Past Master

 This is the third in Nigel Tranter's Master of Gray Trilogy. Patrick, Master of Gray (1559–1612), was a Scottish nobleman and politician who played a notable, though often controversial, role during the reign of James VI of Scotland.

The story moves on to the later stages of James VI's rule in Scotland before he gained the English throne. Patrick, you may recall, had yet again been banished, but he devises a new way of getting back into James' good books by uncovering a Catholic plot to unseat him. Tranter goes for the line that Patrick inspired the rebellion, only to undermine it. 

The best part of the book is the fighting on the western seaboard and Ireland when the McDonalds went off to support Irish rebels. Tranter always describes this part of Scotland very well.

There was one last apparent internal attempt to kill James in August 1600, when he was apparently assaulted by Alexander Ruthven at Gowrie House, the seat of the Ruthvens. Ruthven was run through by James's page, John Ramsay, and the Earl of Gowrie was killed in the ensuing fracas; there were few surviving witnesses. Given James's history with the Ruthvens and the fact that he owed them a great deal of money, his account of the circumstances was not universally believed.

The book ends with Elizabeth's death when she finally names James as her successor. Sadly for Patrick, James decides he has yet again had enough of him and that there would be suitable rogues in London to replace him. This must have been a blow as succession was Patrick's main policy aim. We know that Patrick became the 6th Lord Gray on his father's death in 1609, three years before he died in 1612.

While this is not the most exciting period of Scottish history, the story is excellent, with plenty of plots and turns to keep the reader engaged.

I picked up some 28mm figures suitable for the period, perhaps a little earlier, at the bring and buy at Hammerhead. They will undoubtedly work for games of Border Wars.

Avro Heritage Museum

 I had a spare morning between Hammerhead and Old Trafford for the FA Cup game (yes, I am a happy Fulham fan), so, I went to the Avro Heritage Museum at Woodford, near Stockport. This is a new museum on the site of the former BAE (Avro) factory, most of which is now a sprawling housing estate, although with plenty of aircraft related street names.

It is not a large museum with lots of exhibits, and the focus is on information boards telling the history of the site and the aircraft made there.  The one exception is the Vulcan. That made two in two days for me, having been to Newark the day before.

They have several cockpits and do cockpit tours. I did the Lancaster one and the young guide who did the tour was excellent. I hadn't appreciated that the Lancaster only had one pilot position, although other crew members might have been trained to fly it in emergencies. 4,400 Lancasters were assembled at Woodford.

This is the radio operator's seat

Of particular interest to me was the Avro York, the largest RAF transport of the Second World War. This was Churchill's plane (Ascalon) used to ferry him around the theatres of war. This included his conference with the Turkish President near Adana that I covered in my book on Turkey in WW2.

I was also interested in the adaptions they made to aircraft for the Falklands War, which I covered in my book on HMS Ambuscade. These included converting Nimrods and Vulcans into tankers, and giving Nimrods Sidewinder AAMs.

They also cover all the early WW1 and inter-war aircraft, if that is your thing.

It is well worth a visit if you are in the area.

Hammerhead 2025

 This is the first of three shows at the Newark Showground each year. Unlike the York show, the focus is on the games, particularly participation games. There is also a DBA competition, which a pal of mine was playing in. 

That said, all the usual traders were there, and there was a good bring-and-buy. I picked up a few items to flesh out some armies at very reasonable prices. 

These are some of the games that caught my eye.

Several games used Midgard rules, including this one, Defenders of Asgard, which was striking, both for the snow and the forces involved. I am not sure about the premise of Midgard, with its emphasis on heroes, but I gave in and bought a copy.

This Omaha participation game is doing the rounds of shows. I am not convinced it has enough tactical interest, but there were plenty of players throughout the day.

Two of several small participation games with great terrain.

Zombies in an excellent cityscape.

Williamite wars in 10mm using Black Powder. 

Simon has moved over to the dark side (as some of our club members would have it) with To the Strongest fantasy adaptation in the Runequest world.

Lord of the Rings games were popular.

An interesting compact English Civil War game - Cropedy Bridge if I recall correctly.

Another big Lord of the Rings game - Ford at Isen.

I must dust down my Very British Civil War armies. This one had the BUF and Anglican League scrapping in Somerset.

I'm not a big fan of WW1 trench warfare, but this was well done.

If you are in Newark, it would be rude not to visit the air museum just down the lane from the showground.

As always, thanks to the club members who ran an excellent show.

Staffordshire Museums

 I had a free day before a book talk this evening, so I went on a grand tour of Staffordshire museums.

I started at the remains of the Roman town of Wall (Letocetum). This town on Watling Street, the main road to London, was well established by 50AD. The remains of the walls here cover the public bathhouse and the main administrative building. It is only a small site but has good information boards. A small museum is attached to the site, but it has minimal opening times.

The next stop was the excellent Staffordshire Regimental Museum near Lichfield. It has a few armoured vehicles (Spartan, Ferret, MTLB, Bren Carrier) outside and one of the best replica WWI trenches I have seen. Inside is the usual chronological set of display cases covering the regiments amalgamated into the North and South Staffords, which today are part of the Mercian Regiment. 

Iraqi MTLB

I had never seen this 20-round magazine for the SMLE.  120,000 were issued in 2018.

This did make me laugh.

I stopped off in Lichfield for lunch and rummaged through the second-hand bookshops. The cathedral is impressive and has a regimental chapel. It saw much action during the Civil War, including three sieges.

This memorial in the chapel covers the little-known Sutlej Campaign in the Anglo-Nepalese War of 1815.

The final stop was the National Memorial Arboretum. This is very impressive, with memorials to the regiments, corps, and campaigns of the armed forces and others who lost their lives, such as railway workers and miners. It is beautifully laid out and makes a great afternoon stroll.

The main post-1945 memorial.

The South Atlantic memorial

Gallipoli. It includes the famous Ataturk quote, although he probably didn't say it.

Balkan Wars

 Balkan Wars is a mighty tome by James Tracy, with a matching price tag (£70). It examines the long 16th-century conflicts between the Ottomans, Habsburgs, and Venetians in the Balkans. Even I baulked at the price until it arrived as a Christmas present.

The 15th century was the period when the Ottomans swept across the Balkans, occupying modern Greece, Bulgaria, large parts of Bosnia and Serbia, and capturing Constantinople. The 16th century started with further conquest based on the destruction of the medieval Kingdom of Hungary following the battle of Mohacs in 1526. This not only pushed the boundaries of the Ottoman Empire against the Austrian Habsburgs and the Venetians in Dalmatia, but it also consolidated the Ottoman administration of the Balkans for centuries to come. Wallachia, Transylvania and Moldavia (modern Romania) were organised as vassal states. Progress was limited for the rest of the 16th century until the boundaries largely stabilised after the Long Turkish War ended in 1606. 

This is the big picture that James Tracy breaks down into a narrative history of the individual conflicts and a study of how the armies were financed and recruited. This is often portrayed as a clash of Christendom against Islam. However, Tracy points out that this is a simplistic conclusion given the era's changing nature of religious belief. Many Habsburg regions became Protestant, and the Ottomans were often drawn back to their eastern borders to fight their own heretics in Persia. Language, trade and cultural ties were more important than shifting religious affinities.

The Ottomans had the best of the century primarily because they could mobilise greater warfighting resources on the front line. Bosnia provided the core of Ottoman manpower, supplemented by armies from across the empire during major wars. The small war was almost constant. Akinci raiders would spread across the border into Croatia, devastating the countryside, followed by the armies that could engage in battles and capture fortresses. The Sultan could direct the resources necessary to deliver his strategy.

The Habsburgs had less centralised control, relying on the nobility to play its part, which it did not consistently deliver. Subsidies from the Holy Roman Empire were increasingly crucial in paying for the troops that garrisoned the forts along the shifting border. Only when the border stabilised did the Military Border and the Grenzer become the institution that it became in the following centuries. It was government by consultation, which was inevitably slow to respond to events.

 The Venetians wanted Dalmatian ports as stopping points for their ships in peaceful trade and war. They were always conflicted between the need to develop positive trade relations with the Ottomans and the pressure on their territory. The land around the ports was often abandoned, making it difficult to sustain them without support from Venice. They often facilitated the uskok raiders until they became more of a nuisance than a benefit by the end of the century.

The author breaks down the story into bite-sized chunks, making this long book readable. It reminds me of John Fine's magnificent two-volume history of the medieval Balkans in style. It is thoroughly researched and is the most comprehensive study of the period. Other books cover individual combatants, but this book pulls it all together. It is as well it is robustly bound because it will be regularly coming off my shelves.

Croats in Habsburg service

And the Ottoman Sipahi on the other side of the border.

York Museums

 I am in Yorkshire for my wife's family gathering, which gave me a free day when she met up with her old pals. Unfortunately, the East Riding has lost some good attractions, including the Military Transport Museum at Beverley, where we are staying, and Fort Paul on the Humber Estuary. So, I returned to York to visit museums I hadn't visited for a few years.

I started at somewhere I hadn't been to before - The Battle of Stamford Bridge. Hardrada and Tostig landed in northern England with a large Viking force, capturing York on September 20, 1066, after defeating an English army at the Battle of Fulford. King Harold marched his army nearly 200 miles from London to Yorkshire in just four days, taking Hardrada's forces by surprise. Hardrada and Tostig were killed, and the Viking army was decisively defeated. Only 24 of the 300 Viking ships that had arrived returned to Norway, carrying the survivors of Hardrada's forces. 

The bridge is long gone, but an information board and a Viking 'longship' are near the new bridge. The battle site is contested. Some argue it was fought in front of the bridge, but the traditional view is that it was fought in the meadows east of the bridge. A monument overlooks the meadows. 

I then went into the city to the York Army Museum. This small regimental museum houses the Prince of Wales’s Own Regiment of Yorkshire and the Royal Dragoon Guards. 

Then up Clifford Tower, which isn't much of a castle, but it has great views of the city from the battlements.

After a quick sortie around the second-hand bookshops, I finished at the York Castle Museum. They had a 1914 exhibition with some interesting exhibits.

Fun over the dreaded shopping trip tomorrow! Beverley does at least have some good pubs and restaurants.