Pike & Shotte: Louis de Bourbon

Born into one of France’s greatest noble families, the young Louis was a well-educated and natural leader, as exhibited by his temporary governorship of Burgundy as a teenager and was eventually appointed to command French troops against the Spanish in 1643. Despite his youth, when Louis took on the veteran Spanish generals at Rocroi, he crushed them and effectively ended the reign of the Spanish tercio. The following year, Louis marched into Germany to assist Vicomte de Turenne. The pair fought inconclusively against the Imperial forces at the Battle of Freiburg. The two French commanders took on the Imperial army again in 1645 at Nördlingen, but again the battle was indecisive, though it achieved the French strategic objective to clear Bavaria of Imperial forces for a while at least. The year 1646 saw Louis in Flanders fighting alongside the Duc de Orléans.

For the next two years, political infighting resulted in Louis having to defend his reputation, but when much of France rose in rebellion in 1648 and Spain attempted to intervene, it was to Louis that the French crown turned. He met the Spanish at Lens and crushed them in what would prove to be the last major battle of the Thirty Years' War. From 1650 to 1653, he consorted with the Spanish and fought against Turenne at the Battle of Faubourg St Antoine. It was at the Battle of the Dunes in 1658 that Louis and Turenne met again, with Turenne winning a decisive victory, leading to the Treaty of the Pyrenees between Spain and France. After his reconciliation with the French crown, Louis fought alongside Turenne against the Dutch in 1672 before personally taking on the Prince of Orange at the bloody Battle of Seneffe in 1674. After some more campaigning in 1675, Louis retired from the military, dying eleven years later as a national hero.

Pack contains one metal miniature on horseback.

Models supplied unassembled and unpainted.