Spanish Infantry Regiment "Reina", 1808

The next Spanish line infantry regiment  completed is  Regimiento de Infanteria de Linea "Reina" - the Queen's regiment. It was first raised in 1537, along with three other regiments, and stands second in seniority only to Regimiento "Rey" - the King's regiment. 

While all of the other Spanish Line regiments have the drummers dressed in the King's Livery (dark blue coats with red facings piped in white - see the earlioer regiments Valencia and Burgos), uin this one regiment, the drummers wore the Queen's Livery instead - red coats faced dark blue, piped in white. 

In 1805, this regiment had Violet facings with silver buttons. I used Delta Ceramcoat "Pansy" for the facing color. One nice thing about white uniforms - the other colors painted over the white really pop!

Once again, these are Miniaturos Dos de Mayo figures from Spain. They had an introductory order for these figures in the Spring of 2014, and I ordered enough for 4 units of 18, 72 figures in all, at a cost of  62 Euros on 3/25/14, about $88, not a bad deal. The shipping was added when the figures were ready to ship on 5/14/14, another 23.5 Euros or about $33 - overseas shipping is a bear! Still not a bad total price even with the high shipping cost. 

I received the figures about June 14, 2014, so not too bad for overseas ordering. Unfortunately, the guys made a mistake with the order and left out about 1/3 of the figures. I got a prom[pt response and they offered to send out the missing figures without additional shipping costs. Time passed, and no more figures arrived. Evidently they were sent August 4th, 2014,  but still hadn't arrived by the end of October.  Evidently, the Spanish postal service is notoriously inept (? corrupt), and another order shipped that day had also failed to arrive, so they again offered to send out a (second) replacement package free of cost to me. 

I didn't push overly hard about the order as I didn't need the figures any time soon, and was a bit familiar with what "mañana"(tomorrow) *really* means in Spanish culture (no offense to my Spanish friends). Still when the 2nd replacement package hadn't arrived by February I contacted them again. The missing 22 figures finally arrived on 3/25/2015... a year and a day after they were first ordered! That is certainly my ball time record for completion of an order!  In defense of the company, they responded promptly to my emails each time, and I wasn't at all aggressive about prodding them. They certainly lost money on the deal, sadly. The name of the company comes from the date of the revolt against French rule, which began in Madrid on May 2, 1808, and was to continue in one frm or another until the French were expelled from Spain in 1814. 

"El dos de Mayo en Madrid", an oil painting by Francisco Goya, which is located in the Museo del Prado in Madrid. The charge of the Mamelukes. Evidently the populace saw the Mamelukes as Moors, further inflaming an already volatile situation. 

Monument to the Heroes of the 2nd of May, Madrid.

(Picture from Wikipedia)