Charlie's 15th century - Some long-overdue Burgundians! (Feb 28)

[Atheling]

Excellent stuff Charlie. I haven't had time to give it a read through- just a skim but it seems to tick all the right boxes 

I've added it to my "Blogroll" on my blog.

Looking forward to seeing more stuff- and rereading the first post tomorrow!

[commissarmoody]

Cool, I'll start fallowing your blog as well.

[painterman]

Great looking blog Charlie - will be following, with interest!
All the best
Simon

[Charlie_]

Thanks, I'm glad the blog is proving a popular idea!

[magyar]

Excellent blog, Charlie! I really liked the history part, - great to have the wealth of information gathered in one place.

[glenning]

Great stuff as usual! The commander's head seen here - where is it from?

[Golgotha]

Exciting indeed! I love your painting style - realistic shading and not overdone as you see on too many miniatures.

[HappyChappy439]

Slightly late to the party but excellent blog! Thanks for sharing here!

[Charlie_]

Great stuff as usual! The commander's head seen here - where is it from?

That's a plastic Perry head from the Mounted Men-At-Arms set, with a plume from Steel Fist.

[Charlie_]

Since launching the blog i've reposted four of the units I've already shown here over the last couple of years. Today is the first entirely new post, which I'll repeat most of here - there's a bit more about the heraldry on the blog.

Click here to see it on the Full Harness blog.


The Prince of Orange and his uncle

This is the Prince of Orange, Jean de Châlon-Arlay IV, who in 1477 led a rebellion in the Franche-Comté (the County of Burgundy) against the occupying French forces. The story is a bit more complex than that though, as at first he was a leader of the French invaders himself. The house of Châlon held territory in both the duchy and the county of Burgundy as well as France, but an inheritance dispute had led to a divide in the family. Jean's grandfather had split his inheritance between children from two separate marriages - the eldest son Guillaume succeeded him as Prince of Orange, but some of his estates went to his two younger sons Louis and Hugues. There was clearly a dispute between the half-brothers, and the Duke of Burgundy intervened in support of the younger line. Guillaume retreated to his French territories, and thus allied himself with Louis XI of France. He died in 1475 and was succeeded by his son Jean. Louis de Châlon died fighting at the Battle of Grandson the following year, so at the start of the War of the Burgundian Succession we have Jean, Prince of Orange in France and his remaining half-uncle Hugues, now Lord of Château-Guyon (or Châtel-Guyon), in Burgundy.





Louis XI had promised to restore the family's Burgundian territories to Jean, so the Prince of Orange found himself leading the French invasion of Burgundy alongside Georges de La Trémoille. Through his diplomatic efforts the duchy promptly swore allegiance to France, and the Franche-Comté was in the process of doing so when the cracks began to appear - La Trémoille refused to hand over the Châlon family estates, and clearly the two noblemen were not working well together. The Prince of Orange was then persuaded to switch sides by none other than his uncle Hugues, Lord of Château-Guyon. The recently occupied towns in the Franche-Comté promptly evicted their French garrisons, and the Comtois nobles united behind the Prince of Orange to fight against the French and drive them out of the county. For a detailed account of what happened, read my article on the war here.

The family tree I've put together below should make the familial relationships clear - the names in boxes are those who were alive in 1477. Note the two cousins Charles and Leonard de Châlon, whom I have also found among the listed Burgundian nobles who resisted the French. Charles de Châlon had his lordships confiscated by Louis XI in 1477, though they were restored after the Treaty of Arras (1482). He also fought at the battle of Guinegate (1479), where he was wounded.



When I first found out about these events, the dispute was described as being between the Prince of Orange and 'his uncles'. Looking at the dates of deaths, I wonder if perhaps the only troublesome uncle was Louis - after his death his younger brother Hugues clearly came to some agreement with the Prince, so perhaps he was the more pragmatic of the two?

The Prince of Orange was the main figurehead of the Comtois rebellion in 1477, and his betrayal was taken as a great insult by Louis XI, who ordered him to be captured and executed, and had an effigy of him publicly hanged. Interestingly though I haven't found any accounts of actual fighting he did, and in the following years he is noticeably absent from the sources whilst the war continued. Hugues de Châlon on the other hand led several thousand Swiss mercenaries against Georges de La Trémoille at the bridge of Émagny in 1477 - after a hard-fought battle he was captured and his army forced to retreat. He was at some point ransomed, but in 1479 was persuaded to serve Louis XI through the arrangement of a long-desired marriage to Louise of Savoy (who was the king's niece) - he subsequently played no further part in the wars, and died in 1490.

At some point following (or perhaps during) the failed war in the Franche-Comté, the Prince of Orange moved to the Low Countries, where he served Maximilian as both a military leader and diplomat, campaigning against rebels in Luxembourg and Liège, being made stadtholder and captain-general of Namur for a while, and going on a diplomatic trip to England. Following the Treaty of Arras (1482) he made peace with Louis XI and regained his Burgundian possessions (both the duchy and the county were by then held by the French), and after the latter's death the following year he appears to have maintained good relations with both sides. He settled in Brittany, where he exercised great influence (his mother being a sister of Duke Francis II). He sided with the Orleanist party during the so-called 'Mad War', and was captured at the Battle of Saint-Aubin-du-Cormier (1488). Following his release both Maximilian and the French regency government attempted to use his influence on the issue of Anne of Brittany's marriage - ultimately she was married to Charles VIII of France, who rewarded the Prince of Orange for his part in this. Following Maximilian's reconquest of the Franche-Comté in 1492 he was made stadtholder of the county, yet at the same time had a seat on the French royal council.

[HappyChappy439]

Nice work! And great writeup!

It's interesting to see how the Chalons-Arlay family spent basically the entire 15th century making (sometimes bizarre) power plays! 

[Charlie_]

Yes, our Prince d'Orange at least seems to have been adept at always trying to be on the winning side, whoever that appears to be at the time!

It's interesting, we obviously have no real idea of the actual character and personality of these historical figures, but you can't help but have certain images in your head when you read about them. I'm picturing him being a proud, big-talking character full of great promises, who will ultimately let you down and run for cover when things aren't going the way he wanted!!!
And I can't help but imagine him as a character who'd fit well in to A Song Of Ice And Fire....
Would be fun to think about how you'd want him to be portrayed in a film...

[Charlie_]

I've rebased all my cavalry....

I know they've been posted here before, but I'd like to present them to you again, rebased, re-organised, expanded, smartened up, and generally looking better than before! I even went back and put in all the little studs on the horse harness that I'd omitted the first time round....!

First off is the Burgundian heavy cavalry, two units of 20 each.

I'll just put the whole blog post here - the full blog is at https://fullharness.blogspot.com/

BURGUNDIAN HEAVY CAVALARY

Here's my two Burgundian heavy cavalry units, recently rebased. The French cavalry are getting the same treatment right now. As usual they are mostly Perry miniatures, not just plastics but quite a few metal sculpts as well, with a scattering of Steel Fist parts too. There are lots of conversions which I won't go into detail about in this post.





These are of course supposed to represent Burgundians after the death of Charles the Bold, to be useable for any conflict between 1477 and 1493. We could call them 'Habsburg-Burgundian' if we want. After the disaster of the battle of Nancy, the ordonnance companies who were present would have been destroyed or dispersed, though several thousand survivors made it back, and of course others would not have been there in the first place. Nevertheless the companies ceased to function as a military force capable of combatting the French in 1477. Many of their leaders also went over to the French side, and no doubt took large numbers of men with them. Later in the year Mary and Maximilian managed to raise new ordonnance companies, and by the end of the year they had 800 'lances'. These companies seemingly remained an important part of Maximilian's army into the 16th century.







When it comes to the question of flags and livery.... we really don't know. I didn't want them to have a uniform livery, certainly not the familiar blue and white of Charles the Bold's army. A few of the models I gave a Burgundian saltire on their jackets, but not in any uniform colour scheme. As well as the actual ordonnance companies, they could represent the personal retinues of certain nobles or any sort of cavalry unit hastily thrown-together for combating the French invasion, so the less cohesive look suits this just fine.





I purposefully sought out Burgundian flags that didn't feature Charles the Bold's motto. One is from Pete's Flags, one from the krigsspil website, and one from a chap calling himself Alea Jacta Est Miniautes - he's been posting them free to use on facebook, and he also has a blog where you can find them all. The heraldic banner I made myself - it bears the arms of Jacques de Luxembourg, Lord of Fiennes, who was one of the many nobles who remained loyal to the house of Burgundy after the death of the duke. He was made a Knight of the Golden Fleece in 1478 and the following year was appointed marshal of Maximilian's army in the Low Countries.



And here's a little trick.... the banner is removable, so whilst its Jacques de Luxembourg for this particular photo-shoot, command of the unit can be re-assigned to any other noble I've made banners for! In the picture below are the banners of the Count of Nassau, the Prince of Orange and Louis de Vienne.



There is lots more cavalry to come in the next few weeks, old units have been rebased and expanded and many new figures have been painted. I have painted lots of horses over the past 6 months, I've even come to enjoy it, and I can happily say I took on and conquered the dreaded rebasing task! The end result I think has been very much worth it.

[Ray Rivers]

They look fantastic!

What a collection! 

[Elk101]

Absolutely, that really is an amazing collection.