Add MS 65531

BATTLE OF RAMILLIES: sketch plan of the Battle of Ramillies (23 May 1706), probably drawn by Col. Michael Richards; 1706. Scale varies. Illustrates positions of the Allied and of the French and Bavarian armies. No cardinal points given, but the sketch is oriented with West-South-West at the top, with the Mehaigne river shown on the extreme left. Military formations shown in plan with woodland and marsh indicated and labelled. For a description of the Battle of Ramillies, see David Chandler, Marlborough as military commander (1973), pp. 172-179. Sketch endorsed in ink 'Ramilies. Coll M Richards'. Michael Richards (b.1673, d.1721), who later became Surveyor-General of the Ordnance, was Marlborough's aide-de-camp at Ramillies. His rôle in bringing the despatches with news of the battle back to England is mentioned by Marlborough himself in a letter to his Duchess, written the day after the battle, for which see Henry L. Snyder, The Marlborough-Godolphin Correspondence (Oxford, 1975), vol. 1. See the Richards Papers, Stowe 463-465, 469, 472, 473, 476, 477 and 481 and the article on Richards in the Dictionary of National Biography. The sketch was formerly part of the Clifford Papers. It may have come into the family's possession through its contacts with Richards who, though a Protestant, came of a Catholic family. For further Clifford papers, see Add. 65138-65141. For the present MS., see Sotheby's sale-cat., 23-24 July 1987, lot 246 (part). Purchased from Burgess Browning, July 1988.

Ink on paper. 300 x 370mm. It appears from extensive damage at the folds and dust staining that the sketch was folded to a size of approx. 150 x 95mm., possibly as an enclosure to a letter, and kept in that way for some time.