, as would be the pursuing Yorkists. Warwick famously slew his horse on arrival at Ferrybridge to show his commitment to staying with his men. Certainly by Richard III's time there appears to be quite an increase in mounted troops, his final charge is commonly accepted as being on horseback.

By Tudor times, the ratio of bills to bows is 1:1 and there are large numbers of 'Demilances', which would support an increase in the use of cavalry in the preceding period. However there was also a need to 'stiffen' the poorer quality troops during the wars, which necessitated that most nobles and captains, along with their household men at arms fighting on foot with them. Horses would be kept near to allow for the pursuit of the enemy if they ran and to also enable a speedy retreat. The skeletons excavated near Towton showed that many of the blows would have come from above and behind and supports the idea of running men being hacked down by horsemen (the other interpretation is of course kneeling men executed however).

*This is quite a big argument. Edward IVs muster roll for 1475 shows a 10:1 ratio of bows (but no bills) to men at arms, while surviving muster rolls from elsewhere show a range of 2:1 to 1:1 bows to billmen. One belief is that the scribes for Edward's expedition used the term 'archer' as we would use 'soldier' for expediency. Certainly by the end of the HYW billmen constituted roughly a quarter of the infantry used and household accounts from the 1450s-60s show substantial retainers being offered to bowmen to serve in households, implying that they were in short supply. Edward IV instituted a series of laws with a variety of penalties to promote archery practice. As laws don't tend to get created without an initial need for them, it would appear that archery was on the decline (I won't bore you with the reason for this). 

[Captain Blood]

Thanks Jim. That's a very erudite summary 
From my own extensive reading of the period (3 Ospreys!) the hotly contested topic of ratio of bows:bills:men-at-arms seems really to be a bit of a red herring. Unlike the Wars against France where the English (and Welsh!) longbow was a weapon of mass destruction only the English possessed and was therefore a battle winner, in the Wars of the Roses, where two English armies were fighting each other, the longbows essentially cancelled each other out. They were, in effect, no longer a battle winner. So although both sides (all sides) used longbows as a prelude to closing, the winner of battles in the WOTR was generally the side that closed with most determination, and it was therefore the billmen and men-at-arms who were arguably the more vital constituent of any force.
Which would tend to suggest that ratios of 10 bowmen to every billman are completely out, whereas a much more balanced force, possibly even with a preponderance of 'hand-to-hand specialists' over archers seems much more likely...

[commissarmoody]

This is all vary interesting, most of my info about the era is from the HYW. I enjoy learning new things about this conflict

[Arlequín]

Thanks Jim. That's a very erudite summary 
From my own extensive reading of the period (3 Ospreys!) the hotly contested topic of ratio of bows:bills:men-at-arms seems really to be a bit of a red herring. Unlike the Wars against France where the English (and Welsh!) longbow was a weapon of mass destruction only the English possessed and was therefore a battle winner, in the Wars of the Roses, where two English armies were fighting each other, the longbows essentially cancelled each other out. They were, in effect, no longer a battle winner. So although both sides (all sides) used longbows as a prelude to closing, the winner of battles in the WOTR was generally the side that closed with most determination, and it was therefore the billmen and men-at-arms who were arguably the more vital constituent of any force.
Which would tend to suggest that ratios of 10 bowmen to every billman are completely out, whereas a much more balanced force, possibly even with a preponderance of 'hand-to-hand specialists' over archers seems much more likely...

Without a doubt whatever the ratio of bows to bills, generally there'd be a parity that would negate any real advantage. Only where there was a disparity in the numbers of archers (e.g. Stoke Field or Edgecote) or some extraneous factor (e.g. the Towton blizzard), would one side be goaded into an ill-advised assault. Hand strokes were the battle winner in the bulk of WotR battles.

However in the ranking of combat effective troops, the common billman (as opposed to men at arms) was bottom of the heap. Billmen were those men who were too poor to assemble an archers gear, or were too infirm or otherwise unable to be archers. The archers themselves were veritable knuckle-draggers with over developed upper body musculature, even in comparison to the average field labourer. They weren't afraid to mix it either and carried a variety of weapons, although sword and buckler were the fashionable combination. The better bowmen were already 'retained' by the gentry and nobility and were often 'gifted' with a variety of better class weaponry. The billmen were less experienced on the whole and it would appear that their experience with the bill was largely confined to having caught it when it was thrown to them in the first place. Billmen were also paid 2d less than archers, so the argument that a bill was more useful in a WotR battle, thus many archers carried a bill instead doesn't really follow. In essence therefore, while possibly forming the most predominate single troop type on the field, billmen were likely to be the least desired, least able and most likely to let you down at the crunch.

However once you add men at arms (a catch all term to include knights, gentry and the better off of the tenantry) - the real hand to hand specialists, then you increase their effectiveness. I'd imagine deciding how to deploy your 'elite' troops to have been a major headache for a Captain, 'do I keep a solid core of heavies, or do I spread them out to encourage the bovine mass of billmen that I've ended up with?' or 'how do I keep a decisive mounted component and stop this lot of nose-scratchers from wandering off at the same time?'

The English Civil War was a doddle in comparison as few soldiers had any prior experience of war in any form, it was far easier to give the biggest lads pikes and what armour was around and the slighter guys what muskets were available. Add to this that you often had some training time too before they would be committed to battle. In the WotR you often had just 30 days to raise your men (if they were shire troops), get them to where they were supposed to be and fight your battle before they started whining about going home or wanting to be paid. One of Richard III's problems was deciding when to raise his levies, in the event he left it too late (though it's doubtful they would have made any great haste to turn up).

WotR is often underrated as a period, it's both fascinated and frustrated me for a long time. It's good to see that it's beginning to see a resurgence. 

 

[Gluteus Maximus]

Thanks Jim. That's a very erudite summary 

It certainly filled in several gaps in my knowledge 

From my own extensive reading of the period (3 Ospreys!) the hotly contested topic of ratio of bows:bills:men-at-arms seems really to be a bit of a red herring. Unlike the Wars against France where the English (and Welsh!) longbow was a weapon of mass destruction only the English possessed and was therefore a battle winner, in the Wars of the Roses, where two English armies were fighting each other, the longbows essentially cancelled each other out. They were, in effect, no longer a battle winner. So although both sides (all sides) used longbows as a prelude to closing, the winner of battles in the WOTR was generally the side that closed with most determination, and it was therefore the billmen and men-at-arms who were arguably the more vital constituent of any force.
Which would tend to suggest that ratios of 10 bowmen to every billman are completely out, whereas a much more balanced force, possibly even with a preponderance of 'hand-to-hand specialists' over archers seems much more likely...

That all sounds pretty accurate. Many of the battles were very bloody and from (a very dodgy) memory, a very high proportion of casualties were from melee - much higher than in the 100YW. I think it was Towton that was the bloodiest battle fought on English land, with a snowstorm limiting the effect of archery and consequently a hand-to-hand slugfest, with around 28,000 casualties.

[Gluteus Maximus]

WotR is often underrated as a period, it's both fascinated and frustrated me for a long time. It's good to see that it's beginning to see a resurgence. 

Feel free to write lots more stuff on the subject