Peninsular War: Spanish Civilians

The Spanish people during the Peninsular War  showed a remarkable resilience in their struggles against the French conquerors. In fact they continued the resistant long after their political rulers had given up. It was the spontaneous uprising in 1808 that convinced the English to support them by sending in troops, as well as guns and money, and open up a new front against the Emperor Bonaparte. 

The Spainsh mobs were inspired not just by patriotic fervour, but also by the Spanish Catholic church, who saw the atheist French as the biggest threat to their authority and encouraged the people to rise up, and in many cases even actively participated in the uprisings. 

My Spanish civilians were inspired by those early uprisings and are armed with a motley collection of weapons, from clubs, pitchforks and the of archaic matchlock or fowling piece. I doubt they will be much of a threat to a disciplined line of French infantry, but they have righteous fury and God on their side. 

These figures are from Eureka Miniatures, from their Tyroelian Militia range (found in the Wars of the French Revolution Range). Technically then I guess they are Italian, not Spanish, but they look fine to me. They are actually wearing lederhosen, but it's a simple job to change the look with just just paint, no need to convert them.  The advantage of this range is that they are wielding hand weapons, which makes them ideal as an angry mob, wear as the lovely figures form Perry Miniatures (which I still intend to buy at some point) and the Spanish militia from Eagle Miniatures are all carrying muskets. For a bit of extra variety I sued some of the weapons I had left over form the ECW club-men I painted. Scale wise these figures are quite small and scale well with the Perry and Eagle Miniatures ranges. 
The three little children are from Hassle Free Miniatures. They're proper tiny too. I am even thinking about getting some more and painting them as young hobbit for my Bree/Shire Lord of the Rings game.