The History of the British Army. J. W. Fortescue
von Frundsberg (1st ed. 1568, 3rd ed. 1620); Fronsperger's Kriegsbuch; Hortleder's Der römischen Kaiser, etc.; Adelspiegel, von Cyriack Spangenberg, 1594; the whole of which are more or less summarised in Barthold's Georg von Frundsberg, 1833, and in a still more compact form by Dr. Friedrich Blau, Die deutschen Landsknechte, 1882. The Spanish military reforms are more difficult to ascertain. I have relied principally on Roger Williams's brief account, sundry notices in Brantôme's Vie des hommes illustres; Paul Jove's Vita Gonsalvi Magni, and, perhaps most valuable of all, Reissner. For the French there are Daniel's Ancien milice; Susanne's Hist. de l'ancienne infanterie française; Paul Jove, and the Memoires of Vieilleville, Du Bellay, Villars, de Mergey, de la Noue, Tavannes, Onosandre, Brantôme, Monluc, and others. I have also consulted, among Italian writers, Julius Ferrettus, De re militari, 1575; Domenico Mora, Il soldato, 1570; Savorgnano's Arte militare; and of course Machiavelli. Lastly, I have not failed to study the classical authorities quoted in the text.
CHAPTER II
The accession of the Tudors to the throne of England marks an important period in our military history. The nation, after thirty years of furious internal war, during which it had lost all sense of national honour, began to settle down once more to a life of peace, and awoke to the fact that England was now no more than an insular power. France was lost to her except Calais, but Calais was something more than a mere sentimental possession. It was the bridge-head that secured to the English their passage of the Channel; and while it remained in the hands of an English garrison there was always the temptation to engage in Continental wars and to employ the army for purposes of aggression as well as of defence. Still the prospects of regaining the ancestral possessions of the Plantagenets in France seemed so hopeless that the English sovereigns might well doubt whether it were not now time to give the Navy the first and the Army the second place; and this question, already half decided by the keen good sense of King Henry the Eighth, was finally determined by the loss of Calais itself. There was, of course, always a frontier to be guarded on the Tweed, but with the cessation of expeditions to France, which had invariably called the Scotch armies across the border, there was no longer the same danger of Scottish invasion; and moreover, England and Scotland were now beginning to draw closer together. Thus it would seem that after the death of Queen Mary there should have been little reason for the existence of an English army, and indeed it will be seen that the national force became in many respects lamentably deficient. But meanwhile the wars of Europe changed from a contest between nation and nation to a death struggle between Catholic and Protestant. It was religion that drew the Scotch from their old alliance with the French to their former enemies the English; and it was religion which led the English to the battlefields of the Low Countries, where they learned the new art of war. The reign of the Tudor dynasty therefore falls for the purpose of this history into three periods, which are conveniently separated by the fall of Calais or the more familiar landmark of the accession of Elizabeth, and by the first departure of English volunteers to the Low Countries in 1572.
It is extremely difficult to discover the exact condition of England's military organisation when Henry the Seventh was fairly seated on the throne. The old feudal system, which had been turned by the nobles to such disastrous account for their own ends in the Civil War, seems to have been but half alive. Compositions, indents, and commissions of array had already weakened it in the past, and indents in themselves had been shown to be unsafe. The difficulties wherein Henry found himself are shown by two statutes imposing the obligation of military service on two new classes, namely holders of office, fees or annuities under the crown, or of honours and lands under the King's letters patent. It was stipulated that they should receive wages from the day of leaving their homes until the day of their return to them; but they were strictly forbidden to depart without leave, and their service was declared to be due both within the kingdom and without. But in fact the sovereign seems to have been driven back on the force which represented the old Saxon fyrd, and had its legal existence under the Statute of Winchester. Noblemen and gentlemen could of course still show a body of retainers, but many, indeed most, of the ancient magnates had perished, and recent experience had shown the danger of permitting their retinue to become too powerful. A curious complication, to which I shall presently return, in the collapse of the old feudal service was the extreme dearth of good horses. Altogether everything tended to compel resort to the national militia as the principal military force of England. Two allowances to the levies of the shire seem to have been finally established in this reign, namely coat-money and conduct-money. The first, as its name denotes, helped the soldier to provide himself with clothing and was a step further towards uniform; and indeed it is possible that it was deliberately designed to exclude the liveries of the nobility, already condemned by statute, in favour of the national white with the red cross of St. George. The conduct-money was simply the old allowance which was seen in the days of William Rufus, but which from henceforth apparently was refunded to the shire from the Exchequer. Both, however, though paid in advance to the soldier, were ultimately deducted from his pay, and are therefore of interest in the history of the British soldier's stoppages. Finally, we find indications of a stricter discipline in a statute that makes desertion while on service outside the kingdom into felony, and subjects captains who defraud men of their pay to forfeiture of goods and to imprisonment.
1485.
A few points remain to be mentioned before we pass to the reign of Henry the Eighth. The first was the establishment of that royal body-guard, which with its picturesque old dress and original title of Yeomen[90] of the Guard still survives among us. Though doubtless imitated from the Scottish Guard of the French kings, it is of greater interest as being composed not of aliens but of Englishmen, and as the first permanent corps of trained English soldiers in our history. Another smaller matter cannot be ignored without disrespect to military sentiment. After the victory of Bosworth Field Henry offered at the altar of St. Paul's Cathedral a banner charged with "a red fiery dragon" upon a field of white and green, the ensign of Cadwallader, the last of the British kings, from whom he was fond of tracing his descent. The scarlet of this red fiery dragon became from this time the royal livery, and was for the present reserved, together with purple, to the King's use alone.[91] But the green and white was more liberally distributed both to soldiers and mariners. A white jacket with the red cross of St. George had long been a common distinction of the English soldier, and the white as a colour of the Tudors now became so general that for a time "white coat" was used as a synonym for soldier.
Lastly must be noticed the definite establishment of the Office of Ordnance for the custody of military stores. The early history of the office is exceedingly obscure, and the existence of King Edward the Second's artillator hardly warrants us in assuming the permanent foundation of the department in the fourteenth century. The record of a Clerk of the Ordnance in 1418 sets the office on surer ground, and in 1483 the appointment of a Master-General advances it to a stage at which it becomes recognisable by us even at the present day; for the title of Master-General was held by John, Duke of Marlborough, and by Arthur, Duke of Wellington.
With Henry the Eighth we reach a new example in our history of an English soldier-king. Young, able, accomplished, and ambitious, he was strongly imbued with the military spirit, and possessed many qualities that must have made him a popular and might have made him a distinguished commander. He excelled in every exercise of arms; he was the finest archer in his kingdom; he had studied the art of war in the best authorities; he understood the conduct both of a siege and of a campaign; and lastly, he was no mean artillerist. This last attribute, however, he shared with several sovereigns of his time. Artillery was a favourite hobby with the crowned heads of Europe, possibly as a symbol of their military strength, for being unable to give themselves the pleasure of a great review owing to the inevitable confusion and expense, they were fain to console themselves with the several pieces, each one of them called by its pet name, that composed their park of ordnance. Altogether Henry was a prince who bade fair to restore the military prestige of England.
1509.
1511.
His first step was to increase his standing force by the creation of a second body-guard of men-at-arms,[92] composed of young men of noble blood; the reason