All three of Charles Stuart's kingdoms are in rebellion. Presbyterian covenanters have thrown King Charles and his bishops out of Scotland, occupying northern England. Catholic confederates have retaken much of Ireland. Parliament has ejected the king from his capital, London, and is raising England's trained bands to defend its constitutional rights and the protestant reformation. Each set of rebels claims loyalty to his majesty while taking up arms against him. The king has raised his battle standard in Nottingham and moved his court to Oxford. Anxious to release royalist troops from garrison duty in Ireland, for use against Parliament, King Charles is negotiating with the Catholic confederates under a temporary truce, and considering the legitimisation of catholicism in Ireland.

Post feature Report RSS Border Reivers

Background to one of the bandit groups included in ECWAlpha7

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Lawlessness was curbed on the border of England and Scotland by King James I after his unification of those kingdoms. The Reiver families/clans were broken up with thousands forcibly transported to Ireland. However, on the outbreak of civil war brigandage returned, exploiting a lack of "joint commissions and justitiarie" who had policed the borders. These brigands included sons and grandsons of the original border reivers, but was nothing approaching a return to the institutionalised family/clan raiding system which blighted the previous century.

This mod includes these later day brigands. I have used poetic licence to retain the name border reivers and mount them as their forebears wearing some steel bonnets and jack of plate armours.

Moss troopers did not make an appearance in historical records until 1646. Many or most of these new brigands were disbanded or deserting Scottish soldiers, following defeats by Parliamentary forces and General Monck's occupation of Scotland. While exploiting the same countryside, they appear too late for a mod starting in 1642.

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