The Blue Guards, Again, Variations On A Theme

Amazing what a couple hours of sleep and a little more digging can accomplish! In case you can't tell, I love a good puzzle. On a guess, I checked the Junior General web site, where I discovered the flag in the lower left, by Daniel Harper, in their "Grand Alliance" section. No source is offered for the presence of the "Royal Crown, Or", but otherwise, this flag closely matches the description in the Great Wardrobe Accounts for 1691. The "trophies" are certainly somewhat "abstract", but then I'm not sure they can be otherwise. If you simply remove the Crown, you get an exact match for the official description, as in the upper left. The depiction of the "garter with star" is certainly much more accurate and has reasonable detail for gaming purposes.

Then, while prowling through various vexilollogie sites, I discovered a footnote describing the standard in the lower right, with "William's Royal Cipher, Or, on all four arms of the cross of St. George". Certainly sounds plausible, even if it doesn't match the Great Wardrobe Accounts description. However, taking this a step further, and more in keeping with conventions for other Royal Regiments (even into much later periods), what if you placed the Crown above and the Cipher below, as in "Crown over Cipher, Or", as I have done in the upper right version? I think any of these could work for a gamer or modeller, but I will probably choose to use the one in the upper left, as it does match official accounts exactly. At any rate, this is at least a part of the fun of being gamer's, modeller's, amateur historians and students of uniforms and vexilollogie. Have fun making your own choice!

Bill

p.s. - Thanks to Ralphus for another great post on the Winged Hussars and Vienna! Stirring stuff. Now, if you and Steve and Wayne and I don't stop it, I'm going to have to put aside some of my Dutch Wars and TYW stuff and start on those Poles that I ordered.

"Well, I had a credit with Old Glory 15's you see, and was ordering some more Essex from Wargames already, and if I'm already reviewing Ian Kay's range from Irregular then its only fair to check out his Poles too, and at some point I must try some of those wonderful Poles from Legio Heroica or from that Polish wargames site or maybe Donnington, honest Dear..."