Monday 12 January 2009

1688's battle that never was

Most people know the story; William of Orange lands at Torbay November 5th 1688 with about 14,000 men - mostly foreign professional soldiers. James II assembles his own army and marches out to meet them. James gets to Salisbury and suffers nose bleeds - Churchill and the Duke of Grafton desert with about 400 troopers to William's camp at Axminster. James dissolves his army and escapes to France. James had a numerically superior army and has been criticised for not having the martial skills to have made a fight of it. I wonder to what extent we can reconstruct this non-existent battle through army lists, orders of battle etc and see what might have happened? It might make an interesting display wargame. William III's itinerary here
Image James II's armour from here

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