Atkyns is probably the most detailed account of them in action. They do seem to have been good in close combat, and it could be that they eventually decided to run away because the rest of Waller’s cavalry had gone and left them outnumbered by the royalists. Barry Denton’s biography of Haselrig would be expected to includee most of what is known about the regiment, but I haven’t read it myself.

I think the main reason why so few cuirassiers were used in the First Civil War is that they were only useful in big battles, whereas most cavalry operations consisted of scouting and raiding.

You aware of any good sources on them in particular, particularly online?

At the operational and strategic level the royalist cavalry do often seem to have had a psychological advantage. Rupert’s cavalry had the upper hand in the Thames valley in the spring and summer of 1643, and that probably played a part in Essex’s decision to withdraw to Brickhill. A lot of historians see this either as tactical shortcomings of parliament’s cavalry, or as evidence of Essex’s lack of enthusiasm and/or competence, but I’d see it more in terms of numbers and supply problems. Parliament’s finances were in a poor state, and there was no workable system in place for supplying remounts to the army. We know much less about the royalist supply situation, but there’s plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest that they had more cavalry in 1643. They certainly used their cavalry effectively by raiding parliamentarian areas, and Essex found it difficult to stop them (although Essex’s cavalry occasionally managed to raid the area around Oxford).

Overall I have a lot of time for shock as a psychological concept, I just find it odd that so many historians have swallowed the idea of physical shock when it doesn’t seem to have been widely believed in during the seventeenth century.

In modern combat, the armoured vehicle provides lots of shock just by showing up, even in urban terrain, so tactical shock is a real possibility, (It takes a man with complete and total control of his bladder to stare down an 70-ton M1 tank that is passing at 40mph) but it is still normally the long, sweeping arrow on the map mixed with chaos being called in on the radio that gives the impression of meltdown in the Corps HQs. i.e. Desert Storm. The Republican Guard began withdrawing before seeing the first Allied tank, but the mere word of its fearsome speed and total destruction “shocked” them into retreating.

What do you reckon?

On reading your post I immediately turned to the dairies of the cavalryman Temple Godman, written during the Crimean war (The Field of War). On page 75 he discusses the charge of the Heavy Brigade of the Battle of Balaclava. I was keen to read his first hand account, since I was aware he had become involved in the fierce hand to hand combat that followed the less famous charge. He says, referring to witnessing the first charge on the Russian cavalry:

‘The enemy seemed quite astonished and drew into a walk and then a halt; as soon as they met, all I saw was swords in the air in every direction, the pistols going off, and everyone hacking away right and left. In a moment the Greys were surrounded and hemmed completely in; there they were fighting back to back in the middle, the great bearskins caps high above the enemy.’

This fits nicely with option 3 – both sides stop and fight.