POLITICAL HISTORY 



Each of the trained companies was armed thus : 



Men Shott Cortletts Bows Bill* 



200 85 cal.' 43 60 20 2O 



15 mus. 



The untrained company was armed in a slightly different manner : 



Men Shott Corsletts Bows Bills 



200 80 60 20 40 



The cavalry consisted of the following : Launces, 28 ; Light Horse, 

 50 ; Petroneles, 26. 244 



The levies summoned to resist the Armada were in a very bad state 

 of discipline ; Shrewsbury, the lord-lieutenant, complained to his deputy 

 lieutenants that of the whole band of horsemen in Staffordshire only six were 

 serviceable and furnished as they ought to be. 245 



It was the old tale enforcing the old lesson which the English have 

 never learnt, that false economy in peace means extra risk and extra expense 

 in war ; as Leicester wrote to Walsingham : ' Great dilatory wants are 

 found upon all sudden hurly burlies. If the navy had not been strong 

 enough what peril would England now have been in.' 346 



Of these inefficient troops Staffordshire furnished the commander-in- 

 chief, Leicester, a man with no military capacity, but he fortunately had at 

 his elbow Sir John Norreys, the one experienced captain available. 247 



In the order of 27 June, 1588, to the county levies in England to be 

 ready to go where directed at an hour's notice 248 Staffordshire is not men- 

 tioned, but in August of that year the county was ordered through the 

 lord-lieutenant to furnish 400 foot, and share with Derbyshire in providing 

 thirty-four horsemen to join the Earl of Huntingdon in the north, for the 

 Spanish fleet was said to have landed men at Moray Firth. 249 In October 

 again Staffordshire was one often counties which with London provided 1,500 

 voluntary soldiers to go to the Low Countries. 250 In 1596 Staffordshire 

 shared with the counties of Warwick, Worcester, Gloucester, and Salop in 

 providing 800 men to go to Calles (Cadiz) in the brilliant expedition of 

 Howard, Essex, and Raleigh, the contingent being ordered to march to 

 Plymouth under Sir Christopher Blunt. 251 



In 1599 and 1600 constant levies of men were made in the county for 

 the wars in Ireland, a service which was evidently very unpopular, as many 

 of the men deserted and their places were filled up with much difficulty, 

 a task which the authorities were by no means ready to perform. 252 



Under Henry VIII and his three successors a number of old electoral 

 boroughs were revived, and others newly summoned, mainly for the purpose 



"* Presumably ' cal ' means calivers, which, according to Clepham (Defensive Armour of Mediaeval Times 

 and the Renaissance, 225), means a 'harquebus or light musket, of a standard calibre, introduced into England 

 during Elizabeth's reign, 4ft. loin, in length.' The musket was making its first appearance at this time. 



144 Petronel, ' a kind of hand bombard fired by a horseman from a forked rest fixed on the saddle.' 

 When not in use it hung suspended from the rider's neck; Clepham, op. cit. 219. 



145 Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. iv, 332. 



146 Cal. S.P. Dom. 1581-90, p. 513. '" Innes, England under the Tudors, 362. 

 " 8 Acts ofP.C. 1588, p. 137. 



149 Ibid. 231 ; Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xii, App. iv, 259, which says thirty-six launces instead of thirty- 

 four horse. 



150 Acts ofP.C. 1588, p. 297. '" Rep. on SaKsbury MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com.), vi, 206. 

 M> Acts ofP.C. 1 599-1600 passim, and Hut. MSS. Com. Rep. xii, App. iv, 276, 279, 331, 333. 



253 



