The History of the British Army. J. W. Fortescue
makers for artillery. In 1543, moreover, Henry induced two foreigners to settle in England, Peter Bawd and Peter van Collen, who among other improvements devised mortar-pieces[115] of large calibre and shells to fire from them. Shell, indeed, was frequently used in the campaign of 1544, and Henry was early in appreciating its advantages. There was, however, still the difficulty of finding horses to draw the field-guns, which he seems to have attempted to overcome as early as in the third year of his reign by some kind of registration of waggoners and teams. The drivers were to wear the white coat and red cross, and to be mustered and paid every month; and for their protection it was ordered that their paymaster should take no bribes from them beyond one penny a month from each man, a curious commentary on the financial morality of the army. Be that as it may, however, there exists no doubt that Henry the Eighth created the British gunner who, as his proud motto tells, has since worked his guns all over the world.
1542.
1544.
His zeal as an artillerist led Henry also, perhaps almost insensibly, towards the peculiar organisation for defence which was copied at a later period by the colonies, and for a short time was expanded even into an imperial system. The mounting of valuable guns entailed the necessity of maintaining a small body of trained men to keep them in order; and thus grew up the practice of stationing small independent garrisons in all the principal fortresses, which garrisons were immovably attached to their particular posts and constituted what was really a permanent force. Thus almost at a stroke the military resources of England fell into three divisions—the standing garrisons just mentioned, the militia which could be called out in case of invasion, and the levies, nominally feudal but in reality mercenary, which were brought together for foreign service and disbanded as soon as the war was over. The attention devoted by Henry to the defence of the coast identifies his name peculiarly with certain modern strongholds, which stand on the same site and bear the same appellation as he gave them three centuries ago. Nor must it be forgotten that, though he did comparatively little for the army, Henry did very much for the navy, and perceived that the true defence of England was the maintenance of her power on the sea.
Two small points remain to be mentioned before we dismiss the most popular of English kings. A dear lover of music he took an interest in his military bands, and we find him sending all the way to Vienna to procure kettle-drums that could be played on horseback "after the Hungarian (that is to say the Hussars') manner," together with men that could make and play them skilfully. Ten good drums and as many fifers were ordered at the same time, with advantage, as may be hoped, to the English minstrels. Lastly, Henry was the first man of whom we may authentically say that he brought the English red-coats into the field for active service. Red garded with yellow was the uniform worn by his body-guard at the siege of Boulogne; and perhaps it was right that the scarlet should have made its first appearance in the presence of such old and gallant enemies as the French.
1547.
1549.
Under the rule of his boy successor we find little change in the old order of things. There was the usual fight with the Scotch on the border, and yet another crushing defeat, at Pinkie, of the old inveterate enemy. But hired Italian musketeers contributed not a little to the victory; and the state of the forces of the shires was most unsatisfactory. Fraudulent enlistment and desertion, doubly expensive since the payment of coat- and conduct-money had been instituted, were as common as ever, and the dishonesty of officers was never more flagrant. A stringent Act was passed to check these irregularities, with apparently the usual infinitesimal measure of success. Foreign troops were never so much employed in England, though even they complained of unjust dealing. The insurrection in the west was suppressed principally by landsknechts and Italian harquebusiers, not however before they had suffered one repulse from the men of Devon, beyond doubt to the secret joy of all true Englishmen. Nevertheless the reign saw the rise of the Gentlemen Pensioners and, more important still, the appointment of a lord-lieutenant in every county, to be responsible for the forces of the shire. The latter was no doubt a stroke in the right direction, but it did not touch the heart of the matter. The worn-out machinery which had been patched and tinkered for five centuries was not so easily to be repaired; and a new fly-wheel, though it might turn magnificently on its own axis, could not keep the other broken-down wheels in motion.
1553.
The reign of Queen Mary brought the most important change in the military system of the country that had occurred for two centuries. The Statute of Winchester was superseded and a new Act enacted in its place. The reform, however, was in reality quite inadequate to the occasion. It provided for the supply of more modern weapons and for a new distribution, according to a new assessment, of the burdens entailed by the maintenance of a national force; but in substance the new statute was drafted on the lines of the old, and the variations were very superficial. The extinction of men-at-arms hinted at by Guistiniani is sufficiently proved by the mention of two different kinds of cavalry, "demi-lances" or "medium" horse and the light horse with which we are already acquainted; and progress in the equipment of the infantry is shown by the mention of long pikes and corselets and of harquebuses. But alongside of these improved weapons are the familiar bows and bills; and a clause which, considering that Mary had married the heir of Spain is truly marvellous, provides that a bow shall in all cases be accepted as an efficient substitute for an arquebus. These details, however, are comparatively unimportant. The difficulty was one, not of arms, but of men; and Mary knew it. She would have formed a standing army if she had dared, but as she designed it principally for the coercion of her own subjects she ventured neither to ask for the money to establish it nor to brave the indignation that would have followed on its establishment.
1557.
1558.
Her unpopularity at the close of her reign, so strikingly in contrast with the devoted loyalty which she had enjoyed on first mounting the throne, told heavily against the efficiency, always largely dependent on sentiment, of the forces of the shire. Never children crept more unwillingly to school than the English contingent which joined the Spaniards after the battle of St. Quentin. Never half-witted woman looked on with more helpless, impotent distraction at the robbery of her jewels than the once iron-willed Mary, when Guise marched up to Calais. The English garrison made all the resistance that could be expected of brave men, but they were outnumbered, and the commanders asked in vain for reinforcements. The Government awoke to the danger too late; and, yet more sadly significant, the forces of the shires came unwillingly to the musters and came unarmed. Yet Mary's name is bound up with two material benefits conferred on the British soldier. The men who went to St. Quentin received eightpence a day, the sum for which her father's men had mutinied forty years before; and from this time, for two full centuries, eightpence replaces sixpence as the soldier's daily stipend. More thoughtful too than any of the kings that came before her, she left directions in her will for the provision of a house in London, with a clear endowment of four hundred marks a year, "for the relief and help of poor, impotent and aged soldiers" who had suffered loss or wounds in the service of their country. For all her man's voice and masculine will, she had a woman's heart which warmed to the deserving old soldier, and whatever her demerits in the eyes of those who wear the gown, her memory may at least be cherished by those who wear the red coat.
CHAPTER III
1558.
We enter now on the fateful reign of Queen Elizabeth. The condition of England at its opening after the previous years of misgovernment was most unpromising. Wrenched from its moorings by the Reformation, the country had been tossed about by a hurricane of religious fanaticism, which, working round through all points of the compass, had left her helpless and bewildered, uncertain by which course to steer or for what port to make head. Elizabeth was by political exigency rather than religious conviction a Protestant, but her great object in life was to sail, if she could, clear of the circular storm and lie outside it. The design was an impossible one, and her obstinate persistence therein went near to bring England to utter ruin, but in the extremely difficult position wherein she found herself on her accession to the throne she had much excuse for a tortuous policy. The finance was in hopeless