English Civil War - Tumblr Posts

In today's episode of 'things from when I had no computer', some different types of soldiers from the English Civil War.

Researching these turned out to be very hard, there was a lot of conflicting information. For example, would a pikeman have a sword? I found books saying both yes and no. In the end I thought that being in the front line with only a heavy, 3-4 metre spear would practically be suicide, and I couldn't see anyone agreeing to do it unless they also had a close-range weapon.

Anyway, I did my best with the sources I could find, but I won't be surprised if a historian pops up and points out lots of problems!

The last of the non-fiction drawings from when I had computer troubles.

This was really common when I was in primary school - comparisons of clothing styles between puritans and catholic royalists. One thing I noticed though is that they tended to show upper-class royalists, and middle or lower-class puritans, so I drew a standard upper-class royalist pair (although they ended up looking way too much like the actual king and queen...) and tried to find information on what upper-class puritans would wear.

It turns out puritans were very much in favour of the social hierarchy, and upper-class puritans would have worn richer fabrics and embellishments like ribbons and lace edging to visually indicate their social standing. The open-fronted skirt was apparently a more conservative style at the time, because it required less of the more expensive outer fabric.