#it’s a suggestion that he was a plebeian criminal because felons of the lower orders had their faces branded when they committed a crime but

[sneez]

a marston moor fairfax! not his best day, alas :-( at least he got a wicked scar to show for it!

#fairfax #artwork #he did some absurdly brave (slash stupid) things during this battle i am not surprised he got heartily walloped in the face #one of them involved removing the field sign (which marked him as a parliamentarian) from his hat and riding straight through the royalist #lines to liase with cromwell without them recognising him. he did that on two separate occasions. ridiculous man (extremely affectionate) #nevertheless marston moor was certainly not his best battle because his cavalry got thoroughly routed and he got slashed in the face with a #sabre (ouch) which is where he got his scar! i have mentioned that before but what can i say i love repeating myself #you can see the scar clearly in the robert walker painting (the gay teapot one) :-) #also with regard to the gay teapot painting i saw a very interesting suggestion recently that the reason he is wearing a glove in that #portrait is to disguise the damage from the bullet wound he received in the wrist whilst protecting his father’s retreat to hull in july #1643!! i had never considered that before but the possibility compels me greatly…..i wonder how bad the scarring was #i have often wondered how much mobility he had in that arm because the shot he took in the shoulder during the siege of helmsley castle in #1644 was also in his left arm……he does mention a lot of pain and numbness in his old wounds so i wonder how badly he was disabled by them #it makes me very sad also because by 1664 he had mostly lost the use of his legs so if his left arm was also out of commission that would #restrict his mobility even more :-( and also of course kidney stones. and head injuries. suffering and pain (both myself and him but #emotionally in my case and physically in his) #what am i talking about. this has nothing to do with the battle of marston moor (1644) #when he got his Cool Face Scar the royalist polemicist john crouch said that he was ‘marked for a rogue’ which i think is very funny #it’s a suggestion that he was a plebeian criminal because felons of the lower orders had their faces branded when they committed a crime but #i prefer the idea that the dude was being like ‘hey man cool scar makes you look like a pirate’ #piratefax. faxbeard. beardfax. ok stopping now #blood tw #injury tw