harrytheheid
A Fixture
I've moved this thread from the "Completed Figure" section to here and hoping it'll open up interesting conversations on one of my favorite eras.
The entire subject of "The Wars of Religion" in Europe are a source of major fascination.
This book is fairly interesting;
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Europes-Tr...002TJLETG/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8
This relatively obscure Michael Caine movie set during the TYW is pretty good as well;
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065969/?ref_=nv_sr_4?ref_=nv_sr_4
I'm intending to revisit the TYW in 75mm, (Avanpost's terrific range of resin figures), but that won't be for a while because I've so many other things going on right now.
The "Montrose" biography by John Buchan I've previously referred to in connection with my soon-to-be-finished small diorama is the second edition published in 1928 - which I first read in 1966 when I was around ten years old, although most of it went straight over my head. Having been written around one hundred years ago, the style is a product of it's time, but still accessible for modern readers.
Here's a few cherry-picked excerpts. The bold italics are mine as they're related to the scene just prior to "The Sack of Aberdeen" that I'm trying to re-create; and I've slightly altered the narrative for clarification.
BEGINNING OF PASTE
Montrose had 1,500 foot and some 70 horsemen. It was his business to beat his opponent as soon as possible, for Argyll, with a formidable army, was lumbering in his wake, and Fabian tactics would land him between two fires. On the morning of the 13th, according to his custom, he sent an envoy to the magistrates of the city summoning them to surrender, advising them at any rate to send the women and children to a place of safety, and warning them that those who stayed could expect no quarter.
Why did Montrose preface this engagement with a threat so foreign to his character and practice? It would seem that he was in a mood of anger and strain. His force was heavily outnumbered and needed encouragement; he realized that his affairs stood on a razor edge, and that his failure now would mean destruction. His mood was to be further embittered. The magistrates courteously entertained his messenger and made a drummer-boy who accompanied him the present of a silver piece, but as the two returned under a flag of truce the child was treacherously shot by one of the Covenant soldiers.
Patrick Gordon says that the victors lost but seven men and the vanquished a thousand, which is manifestly absurd; but beyond doubt the flying Covenanters were cut down without quarter, and stripped before the fatal blow, that their clothes might not be soiled with their blood. In the streets unarmed citizens were butchered, women were violated and slain or carried into captivity, and death did not spare the very old and the very young. For three terrible days the orgy lasted.
Montrose’s record had received its darkest stain. What is the truth about the sack of Aberdeen? On the nature and magnitude of the atrocities it is hard to dogmatize. The sack of Aberdeen was not only a crime, it was a fatal error. This was no Covenanting city, and the majority of those who perished inside its walls had been forced into the fight. Montrose had spoiled his chance of getting recruits for the king among the burghers of Deeside. All over Scotland, too, the tale, zealously disseminated by the Covenanters, and no doubt wildly embroidered, must have deterred moderate men from casting in their lot with one whose methods seemed more like a Tilly or a Wallenstein.
END OF PASTE
The entire subject of "The Wars of Religion" in Europe are a source of major fascination.
This book is fairly interesting;
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Europes-Tr...002TJLETG/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8
This relatively obscure Michael Caine movie set during the TYW is pretty good as well;
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065969/?ref_=nv_sr_4?ref_=nv_sr_4
I'm intending to revisit the TYW in 75mm, (Avanpost's terrific range of resin figures), but that won't be for a while because I've so many other things going on right now.
The "Montrose" biography by John Buchan I've previously referred to in connection with my soon-to-be-finished small diorama is the second edition published in 1928 - which I first read in 1966 when I was around ten years old, although most of it went straight over my head. Having been written around one hundred years ago, the style is a product of it's time, but still accessible for modern readers.
Here's a few cherry-picked excerpts. The bold italics are mine as they're related to the scene just prior to "The Sack of Aberdeen" that I'm trying to re-create; and I've slightly altered the narrative for clarification.
BEGINNING OF PASTE
Montrose had 1,500 foot and some 70 horsemen. It was his business to beat his opponent as soon as possible, for Argyll, with a formidable army, was lumbering in his wake, and Fabian tactics would land him between two fires. On the morning of the 13th, according to his custom, he sent an envoy to the magistrates of the city summoning them to surrender, advising them at any rate to send the women and children to a place of safety, and warning them that those who stayed could expect no quarter.
Why did Montrose preface this engagement with a threat so foreign to his character and practice? It would seem that he was in a mood of anger and strain. His force was heavily outnumbered and needed encouragement; he realized that his affairs stood on a razor edge, and that his failure now would mean destruction. His mood was to be further embittered. The magistrates courteously entertained his messenger and made a drummer-boy who accompanied him the present of a silver piece, but as the two returned under a flag of truce the child was treacherously shot by one of the Covenant soldiers.
Patrick Gordon says that the victors lost but seven men and the vanquished a thousand, which is manifestly absurd; but beyond doubt the flying Covenanters were cut down without quarter, and stripped before the fatal blow, that their clothes might not be soiled with their blood. In the streets unarmed citizens were butchered, women were violated and slain or carried into captivity, and death did not spare the very old and the very young. For three terrible days the orgy lasted.
Montrose’s record had received its darkest stain. What is the truth about the sack of Aberdeen? On the nature and magnitude of the atrocities it is hard to dogmatize. The sack of Aberdeen was not only a crime, it was a fatal error. This was no Covenanting city, and the majority of those who perished inside its walls had been forced into the fight. Montrose had spoiled his chance of getting recruits for the king among the burghers of Deeside. All over Scotland, too, the tale, zealously disseminated by the Covenanters, and no doubt wildly embroidered, must have deterred moderate men from casting in their lot with one whose methods seemed more like a Tilly or a Wallenstein.
END OF PASTE
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....now I'm going to take another look at my write-up on the incident.
