Monday 14 March 2011

Sir Edward Echyngham Banner for Flodden


I found a picture of this flag in Military Modelling 1982 Manual and just had to make it for my Flodden English army, I think this is the best looking flag I've done, blowing my own trumpet I just love the Dragon!!

Sir Edward Echyngham fought in the central battle of the van led by Thomas Howard. The battle fielded 9,000 soldiers including crack marines. These wearing the Tudor livery, served under their usual captains, Sir William Sidney of the Great Barque, James King of the Julian of Dartmouth and Edward Echyngham of The Spaniard. Trying to find any info about Echyngham proved very difficult, although I did find the document below, which is quite interesting.
 FATE OF ADMIRAL HOWARD 1513

The expedition put to sea in March, 1513, under the command of Sir Edward Howard. It was arranged that the King should follow in June with the main body. Sir Edward had already gained reputation by his conduct in the late war of Guienne. His letters detailing the movements of the fleet will be read with interest. There is something of that tone of self-confidence in them which will remind the reader of Wolfe and Nelson ; and in men of more doubtful courage would be deemed vainglorious. The French had made great preparations to keep the sea and intercept the passage with a fleet of fifty sail. The English navy at the time consisted of twenty-four ships, of which the total tonnage amounted to 8,460 tons. It carried 2,880 seamen and 4,650 soldiers. The Admiral's ship, the Mari  Rose, was of 600 tons, and carried 200 mariners. His subordinates in command were Sir Edward Echyngham, Sir Henry Shirborne, Sir William Sidney, Sir Thomas Cheney, all equally anxious with himself to win the King's favour and signalize their valour against the French.

On the 25th of April Sir Edward caught sight of the French galleys laid up in shallow water. They were protected by bulwarks on both sides, " planted so thick with guns and crossbows that the quarrels and the gunstones came together as thick as hailstones."  He at once resolved to board them with his boats.

The rest must be told in the words of Sir Edward Echyngham, who was present at the engagement.

" The admiral boarded the galley that Pryer John was in " (Prior John was an English corruption of the name of Pregian, the French Admiral), "and Charran the Spaniard with him, and sixteen others. By advice of the Admiral and Charran they had cast anchor [into the rails] of the French galley, and fastened the cable to the capstan, that if any of the galleys had been on fire they might have veered the cable and fallen off ; but the French hewed asunder the cable, or some of our mariners let it slip, and so they left this [brave man] in the hands of his enemies." In the melee, at ebb of the tide, no one came to his support. " There was a mariner wounded in eighteen places, who by adventure (by mere chance) recovered unto the buoy of the galley, so that the galley's boat took him up. He said he saw my Lord Admiral thrust against the rails of the galley with marris pikes. Charran's boy tells a like tale; for when his master and the Admiral had entered, Charran sent him for his hand-gun, which before he could deliver, the one galley was gone off from the other, and he saw my Lord Admiral waving his sword and crying to the galleys, ' Come aboard again ! Come aboard again ! ' which when my Lord saw they could not, he took his whistle from about his neck, wrapped it together and threw it into the sea." On making inquiries the next morning they could learn no more from the French Admiral than that, " one leapt into his galley with a gilt target on his arm, whom he had cast overboard with marris pikes." Such was the end of Sir Edward Howard, whose loss was universally lamented : " for there was never a nobleman so ill lost as he was, that was of so great courage and had so many virtues, and that ruled so great an army so well as he did, and kept so great order and true justice."

It was a costly sacrifice ; but the gallantry of the action retrieved in the eyes of the world the reputation of England.' At such a time, when unbounded admiration was felt for personal bravery, and victory depended much less on scientific

23 comments:

  1. Good work Ray, stealing my ideas I see.

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  2. Please tell me your not painting up a dragon, what the hell are you gonna ust that for?????

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  3. Very nice I like the 9th Cuirassiers.

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  4. Great work on the banner. I'm actually thinking of doing flodden as a demo game in a couple of years- 2013- the 500th Anniversary and a lot of what you have produced on your blog would prove very usefull.

    Keep them coming.

    Darrell.

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  5. That is a very cool looking banner, and a very interesting story.

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  6. Thanks everyone for your comments.
    @mac-and-me - Cheers!!
    @Biff- Thanks, I enjoyed painting them.
    @Bedford-Glad you like them and I hope you get to use them, sounds like a great idea for 2013, if you do the demo, what shows would you be at, ie any in London??
    @Luckyjoe - It was a little long, but I couldn't find much info about the guy, but I think it works??

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  7. Dat der Dragon obove ya head ya ejut!!

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  8. Every post is a history lesson - cool

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  9. pretty epic dragons you got there on that flag!

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  10. I bet the Scots were really missing William Wallace that day...

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  11. Afraid Mr Wallace was long gone by then, only a mear 208 years.

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  12. lol this banner looks like ass tbh

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  13. @Mekelnborg - I wondered that too, I guess it's a miss spell in the text, it should read Morris pike, which was the name in old English for, wait for it... a Moorish pike!
    @TheHarvester - ok... not quite sure what you mean there?? but hey, welcome to the blog!!

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  14. What paper are you going to use to print the flags to?

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  15. oh gold will be found, and you'll be one of the first to know, however i hope u understand that i cant tell u where.

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  16. @Eric - I use a any high quality paper, it prints out better and cuts out crisper, normal A4 computer paper works well but use a spray varnish on them before you cut them out.
    @Bart - We all expect a share in you panning exploits!!

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  17. Very nice. The dragon looks asian

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  18. Ray,

    I'd probably try to tour the demo game so i'd be looking at Salute, Partizan, York, ClayIore and Carronade, perhaps with a few of my favourite smaller shows thrown into the mix.

    Darrell.

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  19. That's good, I'll be going to Salute, so I'll look out for you and your game there!!

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