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The Pike as a Scottish Weapon. By James Hardy. 



Border Weapons of early times have been sparingly attended to, 

 and very few have been placed in local museums, where they might, 

 if anywhere, have been expected to be on view. To represent a 

 Pike- dead, we are obliged to Mr Tancred of Weens, 

 for the loan of one from Rule Water district. It 

 is sufficiently entire to represent the features of 

 apparently a home, or at least a rudely manu- 

 factured example of this weapon. It is of iron, 

 14f inches long ; shaft portion with three nail 

 holes, 8 inches long ; head itself 4f- inches. 



Although a weapon that would naturally suggest 

 itself to be placed in the hands of an undisciplined 

 multitude to repel the attacks of cavalry, the pike 

 does not appear to have been of native production. 

 We are repeatedly told that the main offensive 

 and defensive weapon of the Scottish foot-soldiery 

 was the spear. At the battle of Flodden, Lord 

 Home, the Chamberlain of Scotland, defeated the 

 English right wing, "with hys battayle of spears, 

 on foote, to the number of ten thousande at the 

 leaste, which fought valiauntly," (Hall). 



The pike eventually superseded the spear. At 

 the battles of Pinkie and Langside, historians 

 have so confounded the two weapons, that we are 

 left uncertain whether the spear or the pike 

 played a principal part. In the "Border Min- 

 streley," spears are the weapons of horsemen: — 



" They ran their horse on the Langholme howm, [holm] 

 And brak their spears wi mickle main. 



"And have they e'en ta'en him, Kinmont Willie 



Without either dread or fear ? / ■■.•U?$| 



And forgotten that the bauld Buccleuch \1 1 



Can back a steed, or shake a spear ? " l&j 



I will not again recite the section of the Act of Parliament, 

 1540, See p. 169, of present vol., that recommends "pikis stark 

 and lang of 6 ellis of length." * 



* The contracted word rendered there as " leight axes," 

 Compare "Records of Parliament'' by Robertson, p. C25. 



Leith axi 



