.-.I" 



ARMY, THE ENGLISH. 



ARMY, THE ENGLISH. 



650 



never been subdued by the Roman arms, and we see also what was 

 probably the true reason of the difference between the spirited resist- 

 ance which was made to Csesar on his two landings in Britain, and 

 the clamorous complaint and feeble resistance with which the people 

 of Britain met the Picts and the Saxons. 



From this time we lose sight of any entire British population of the 

 part of the island called England. The conquests made by the Saxons 

 appear to have been complete, and their maxims of policy and war 

 became the principles of English polity. They seem to have been at 

 first in that state of society in which every man is a soldier ; and the 

 different sovereignties which they established were the occasion of 

 innumerable contests. We have, however, but little information on 

 this subject ; and even the supposed policy of Alfred in the separation 

 of a portion of the people for military affairs, in the form of a national 

 militia, is a part of his history on which we have not any very satis- 

 factory information. 



\Ve find, however, that the Saxon sovereigns had powerful armies at 

 their command ; and the most probable account of the mode in which 

 they were got together seems to be this : the male population were 

 exercised in military duties under the inspection of the earls, and their 

 deputies the sheriffs or vicecomites, in the manner of the arrays and 

 musters of later times ; being drawn out occasionally for the purpose, 

 and being thus ready to form, at any time when their services were 

 required, an efficient and powerful force. 



In the year 1017 Canute became king of England, and established 

 the first regular army of which we have any record in the middle ages. 

 Hallam states (' Middle Ages,' vol. i. ch. 2, part 2) that he is unaware of 

 any instance of what may be called a regular army (unless we consider 

 the Animations of the Merovingian kings as such), more ancient than 

 the body guards, or huscarles of Canute the Great. These select troops 

 amounted to six thousand men, on whom he probably relied to ensure 

 the subjection of England. A code of martial law, compiled for their 

 regulation, is extant in substance ; and they seem to have displayed 

 a spirit of military union of which their master stood in awe. A 

 singular story is told, which, if false, still illustrates their traditionary 

 character. Canute having killed one of then- body in a fit of anger, it 

 was debated whether the lung should incur the legal penalty of death ; 

 and this was only compromised by his kneeling on a cushion before 

 the assembly, and awaiting their permission to rise. (Hallam'a ' Middle 

 Ages,' note, vol. i. ch. 2, part 2.) 



The next remarkable instance of a mercenary army is that of 

 William the Conqueror ; and we see from that curious remain of those 

 times, a piece of needlework representing the wan and death of Harold, 

 that the Saxon soldiers were not those half-clothed and painted figures 

 which had presented themselves on the shores of Britain when the 

 Roman armies made their first descent. We see them clothed from 

 head to foot in a close-fitting dress of mail. They have cavalry but no 

 chariots. The archers are all infantry. Both infantry and cavalry are 

 armed with spears, to some of which little pennons are attached. Some 

 have swords, and others carry bills or battle-axes. They have shields, 

 the bosses on which are surrounded with flourishes and other orna- 

 ments ; and there art sometimes other devices, but nothing which can 

 be regarded as more than the very rudiments of those heraldic devices 

 which were afterwards formed into a kind of system by the heralds 

 who attended the armies, and by which the chiefs were distinguished 

 from each other, when their faces were concealed by their vizors. 

 The piece of needlework representing the wars of Harold Is sup- 

 posed to be the work of Matilda, the queen of William the Con- 

 queror, and the ladies of her court. It is preserved in the cathedral of 

 Bayeux, whence it is commonly called the Bayeux tapestry. [BAYECX 

 TAPESTRY.] 



In the 9th century a great change took place in the military policy 

 of Europe. Feudal military tenures succeeded that earlier system of 

 public defence which called upon every man, and especially every 

 landholder, to protect his country. The hordes of barbarians, who, 

 issuing from Germany, had spread over Europe and overthrown the 

 Western Empire, had divided the greater portion of the conquered 

 lands among themselves. And each allotment was given as a reward 

 for, and was held on condition of, military service under the chief or 

 lord of whom the land was immediately held. To him fealty was 

 *wrn, and whenever called upon the holder was obliged to follow him 

 to the field. Hence arose the feudal system. An aggregation of petty 

 sovereignties ; the lords with trains of vassals constantly making war on 

 one another and owing but little obedience to their sovereign, to whom 

 they in their turn had sworn fealty, unless he happened to be powerful 

 enough to enforce it. 



At the conquest this feudal system was introduced into England 

 with this remarkable difference : " By the leading principle of feuds, an 

 oath of fealty was due from the vassal to the lord of whom he imme- 

 diately held his land, and to no other. But William received at Salis- 

 bury, in 1085, the fealty of all landholders in England, both those who 

 held in chief and their tenants." (Hallam, vol. ii. ch. 8, part 2.) Thus 

 placing the army far more under his own control. William, reserving 

 certain tracts as his own demesne, distributed the greater portion of 

 England among his followers, to hold by military service ; tnat U, for 

 every knight's fee, as it was called, the tenant was bound to find the 

 king one soldier ready for the field, to serve him for forty days in each 

 year. The extent of the knight's fee varied with the varying qualities 



and value of the soil. In the reign of Edward I. the annual value in 

 money was 20?. The number of knights' fees is said by old writers to 

 have been 60,060. The king had thus provision made for an army 

 of 60,000 men, whom he could call at short notice into the field, 

 subject them when there to all the regulations of military discipline, 

 and keep them for forty days without pay, which was usually as long 

 as their service would be required in the warfare in which the king 

 was likely to be engaged. When their services were required for any 

 longer time, they might continue on receiving pay. 



Writs of military summons are found a in great abundance in what 

 are called the ' Close Rolls,' which contain copies of such letters as the 

 king issues under seal. But this system, it is evident, had many 

 inconveniences ; and the kings of England had a better security for 

 the protection of the realm against invasion and for the maintenance of 

 internal tranquillity, in that which seems to be a relic of Saxon polity. 

 We allude to the liability of all persons to be called upon for military 

 service within the realm ; to the power which the constitution gave 

 to the sheriff to call them out to exercise, in order that they might be 

 in a condition to perform the duty when called upon ; and to the 

 obligation which a statute of Edward I. imposed on all persons to 

 provide themselves with certain pieces of armour, which were changed 

 for others by a statute of James I. We see in this system at once 

 the practice of our remoter ancestors, and the beginning of that 

 drafting of men to form the county militia which is a part of the 

 military polity of the country at present. 



The sheriffs were the persons to whom the care of these affairs was 

 committed ; but it was the practice of the early kings to send down 

 into the several shires, or to select from the gentry residing in them, 

 persons whose duty it was to attend the musters or arrays, which were 

 a species of review of these domestic troops, and who were intended, as 

 it seems, to be a check upon the sheriffs in the discharge of this part of 

 their duty. The persons thus employed were usually men experienced 

 in military affairs ; and when the practice became more general, there 

 was a permanent officer appointed in each county, who had the superin- 

 tendence of these operations, and was called the lieutenant : this is the 

 origin of the present lord-lieutenant of counties, an officer who cannot 

 be traced to a period earlier than the reign of Henry VIII. 



Foreigners were also sometimes engaged to serve the king in his 

 wars ; but these were purely mercenary troops, and were paid out of 

 the king's own revenues. 



We see then that the early kings of England of the Norman and 

 Plantagenet races had three distinct means to which they could have 

 recourse when it was necessary to arm for the general defence of the 

 realm : the quota of men which the holders of the knight's fees were 

 bound to furnish ; the posse-comitatus, or whole population, from six- 

 teen to sixty, of each shire, under the guidance of the sheriffs ; and 

 such hired troops as they might think proper to engage. But as the 

 posse-comitatns could not be compelled to leave the kingdom, and only 

 in particular cases the shire to which they belonged, the king had only 

 his feudal and mercenary troops at command when he carried an army 

 to the Continent, or when he had to wage war against even the Scotch 

 or Welsh. We are not to suppose that troops so levied, especially 

 when there were but contracted pecuniary resources for the hiring of 

 disciplined troops of other nations, would have been sufficient to make 

 head against the power of such a sovereign as the king of France, and 

 once to gain possession of that throne. And this leads us to the next 

 great innovation, marking the third period in the military history of 

 England ; for about the 13th century mercenary troops were substi- 

 tuted for the feudal militia. 



The mutual inconveniences attendant on the nature of the military 

 services due from those who held the feudal tenures of the crown 

 naturally disposed both parties to consent to frequent commutations. 

 Money was rendered instead of service, and thus the crown acquired a 

 revenue which was applicable to military purposes, and which was 

 expended in the hire of native-born subjects to perform service in the 

 king's armies In particular places and for particular terms. The king 

 covenanted by indentxire with various persons, chiefly those of most 

 importance in the country, to serve him on certain money-terms with 

 a certain number of followers, and in certain determinate expeditions. 

 There appears little essential difference between this and the modern 

 practice of recruiting armies. It was chiefly by troops thus collected 

 that the victories of Creci, Poictiers, and Agincourt were gained. 



In the office of the Clerk of the Pells in the Exchequer, Dugdale 

 perused numerous indentures of this kind, and has made great use of 

 them in the history which he published of the Baronage of England. A 

 few extracts from that work will show something of the nature of these 

 engagements. 



Michael Poynings, who was at the battle of Creci, entered into a 

 contract with King Edward III. to serve him with 15 men-at-arms, 

 4 knights, 10 esquires, and 12 archers, having an allowance of 21 sacks 

 of the king's wool for his and their wages. Three years after the battle 

 of Creci, King Edward engaged Sir Thomas Ughtred to serve him in 

 his wars beyond sea, with 20 men-at-arms and 20 archers on horseback, 

 taking after the rate of 2001. per annum for his wages during the con- 

 tinuance of the war. In the second year of King Henry IV., Sir 

 William Willoughby was retained to attend the king in his expedition 

 into Scotland, with 3 knights, besides himself, 27 men at arms, and 

 169 archers, and to continue with him from June 20th to the 13th of 



