Open a map of fourteenth-century France and there is no country called Pons. What there is, for anyone who knows where to look, is a scatter of separate holdings belonging to one man. Renaud de Pons, who lived from 1291 to 1356, was lord of Pons in Saintonge, viscount of Carlat in the Auvergne, viscount of Turenne in the Limousin, and lord of Ribérac, Montfort and Bergerac in the Périgord. Those places lie hundreds of miles apart. That is what a great medieval lordship actually was — not a block of territory shaded a single colour, but a portfolio of castles, rights and revenues assembled across generations by inheritance, marriage and royal favour, each piece carrying its own customs and its own obligations. It is also a large part of why the war in the south-west proved so impossible to settle. A magnate of this kind could hold one province from the king of France and another from the duke of Aquitaine — who was also the king of England — and both had a claim on his loyalty.

Tradition of London give him white barding crossed by a single band of red and gold, the arms of his house, with the sword raised and the horse rearing off a rocky base. He belongs in the south-western group: Augier de Montaut, Sire de Mussidan held land in the same disputed country and chose the English side of it, while Sir John de Grailly is the Gascon who made that choice and never went back on it. Gautier VI Compte de Brienne died in 1356, the same year as Renaud, which makes the two of them a natural pairing on a shelf. For a diorama, this is a figure for a castle gate rather than a battlefield — the arrival of a lord who owns the place.

Model: MK11 / Tradition of London / 54mm (1/32) scale / 1 piece set

All hand painted Toy Soldier sets packed in the Classic Tradition Red Boxes. All Toy Soldiers cast in quality white metal, and individually hand painted in gloss enamels.

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