The Tower Hamlets Trayned Bandes

click photo to enlarge

I received an email the other day. It was a good humoured complaint. The writer was concerned to point out that the two photographs I posted of members of The Tower Hamlets Trayned Bandes re-enactment group (here and here) didn't reflect the pleasure that comes from taking part in such activities. My correspondent was complimentary about my images in all other respects, but wondered if I'd taken any shots that showed the members of the English Civil War organisation with smiles on their faces.

I'm pleased to say that not only did the Bandes' members generally go about their business smiling, I actually caught them in the act, and today I'm happy to post the proof. However, why some of them were smiling as they trooped back to their encampment after a skirmish I don't know, because they'd just been shot to death! I suppose the ability to rise from the dead after the battle is over and go and have a a bit of food and drink in the bosom of your family and friends is one of the pleasures of this kind of activity.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 102mm (204mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Bringing the past closer

click photo to enlarge

A couple of weeks ago I pulled over by the side of the road near Horncastle in Lincolnshire, and read an information board that is sited there. It explained that on the nearby fields on 11th October 1643, during the English Civil War, the Battle of Winceby was fought.The Parliamentary forces were led by the Earl of Manchester, Edward Montagu, with Oliver Cromwell as his second in command. Sir William Widdrington commanded the Royalists, with Sir John Henderson and William Saville. Each side had a force of about 3,000 mounted men. Through a combination of Cromwell's better tactics and confusion over orders among the Royalists the battle resulted in a decisive victory for the Parliamentarians. Widdrington's force lost in the region of 300 men killed and around 800 taken prisoner, whilst Cromwell suffered about 20 killed. The battle was a significant action in the sequence of events that resulted in Lincolnshire being wrested from the Royalists.

As we looked at the battlefield and its sign I commented that 1643 wasn't too long ago. That isn't a remark that I could have made in my teenage years or even in my twenties or thirties. However, it has been my experience that advancing years and an increasing knowledge of history has given me a more informed overview of the years between then and now, and this "joining of the dots" has brought those relatively remote times closer. As I watched the re-enactment of Civil War skirmishes performed by The Tower Hamlets Trayned Bands at Tattershall Castle, and during my walk around their faithfully re-constructed encampment, I wondered if the years contracted in a similar way for these "actors". Does inhabiting the seventeenth century for many weekends of the year bring that time closer? I imagine it does. Today's photograph shows one of the women who were particpating in the re-enactment. With other women and a group of children she was explaining about the domestic duties and implements of the Civil War period.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 150mm (300mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The English Civil War

click photo to enlarge

The English Civil War (or English Revolution) and the ensuing Commonwealth and Protectorate of the seventeenth century have always seemed to me to be neglected periods of English history. Schools often treat them in a fleeting manner, skimming over the essentials, but rarely dwelling on their deeper significance. Higher education gives every impression of finding other periods more attractive. I get the feeling too that there are fewer books about this era than about other, often less interesting times. Moreover, it's my impression that the average English person actually knows more about the American Civil War and its outcome than about our home-grown conflict and its consequences, probably due to the wide coverage of the former in Hollywood films.

Which, of course, begs the question of why this should be. Is it because England's revolution appears as an aberration in our (almost) seamless sequence of monarch succeeding monarch? Does violent revolt and regicide appeal less to British sensibilities than to those of the French or all the other nations that replaced a monarchy with a republic? Are we so besotted with a class structure that has a royal family at its apex that we can't countenance greater egality? Or are we a conservative nation for whom change must be gradual, if it comes at all? There may be other reasons, but none that immediately spring to the mind of this confirmed republican.

A recent visit to Tattershall Castle in Lincolnshire co-incided with a display by an English Civil War re-enactment group. When we decided to go the castle, a brick building dating from the 1440s, we hadn't known that the The Tower Hamlets Trayned Bandes, a re-creation of a Civil War Parliamentarian militia would be there, skirmishing and laying seige to the fortification. So, as well as photographs of the architecture (and my family) I also managed a few of the members of the re-enactment group as they went about their business.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 64mm (128mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/160
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On