WOTR's Noble & Retinue

[nickthegreek]

Hello All,

I have some Front Rank WOTR's troops long overdue to be painted.
These troops will be mostly used for HC, so they will be based around a noble and his retinue per division.
My question is, would men at arms mounted or on foot wear their own colours/ badge? As I presume a lot would be gentry in their own right, or would they wear the leaders colours and or badge?

I was going to base my army on John Neville initially, and then extend to Norfolk, and Warwick etc…..

It would be nice to be reasonably historical, but artistic license will most likely prevail.

Any comments will be appreciated,
Nick

[Arlequín]

If a guy was entitled to bear a coat of arms (some gentry were, besides the knights and lords) he would wear a tabard or something displaying that, if he wore anything. Otherwise livery colours, or even just a cloth sash in the appropriate colour over armour.

You would generally only wear someone's livery colours if you were 'contracted' to them and formed part of their contingent. If you were just on the same side, or had just agreed to work with them, you would more likely wear your own.

There probably was some hard and fast convention regarding who could have livery and who couldn't, but other than the laws which eventually outlawed it (after a fashion), we haven't a clue what they were.

 

[Captain Blood]

I have heard it suggested that minor lords and their men wore their own colours, but with a badge or token denoting the great magnate (like a Neville) to whom they were allied.
So a Neville 'army' could have included a variety of liveries, but they'd all have worn a Neville badge or field sign.

[nickthegreek]

Thank you Gents for the quick reply. Like you Captain, I'll pump up the volume with my colour choices.

[max]

Also remember that a Man at arms could be anyone, from a knight to a professional soldier. So you could have some in their own livery/coats of arms and others with the magnate's colour (or none at all). I generally give my men at arms a little colour to keep them tied in with the rest of the retinues.

I have heard it suggested that minor lords and their men wore their own colours, but with a badge or token denoting the great magnate (like a Neville) to whom they were allied.
So a Neville 'army' could have included a variety of liveries, but they'd all have worn a Neville badge or field sign.

Interesting, i might make some banners of historical leaders for my retinues to show their allegiance.

[Arlequín]

I have heard it suggested that minor lords and their men wore their own colours, but with a badge or token denoting the great magnate (like a Neville) to whom they were allied.
So a Neville 'army' could have included a variety of liveries, but they'd all have worn a Neville badge or field sign.

Quite... Margaret's men handed out badges of the Prince of Wales's feathers in 1459, with no mention of liveries. Alternatively, they wore a similar colour scheme to their 'lord' with their own badges, which might be the case with Buckingham's 3,000 livery jackets in 1483.

The other, other option suggested, is that in large forces, each 'company' had its own badge, while the big kahuna himself displayed all of them on his standard. Think Percy with their mullets (not the hairstyle   ), keys, and lions what have you. Other people's standards had multiple badges, or just the one, so this might have some connection to the numbers of men they could field.

With regard to colours in general I'm also inclined to think that there is some 'code' or meaning in there somewhere, which is now lost to us. In the 1450s there were certain 'groups' of colours, red-black and blue-white, which were used quite a bit and not on the same side, while others fall outside of these groups.

Blue and White are the pre-war 'Lancastrian' colours, so the King, along with the Dukes of York and Somerset used these. Red and Black was used by the Duke of Buckingham, along with other Staffords (related or not) and the Earls of Salisbury, Shrewsbury and Northumberland... and apparently for troops raised in Cheshire on behalf of the Prince of Wales in 1459.  

Otherwise the colours seem quite random, with even fathers and sons taking different colours. Warwick took on the 'Beauchamp' livery and badges for obvious reasons, but otherwise there seems no corresponding pattern. Cities and towns on the whole, seem to have gone for what colour cloth was cheapest and in greatest supply at the time they raised their men... no big surprise there though.

[Captain Blood]

Both insignia and livery colours combine to make a fascinating topic indeed - mainly because we just don't know so much!
Intriguing and frustrating... 
Jim, apart from the Freezywater booklets, do you know has anyone ever attempted a serious, in-depth study of the subject?

So if Richard of York and his men dutifully wore the blue and white of the ruling house pre-war, I wonder at what point they switched to the famous 'murrey and blue', and what prompted the selection of these particular colours... Or were those always the 'house' colours of York, subordinated in deference to the 'royal' colours of Lancaster, all the time Richard was a dutiful subject of the king?

[6sided]

I tend to be cautious and make most of mine "universal" with just the leader stand and one or two others in livery colours. That way the front rank looks OK and I maximise the use of my figures.

[Arlequín]

Both insignia and livery colours combine to make a fascinating topic indeed - mainly because we just don't know so much!
Intriguing and frustrating...  
Jim, apart from the Freezywater booklets, do you know has anyone ever attempted a serious, in-depth study of the subject?

As far as I know, nobody ever has... but then I've been out of the loop for that sort of thing for a while now. I know Gerry Embelton's re-enactment group (Company of St. George?) did something about them, but I think it was more slanted towards European liveries, which is even less well-written about than English ones.

There was a Victorian book which just listed the badges of the 1475 expedition captains, but I've never seen one.

Like most history, anything likely to be of value to a wargamer is largely ignored. They can tell you from the night soil deposits of a medieval castle, what the soldiers ate on Tuesday afternoons, but the colour of their jackets??? Why would anyone possibly want to know that?

 

So if Richard of York and his men dutifully wore the blue and white of the ruling house pre-war, I wonder at what point they switched to the famous 'murrey and blue', and what prompted the selection of these particular colours... Or were those always the 'house' colours of York, subordinated in deference to the 'royal' colours of Lancaster, all the time Richard was a dutiful subject of the king?

As an answer snatched right out of the air, I would guess that the DoY kept his blue and white, right up to Wakefield. People identified with badges and livery much more so than coats of arms, so by keeping it he was making a statement... probably.

I think it was just a case of Edward choosing blue and murray, in the same way as Lord Maltravers chose black as opposed to his father's red and white... or other variations. Maybe different colours represented the separation of independently titled sons from their father's titles? I suspect he was using blue and murray before Mortimer's Cross, but the 'sun' motif came in after.  

It's also possible that blue and murray might have had some significance to former followers of the Mortimer family (I'm guessing btw), which would have gone down well with the folk down Wigmore way when you are trying to raise an army from them.

[Atheling]

What Arlequin said (in all of his posts on this thread!).

 

Darrell.