About the Author

Lieutenant-General Jonathon Riley is a General Officer with multinational operational command experience at all levels from platoon to corps in theatres from Northern Ireland to the Balkans, the Gulf, Iraq, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan.

General Riley has been awarded the DSO and NATO Meritorious Service Medal and is an Officer of the Legion of Merit of the United States of America. He holds the degrees of MA and PhD in modern history and has written numerous books. He is currently Visiting Professor in War Studies at King’s College London, a member of the British Commission for Military History, and Chairman of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers Museum Trust.

Reviews

“ … a riveting story, very well told and eminently readable
*Casemate: Journal of the Fortress Study Group*

“ … Excellent and highly recommended book if you have any interest at all the early British Army”
*Arquebusier: Journal of the Pike & Shot Society*

“This impressive volume … is another nail in the coffin of that tired old saw that all history has been written, especially of the British Army and its antecedents …”
*Newsletter of the Society of Friends of the National Army Museum*

“ … Riley has done a good job of introducing Schomberg to a new generation of readers … a very welcome study…”
*The Seventeenth Century*

"a very interesting look at a long forgotten campaign, one which saw the last elements of Cromwell’s New Model Army take the field alongside Royalist troops to fight for Portugal against Spain in the name of the recently restored Charles II. It’s a tale of tough campaigning, grueling marches, hard fighting, bureaucratic neglect, and more that reduced the small army from 3,500 men to 1,000, few of whom ever saw England again. As he tells this story, Riley touches upon the conduct of war inthe period, and at times makes comparisons with later English campaigns in Portugal and Spain. Despite its rather obscure subject, this lively, well written account will prove interesting reading for any armchair general."
*The NYMAS Review*

“ … This books fills an important gap in the history of the British Army in the 17th century …”
*Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research*

“ … a rewarding narrative of a neglected piece of British military history.”
*Michigan War Studies Review*

“In short a great book that will be going with me to Normandy next year.”
*Army Rumour Service*

"This book is a valuable contribution to seventeenth century military history, and a fitting tribute to the brave men, whether royalist or parliamentarian, catholic or protestant, who took the redcoat of the English Brigade to the Iberian Peninsula a century or more before Wellington"
*Battlefield Magazine*