FOOTNOTES:

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Sir J. W. Fortescue

[1] I must mention here that where reference is made to Mr. Oman's Art of War, the volume alluded to is the short essay, published in 1885, not the larger and far more important work of the same author, which, to my great misfortune, appeared too late for me to avail myself of it.

[2] An alien captain of the garrison of Hereford tried in 1055 to break through this custom. "Anglos contra morem in equis pugnare jussit" (see Hewitt, vol. i. p. 17).

[3] This seems to be the simplest and likeliest solution of the problem of the palisade, which has provoked such acrimonious controversy (see KÖhler, vol. i. p. 8).

[4] Oman.

[5] A single line of course must not be understood as a single rank. It was a line of wedges or, as we should now say, a line of columns.

[6] The coat of mail was made of rings or scales of iron sewn on to leather.

[7] The habergeon was a similar but smaller coat without sleeves.

[8] The chaplet was an iron scull-cap without vizor.

[9] The wambais was a doublet padded with cotton, wool or hair, and generally covered with leather.

[10] The mortality among horses and the difficulty of obtaining remounts frequently forced the crusading knights to fight afoot.

[11] The hauberk was a complete suit of mail, a hood joined to a jacket with sleeves, breeches, stockings, shoes and gauntlets of double chain-mail.

[12] A bill was a broad curved blade mounted at the end of a seven-foot shaft, sometimes with a point and a hook added.

[13] Mr. Oman (Art of War in the Middle Ages, p. 104) holds the opinion that to force a line of long-bowmen by a mere front attack was a task almost as hopeless for cavalry as the breaking of a modern square, and would have it that archers needed support on their flanks only. With all respect I must reject this view, as opposed alike to history and common sense.

[14] Barnes.

[15] William of Ypres, who came to England in the pay of Stephen in 1138, is reckoned the first of the condottiÈri.

[16] Whence the French word destrier.

[17] From the German panzer, a coat of mail.

[18] A sleeveless coat of chain-mail.

[19] The earliest instance of uniform in modern Europe is found in the militia of the Flemish towns at the battle of Courtrai, 1302 (KÖhler).

[20] The contract price of a bow in 1341 was, unpainted 1s., painted 1s. 6d.; of a sheaf of twenty-four arrows 1s. 2d. An archer's pay was 3d. a day.

[21] See 1 Samuel xx. 40.

[22] As the historian of the Royal Artillery has ignored this gentleman we may give his name, Thomas de Roldeston (see Hewitt, vol. ii. p. 289).

[23] What since the Zulu war we have called a laager, forgetting the English word that lay ready to our hand.

[24] The only authority for this is the rhymed chronicle of the Chandos herald, but, as KÖhler observes, the proceeding was so natural, and, I may add, the invention of such a story so improbable, that it is difficult not to accept it.

[25] The sword is gone, but the scabbard remains.

[26] See for the whole scene Dean Stanley's Memorials of Canterbury.

[27] Sir Arthur Wellesley occupied the Spanish position on his march to RoliÇa (Conversations of the Duke of Wellington, p. 3).

[28] These had been recognised by a statute of 5 Henry IV., the enactment relied on later by Charles I.

[29] More correctly Azincourt.

[30] Monstrelet.

[31] See Philippe de Commines, bk. i. chap. iii. "[At the battle of MontlhÉry, 1464] the most honourable persons fought on foot among the archers ... which order they learned of the English, who are the best shot in the world."

[32] The reader will observe how early cavalry fell into the fault which caused the loss of Naseby.

[33] "The same difficulty of a Lenten campaign cropped up at the siege of Orleans a century later. It was surmounted by the general's insisting that the papal legate, who was in the camp, should grant a dispensation, which he very unwillingly did; whereupon every man in the army 'pria Dieu fort pour M. le legat'" (BrantÔme, ed. Elzev. vol. i. p. 225).

[34] He remains gibbeted, however, in the pages of Shakespeare, which is perhaps the worst fate that could have befallen him.

[35] 18 Henry VI. cap. 18.

[36] Robert Patillock.

[37] Oman's Warwick.

[38] Yet they were not all ruffians. In the Paston Letters some professional soldiers hired for private defence are described as gentlemanly comfortable fellows, and their employer is warned that they must not be put to sleep more than two in a bed (vol. ii. p. 327).

[39] The same thing has been seen at our autumn manoeuvres.

[40] Allusion has already been made to the supplanting of the sheriff's authority by the barons in raising troops, and the consequent fashion of issuing liveries to the corps so formed. It is perhaps worth while to note and dismiss the minute point that the garrison of Calais, the only truly national force belonging at that moment to England, was clothed in scarlet jackets, and were the first English soldiers thus distinguished.

[41] Readers of Kenilworth will remember the ballad quoted by Giles Gosling—

"He was the flower of Stoke's red field

Where Martin Swart on ground lay slain."

[42] He has left us two words, howitzer and pistol, both of which are derived from the Czech.

[43] John of Winterthur. If the reader has ever plied a long bill-hook to cut down overhanging branches he will appreciate the power of the halberd.

[44] "The earliest mention of the long pike occurs in an order addressed to the burghers of Turin by Count Philip of Savoy in 1327; but whether Swiss borrowed it from Savoyards or Savoyards from Swiss is uncertain" (KÖhler).

[45] Compare the French equivalent, enfans perdus. Hauf was the regular German word for any mass of soldiers, from a company to a battalion. The English word hope therefore is a corruption, hauf having more to do with heap than hope.

[46] Feld obrist, now oberst.

[47] Hauptmann. The Germans wisely cling to these old titles, and preserve them.

[48] Laufgeld.

[49] This seems to have been a reminiscence of the Roman jugum.

[50] FÄhnlein, flag or ensign.

[51] Muster is a corruption of the French monstre, Latin monstrare. So to pass muster is to pass inspection.

[52] FÄhnlein.

[53] Stellvertreter. The Germans have since abandoned the word for "leutnant."

[54] Feldwebel. We may call him the colour-sergeant.

[55] Gemeinwebel.

[56] Fourier.

[57] Rot.

[58] Rottmeister. Sir Walter Scott in the Legend of Montrose has inexplicably confounded the word with Rittmeister, which is a very different thing; a rare mistake with him.

[59] It is a curious sign of the combination of his functions, that in every standing camp the Provost erected a gallows, which served to mark both the extent of his authority and the site of the market-place, or as we should call it, canteen.

[60] Vergleicher.

[61] Recht der langen Spiesse.

[62] A roll on the two first beats of the bar, a single note on the third, and silence on the fourth.

[63] See the account in Paul Jove.

[64] We need not enter into the controversy whether the word was derived from columna or corona or from neither. For a century or more it was written indifferently colonel or coronel, to which last the modern English pronunciation is doubtless to be traced. BrantÔme writes always couronnel; Milton in his famous sonnet gives the word the dignity of the three syllables. Some say that it was borrowed from the landsknechts, but this is a palpable error. (See a paper by Mr. Julian Corbett, American Hist. Review, Oct. 1896, "The Colonel and his Command").

[65] French enseigne; Lat. insigne, signum.

[66] But not until after the Seven Years' War, when Lord George Sackville applied for a "furrier."

[67] We even find the word incarnated by French writers as the strumpet Madame PicorÉe.

[68] As a matter of fact these abuses do seem to have been more flagrant in France than elsewhere, owing no doubt to the demoralisation caused by the religious wars. See for instance BrantÔme, and the Memoirs of Sully.

[69] See the remarkable conversation in BrantÔme, ed. Elzev. vol. i. pp. 376-382.

[70] The Marquis del Vasto, of the same family as Pescayra.

[71] For instance Roger Williams and Tavannes.

[72] In Spanish called alferez.

[73] BrantÔme.

[74] Tercio, like colonel, is a riddle which defies solution. It means a third, but a third of what is unknown (see Mr. Julian Corbett's paper, quoted above, p. 94).

[75] In a MS. treatise in the Record Office, of date 1570, the bore recommended is 28 ballets to the pound. This remained the standard bore in the French army all through the wars of Louis XIV.

[76] Musket is simply the word mosquito. Larger weapons were called drakes, falcons, and the like, and the smaller therefore after the lesser flying creatures.

[77] Mem. de Vieilleville.

[78] This again is a word which defies the skill of the etymologist.

[79] Poitrinal, so called because it was held against the chest.

[80] Mem. de La Noue.

[81] Tavannes, ed. Petitot, vol. i. p. 304.

[82] Tavannes, La Noue.

[83] It is curious to compare the parallel contest of armoured ships and artillery at the present time.

[84] Rittmeister.

[85] FÄhnrich.

[86] Fourier.

[87] Wachtmeister.

[88] The particulars of the reiters' organisation are taken from the Kriegsbuch of Leonard Fronsberger, 1566.

[89] It is just possible that Xenophon's example may have favoured the abandonment of shock for missile tactics in cavalry.

[90] There were two kinds of soldiers, the gentleman soldier and the yeoman soldier. Hence the name points to the enlistment of men below the status of gentleman. The Navy still has "Yeomen of the Signals."

[91] I must confess that this should be put forward rather as a conjecture than an assertion; but it is remarkable that Henry VIII. should have permitted the use of any colours to the Artillery Company except purple and scarlet. Green and white were the favourite Tudor colours, being used even in ribbons for the attachment of the Great Seal.

[92] Cal. S. P. 20th November 1509.

[93] Ibid. 5th July 1511.

[94] Ibid. 3rd November 1509, 20th June, 1st July 1511, 8th April 1512. Rymer, vol. xiii. p. 329.

[95] Cal. S. P. 5th August 1512.

[96] Stow.

[97] Such at least is my impression. The commander-in-chief of a force not commanded by the King in person is styled the lieutenant or King's lieutenant. So also the commander of the body-guard is styled lieutenant, the King himself being captain. Compare the title, which we shall presently see introduced, of lord-lieutenant. But we meet also with the phrase lieutenant (i.e. commanding officer) of the rearguard or other of the three divisions in the army. The word is always used of a high office.

[98] In 1542, however, Wallop constantly speaks of ensigns (see State Papers, Henry VIII. (ed. 1830, 1849), vol. ix. anno 1542).

[99] Cal. S. P. 1513. 4460.

[100] Ibid. 4441.

[101] Cal. S. P. vol ii. part i., 6 Henry VIII. caps. 2, 11, 13.

[102] Ibid. vol. iii. part i. p. 402.

[103] At the meeting with Francis and Charles V. Henry took for his device an English archer in a green coat drawing an arrow to the head (Camden).

[104] Cal. S. P., Henry VIII., vol. iii. part i. 869.

[105] Ibid. vol. iii. part ii. 2012, 2013.

[106] Ibid. 2995.

[107] In the original lontes. Lunt was the Scotch name for a musket-match to the end (Cal. S. P., Henry VIII., vol. iii. part i. 3494).

[108] See the armed strength of England in 1524. Ibid. vol. iv. part i. 972.

[109] Ibid. 2086.

[110] Six feet. A horse's length was reckoned at the same figure a hundred years later.

[111] State Papers (ed. 1830-1849), vol. ix. pp. 523, 524.

[112] Henry in 1519 tried to procure horses from Italy, but was informed by Alfonso of Ferrara that there, too, the breed was decayed (Cal. S. P. vol. iii. part i. 171). Henry gave as much as £35, a great sum, for his own horses.

[113] Cal. S. P. 1514. 4902.

[114] Ibid. 1513. 4375.

[115] Stow. Mortar is the German meerthier, sea-beast. So other pieces were called after reptiles and monsters and birds,—serpentines, dragons, basilisks, falcons, culverins (couleuvrines), etc.

[116] See Cal. S. P., Dom., Addenda (1561-1579), pp. 78-84.

[117] Cal. S. P., Dom., Addenda (1566-1579), pp. 111-113, 115-116, 121-123, 126-127, 129.

[118] One sentence gives a clue to Henry VIII.'s long discouragement of firearms. "Is not the safety of the country worth more than the saving of a few wild-fowl?"

[119] Stow.

[120] The word was borrowed from the French casaque, the regular term for a livery-coat. Facings were soon added. Cal. S. P., Dom. (1595), p. 22.

[121] Cal. S, P., Dom. (1581-1590), p. 16.

[122] Cal. S. P., Dom. (1581-1590), p. 255.

[123] One bitter critic avers that the expression was due to the number of low-born captains, who, having no arms to bear on their ensigns, were obliged to trust to distinctions of colour only.

[124] Collins.

[125] Tercio Viejo.

[126] The press-gangs were not very scrupulous. On one occasion they took advantage of Easter Sunday to close all the church doors in London and take a thousand men from the various congregations.—Stow.

[127] The grandson of the victor of Pavia.

[128] Stow says that they fired two volleys only, which I hope is incorrect. The passage, however, shows that the reason for the three volleys was already unknown to many.

[129] That is to say a fort or intrenchment. German schanze. It seems a pity that we should have allowed so useful a term to become obsolete.

[130] Stow.

[131] Cal. S. P., Dom. (1588), p. 513.

[132] Born 14th November 1567.

[133] See the English translation of the Tactics, by Captain John Bingham, 1619.

[134] Hear, for instance, Tavannes, whom his writings prove to have been in many respects an excellent soldier: "Cette grande invention d'exercice pratiquÉe en Flandre avec leurs demi-tours À gauche et À droit—les anciens qui n'en usaient pas (!) ne laissaient de combattre aussi bien ou mieux que maintenant" (MÉmoires). Tavannes began to write in 1599-1600, and died in 1629.

[135] Perhaps the following explanation will make this clearer:—Where an English officer would now give the word "Form fours" (to convert two ranks into four), the Dutch officer would have given, "To the right hand double your files." Where the Englishman would give the word "Front" (to reconvert four ranks into two), the Dutchman would have said, "To the left hand double your ranks."

[136] 1599.

[137] Its bore was of thirty bullets to the pound.

[138] These stoppages were known even then by the name of "off-reckonings."

[139] Holland, Zealand, Utrecht, Gelderland, Overyssel, Frieland, Groningen.

[140] I have followed the narrative of Sir Clements Markham (The Fighting Veres) in preference to that of Motley in the description of the battle, being satisfied after careful consultation of the authorities that his account is the more accurate.

[141] Hexham. This is the first instance that I have encountered of the word parade, which is evidently of Spanish origin.

[142] Hexham.

[143] The capture of Wesel was the occasion of rejoicing; and the details of the description leads me to infer that the feu de joie was a novelty.

[144] "I was once made to stand at the Louvre Gate in Paris, being then in the King's regiment of guards passing my prenticeship, for sleeping in the morning when I ought to have been at my exercise. For punishment I was made to stand from eleven before noon to eight o'clock of the night sentry, with corselet, headpiece, braselets, being iron to the teeth, in a hot summer's day, till I was weary of my life."—Munro's Expedition, p. 45.

[145] But poor Dunbar and his four companies were to have little part in it. Shortly after he again defied the whole of Tilly's army, and after a desperate resistance the eight hundred men were annihilated, seven or eight alone escaping to tell the tale.

[146] There were only two "orders" in the Swedish army: Open order for parade, which meant six feet from man to man, outstretched hand to outstretched hand; and Battle order, three feet from man to man, elbow to elbow.

[147] A file in those days consisted, of course, of six men, not as now of two. So a corporalship of pikes would be eighteen, and of musketeers twenty-four men.

[148] The rottmeisters were fifteen in number, the six corporals bringing up the total to the necessary twenty-one.

[149] See Monro, vol. ii. p. 65.

[150] Stress has been laid upon the fact that Gustavus always led the cavalry in person. Doubtless he was fond of his Horse, but since at that period cavalry was always stationed in the wings, and the right wing was the post of honour, this does not count for very much.

[151] They were called after their inventor by the name of "Sandy's stoups," and were used by the Scots at the battle of Newburn in 1640.

[152] Tallard fatally repeated this independent formation of two armies at Blenheim.

[153] As I believe that this pretension is still advanced by patriotic North Britons, it is as well to say that it is preposterous. The true Scottish Guard enjoyed an independent existence till the Revolution, and to claim its privileges for Hepburn's regiment is as absurd as though a corps raised to-morrow, and officered by half a dozen gentlemen of the Grenadier Guards, should claim precedence of all British infantry.

[154] Dalton, vol. i. p. 234.

[155] Mr. Dalton has told the story very fully in his Life of Cecil.

[156] Ward, Animadversions of Warre.

[157] See Pallas Armata, by Sir T. Kellie, 1627. This writer deserves mention as the first who introduced the system of drilling by numbers. He talks as glibly of odd and even numbers as a modern drill sergeant.

[158] Barriffe and Ward.

[159] The whole of the controversy may be read at large in Rushworth.

[160] His name indeed appears as an ensign in the list of a company of foot raised for service in Ireland (printed in June 1642), but this does not count for much.

[161] I have however found an early instance of it in the French religious wars, but have unfortunately mislaid the reference.

[162] He is said to have posted himself opposite Cromwell, but he only took his usual place at the right of the line; he occupied the same position at Naseby and took no pains to meet Cromwell there.

[163] All kinds of reasons have been advanced to account for the (supposed) extraordinary fact that Cromwell's troopers at one moment were at a disadvantage. The explanation is quite simple, being no more than the usual swing of the pendulum in a combat of cavalry.

[164] Perfect Passages, 30th April 1645.

[165] The drum-calls were six in all: 1, Call; 2, March; 3, Troop; 4, Preparative; 5, Battle; 6, Retreat. The trumpet-calls were also six: 1, Butte sella, corrupted since into "Boot and Saddle"; 2, Monte cavallo (mount); 3, Tucket (warning for march); 4, Carga (charge); 5, Alla Standarda (to the Standard); 6, Auquet (watch-setting).—Ward, Animadversions of Warre.

[166] The Young Horseman and Honest Plain-dealing Cavalier, by John Vernon, 1644. A short drill-book in pamphlet form, prepared by a cavalier-officer in small compass for officers "to weare in their pocket." This is the first soldier's pocket-book for field service in our language. It is among the King's Pamphlets in the British Museum.

[167] Barriffe.

[168] Sometimes however the dragoons seem to have taken with them ten extra men per company simply to hold the horses. There are fugitive references to light dragoons even at this early period, but no clear account of them. After a few years it was as usual to speak of troops as of companies of dragoons.

[169] Which was then called the limber.

[170] Schanzbauern. Fronsperger.

[171] They stood on much the same level in France.

[172] So in Sprigge, more properly Sergeant-Major-General.

[173] In Sprigge's list the foot take precedence of the horse; and this was the rule in the English, though not in the French, army.

[174] This incident shows that shock-action was not yet wholly the rule.

[175] Called by the name of a tercio in the contemporary plans, being formed probably in the old Spanish formation which Tilly had used at Leipsic.

[176] This item furnishes indirect evidence that either few pikemen were employed, or that if employed they were stripped of defensive armour. The pike was already falling obsolete.

[177] See the very pertinent extract from Wellington's despatches, quoted by Mr. Gardiner—Commonwealth, vol. 1, pp. 132, 147.

[178] The pedigree of Monk's regiment is as follows: Weldon's Regiment of the New Model became first Robert Lilburn's, and in 1649-50 Sir A. Hazelrigg's. Lloyd's of the New Model passed in succession to Herbert, Overton, and in 1649 to Fenwick. I am indebted for this information to the kindness of Mr. C. H. Firth.

[179] Hodgson.

[180] Hodgson.

[181] This again seems to be borrowed from the French. Vieilleville issued medals bearing the King's effigy to his troops in 1558, with a ribbon of his own colours (see Memoires de Vieilleville).

[182] The men were drawn from three Dunbar regiments: Cromwell's own, Goff's and Ingoldsby's, not, alas! from Monk's.

[183] I am indebted for the elucidation of this campaign to Mr. Julian Corbett's Monk (Men of Action Series), an admirable sketch of a remarkable man. Monk's letters may be read in Thurloe.

[184] The best contemporary account of Henry Cromwell's administration will be found in his own letters in Thurloe's State Papers.

[185] St. Domingo.

[186] Fortescue's own expression. See his letters in Thurloe.

[187] The story of the West Indian expedition is very fully told in Thurloe's State Papers. There are a few supplementary papers in Cal. S. P., Col., and two accounts in Ogilvy's History of America and in the Harleian Miscellany.

[188] See the pamphlet, The Bloudie Field, in King's Pamphlets, British Museum.

[189] Thurloe, vol. vi. p. 18.

[190] Collins, State Papers (July 1603), p. 277.

[191] "Les Anglais y firent fort bien." See his letter in Thurloe.

[192] It must be remembered that this was no figure of speech. Cromwell was the first who gathered in representatives of Scotland and Ireland to Westminster.

[193] Clarke's James II.

[194] The best English source for the account of the campaign in Flanders is Thurloe's State Papers; there are also some curious details in a tract in the Harleian Miscellany, which, however, I have accepted only when confirmed by newspapers. Bussy Rabutin's Memoires, and Clarke's James II. are among other authorities.

[195] Gumble, the chaplain, from whose Life of Monk this account is taken.

[196] According to the usual establishment, 9600 men besides officers.

[197] It is not I think irrelevant in this connection to remind the reader of the military manoeuvres of the rebel angels in Paradise Lost.

[198] "First came half-a-dozen of carbines in their leathern coats and starved weather-beaten jades, just like so many brewers in their jerkins made of old boots, riding to fetch in old casks; and after them as many light horsemen with great saddles and old broken pistols, and scarce a sword among them, just like so many fiddlers with their fiddles in cases by their horses' sides.... In the works at Bristol was a company of footmen with knapsacks and half pikes, like so many tinkers with budgets at their backs, and some musketeers with bandoliers about their necks like a company of sow-gelders."—Newspaper. (Reference unfortunately lost.)

[199] This is evident from the mention of the "train" in the list in the Commons Journals, September 1651. The field-train was then transferred to Scotland bodily, where we find it still in December 1652 and again in 1659 (April). See Commons Journals.

[200] Thurloe, vol. vii. p. 714. This is the first passage in which I have encountered the word thus spelt: "certain buildings ... called the barracks or Spanish quarters." But there is mention of a baraque in the besiegers' lines before Ostend in 1604. Grimeston.

[201] It is curious to note that a vote for a statue of Oliver Cromwell was in 1895 moved by the party that proposes to undo his work, and was defeated by the party that wishes to continue it. The supporters of the Union deliberately refused this tardy honour to the man who did more than any other to accomplish the Union, and who actually was the first to summon representatives from Scotland and Ireland to Westminster. Whether either party was sincere may well be considered doubtful.

[202] The Duke of Gloucester died in the same year.

[203] I find no sufficient ground for assuming that the regiment was Unton Crook's of the New Model, which had been disbanded two months before.

[204] For the return of the Buffs to England see the Holland Papers (Record Office), Bundles 233-235.

[205] The historian of the Second regiment of Foot has printed a great deal of matter respecting Tangier. Details will also be found in Clifford Walton's History of the British Standing Army, p. 22.

[206] No reader, I am confident, will blame me for leaving him alone with his Macaulay for the account of this insurrection.

[207] It is worthy of note that but two of these regiments were raised in the districts indicated by their present titles, viz., the 11th (North Devon) and 12th (East Suffolk).

[208] Expedition, vol. ii. pp. 37, 73.

[209] The tune, which is in the key of G major and in 6 4 time, may be found in modern editions of Tristram Shandy, at the end of chap. iii. of the second book. It is admirably suited for fifes and drums.

[210] It is possible that there was difficulty in finding ready writers among the military, and still more difficulty in persuading them to unite sword and pen.

[211] But indeed I have failed to discover by what legal authority martial law was enforced on the Parliamentary troops in the Civil War. There seems to have been no effort to give so much as a semblance of legality to the power of the generals.

[212] It should not be forgotten meanwhile, in justice to the clerks, that their salaries were very irregularly paid and that they depended chiefly on their perquisites. We do not realise, in fact, how recently salaries have supplanted fees in the payment of officials.

[213] The warrant men and hautbois can generally be found in old muster-rolls under the names of John Doe, Richard Roe, and Peter Squib.

[214] Cal. S. P., Dom. (30th June 1666), p. 478.

[215] Which, however, was soon discarded for the hat, with or without an iron skull-piece beneath it.

[216] Some say in 1678, but no sign of them appears in the Army Lists or Commission Registers till 1683.

[217] Spanish granada, a pomegranate. Grenadiers were established in France in 1667.

[218] The hatchet was issued for the hewing down of the palisades at the attack of a fortified place. This is one reason why the grenadiers were nearly always told off for the assault of a fortress.

[219] But this rank was not confined to them. The Royal Scots at this period possessed second lieutenants in addition to ensigns.

[220] Cal. S. P., Col. (1677-1680), Nos. 397, 1141.

[221] The allowance in 1692 is fourteen per company.

[222] For the reluctance of the French to part with pikes see Belhomme, L'ArmÉe FranÇaise en 1690, pp. 24, 25. The word piquet descends from the time when the pikemen were but a small body in the centre of the battalion, ibid., p. 42.

[223] Thus General Cadogan, when virtually commander-in-chief, carried a half-pike at a review of the Guards in June 1722. Flying Post, 14th June 1722 (Marlborough died 16th June 1722).

[224] The pikemen of the Gardes Suisses in France, however, clung to the defensive armour for years after it had been discarded by others, a curious survival of the old glory of the Swiss.

[225] 2nd Queen's.

[226] No better instance of this can be found than in Georg von Frundsberg, the famous landsknecht-leader, who once, being in supreme command of an army, took the linstock from a gunner and aimed and fired a gun himself. The "officer commanding artillery" at once came up, cashiered the gunner, and bade Georg look after his men and not meddle with other people's guns.

[227] 1st Battalion Royal Scots, Buffs, 7th, 21st, Collier's, Fitzpatrick's.

[228] Cal. S. P., Dom., 23rd May 1689.

[229] Cal. S. P., Dom., 10th May 1689.

[230] "Nonchalants" is Waldeck's expression. See Cal. S. P., Dom., 1st June, 28th June, 18th Sept., 23rd Sept.

[231] He was cashiered for dressing his regiment in the cast clothes of another regiment.

[232] "The piousest man I ever knew." Burnet.

[233] The French had introduced this improvement some time before.

[234] Cal S. P., Dom., Schomberg to the King, 27th August 1689.

[235] But this was nothing uncommon in all the armies of Europe. French ordnance would break down in the same way, and many of the guns at Carrickfergus were Dutch. See Belhomme, L'ArmÉe FranÇaise en 1690, p. 131; and Commons Journals, 19th March 1706-7.

[236] Cal. S. P., Dom., 12th September 1689.

[237] Authorities in Macaulay.

[238] Cal. S. P., Dom., Schomberg to the King, 3rd October 1689.

[239] See Rymer's Foedera, anno 1346.

[240] Harbord's letter, Cal. S. P., Dom., 18th September 1689.

[241] Schomberg's letter, ibid. 20th September 1689.

[242] Schomberg's letters, Cal. S. P., Dom., 12th Oct., 26th December.

[243] Schomberg, 26th December 1689, ibid.

[244] Do., 30th December 1689, ibid.

[245] Harbord, 23rd October 1689, 9th January 1690, ibid.

[246] Schomberg, 24th December 1689, Cal. S. P., Dom.

[247] Do. 16th October 1689, ibid.

[248] Do. 26th December 1689, ibid.

[249] Harbord, 23rd October 1689, ibid.

[250] Schomberg, 30th December 1689, ibid.

[251] Further details as to this Irish campaign will be found, with all authorities, in Clifford Walton's History of the Standing Army, pp. 70 sqq. Some details are also in Macaulay. Several of Schomberg's letters are printed complete in Dalrymple's Memoirs.

[252] Commons Journals, 8th November 1689.

[253] Schomberg, 10th February 1690, Cal. S. P., Dom.

[254] Carmarthen to the King, February 1691, Cal. S. P., Dom.

[255] Southwell, January 1690, ibid.

[256] See the very remarkable memorandum in Cal. S. P., Dom. (1691), pp. 398-400.

[257] The Irish campaigns are treated with great fulness by Colonel Clifford Walton, and Marlborough's part in them in particular in Lord Wolseley's Life of Marlborough.

[258] Four troops of life guards, ten regiments of horse, five of dragoons, forty-seven battalions of foot.

[259] I had almost written that France was then, as always, the first military nation; and though Prussia wrested the position from her under Frederick the Great and again in 1870, the lesson of history seems to teach that she is as truly the first military, as England is the first naval, nation.

[260] Belhomme, p. 153.

[261] FeuquiÈres.

[262] That is to say, of land-transport. After the sad experience of the Irish war the marine transport was entrusted to an officer specially established for the purpose.—Commons Journals.

[263] I spell the village according to the popular fashion in England, and according to the Flemish pronunciation. So many names in Flanders seem to halt between the Flemish and the French that it is difficult to know how to set them down.

[264] Fifty-three battalions of infantry and seven regiments of dragoons.—Beaurain.

[265] No battlefield can be taken in more readily at a glance than that of Landen. On the path alongside the railway from Landen Station is a mound formed of earth thrown out of a cutting, from the top of which the whole position can be seen.

[266] St. Simon. With the exception of one hollow, which might hold three or four squadrons in double rank in line, there is not the slightest shelter in the plain wherein the French horse could find protection.

[267] Life Guards, 1st, 3rd, 4th, 6th Dragoon Guards, Galway's Horse.

[268] This is, of course, the Talmash of Tristram Shandy and of Macaulay's History. He signed his name, however, as I spell it here, and I use his own spelling the more readily since it is more easily identified with the Tollemache of to-day.

[269] Godolphin to the King, 2nd February 1691, S. P., Dom.

[270] Commons Journals, 24th February, 5th March, 1693-1694. A full account will be found in Colonel Clifford Walton, p. 483.

[271] Commons Journals, 26th February 1693-1694.

[272] Hastings of the Thirteenth.

[273] That is to say, to meet the difference between English and Irish pay, the rate being lower in Ireland than in England owing to the greater cheapness of provisions.

[274] See Farquhar's Trip to the Jubilee.

[275] See C. J. 19th, 25th March, 16th December 1696; 5th, 7th, 15th, 23rd January 1697; 3rd, 7th, 10th, 12th, 17th, 24th, 27th January; 7th, 9th, 14th, 15th, 16th February 1698.

[276] C. J. 8th June 1698.

[277] Burnet.

[278] The following was the strength and distribution of the corps:—

England.—Three troops of Life Guards, and one of Horse-Grenadier Guards, each 180 of all ranks. Two regiments of Horse (Blues, 1st D.G.), each of nine troops, 37 officers, 353 non-commissioned officers and men. Five regiments of Horse (3rd, 5th, 6th, 7th D.G., Macclesfield's), each of six troops, 24 officers, 244 non-commissioned officers and men. Three regiments of Dragoons (Royals, 3rd and 4th Hussars), each of six troops, 24 officers, 259 non-commissioned officers and men. First Guards and Coldstream Guards, each of fourteen companies, 139 officers, 1826 non-commissioned officers and men. 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Foot, each of ten companies, 34 officers, 411 men.

Ireland.—Two regiments of Horse (2nd D.G. and 4th D.G.). Three regiments of Dragoons (5th and 6th D., 8th H.). Twenty-one battalions of Foot, 1st Royals (2 battalions), 5th, 6th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th, 22nd, 23rd, 24th, 27th. The establishments were on much the same scale as in England.

Scotland.—One troop of Horse Guards. Two regiments of Dragoons (Greys and 7th H.). Scots Guards, Collier's, 21st, 25th, 26th, George Hamilton's, Strathnaver's.

I may add that I have found the greatest difficulty in the compilation of this note. The proclamation regarding England is to be found in the British Museum; that for Ireland is neither in the Museum nor the Record Office, but the list was after much searching disinterred from an Entry Book (H. O. Mil. Entry Book, vol. iii. pp. 374-386). The Scotch establishment I have made up as best I could from various sources, but I cannot vouch for its accuracy.

[279] H.O. Mil. Entry Book, vol. iii. p. 327, May 1698.

[280] Burnet. Even prior to the disbandment one Irish regiment of horse numbered 103 commissioned officers in a total of 490 of all ranks.

[281] See the petition of men disbanded from Macclesfield's Horse. Commons Journals, 18th April, 3rd May 1699.

[282] Petition of Richard Nichols and others of the First Guards. Commons Journals, 6th December 1699.

[283] Petition of John Dorrell, ibid. 9th December 1699. The case had been investigated and dismissed in the previous Parliament.

[284] Commons Journals, 9th January 1699-1700.

[285] Cal. S. P., Dom., 1691, pp. 241, 393.

[286] Here is one instance. It was the rule that clothing should be provided for a regiment according to its establishment on paper, whether the muster-rolls were full or not; the allowance in payment for the same (which was deducted from the pay of the men) being granted to the colonels on the same basis at the close of the financial year. The colonels provided the clothing accordingly early in 1697. In December many regiments were disbanded, and all were much reduced by the Act of Disbandment, when, by the King's just order, all disbanded men were allowed to take away their clothing with them. In April 1698 the colonels applied for the allowance, but were told that the rule had been altered, and that no money would be issued to them except for men actually on the rolls at the time of reduction or disbandment. The colonels, thus defrauded of a large portion of their allowance, were unable to pay for the clothing, and were, of course, sued by the clothiers. It is added that the clothiers would accept in ready-money just half the price which they demanded in treasury-tallies. See the petition of the colonels to the House of Commons in Journals, 28th May and 4th June 1701.

[287]

Philip III., d. 1621.
Philip IV., d. 1665.
Charles II.,
d. 1700.		 Maria Theresa,
m. Louis XIV.		 Margaret,
m. Leopold I.
Louis, Dauphin,
d. 1711.		 Electress of
Bavaria.
Philip,
Duke of Anjou
(Philip V.).		 Joseph,
Electoral Prince,
d. 1699.
Philip III., d. 1621.
"
"— — — — — — — –"
Philip IV., d. 1665.
"
"— — — — — " — — — — — — —"
Charles II.,
d. 1700.		 Maria Theresa,
m. Louis XIV.		 Margaret,
m. Leopold I.
" "
Louis, Dauphin,
d. 1711.		 Electress of
Bavaria.
" "
Philip,
Duke of Anjou
(Philip V.).		 Joseph,
Electoral Prince,
d. 1699.

[288] Namur, Luxemburg, Mons, Charleroi, Ath, Oudenarde, Nieuport, Ostend.

[289] 12th, 22nd, 27th.

[290] 1st batt. First Guards, 1st Royals (2 batts.), 8th, 9th, 10th, 13th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, 23rd, 24th. The Guards had been substituted (after careful explanation to Parliament) by William's own direction in lieu of the 9th Foot.

[291] Seven regiments of horse and dragoons, fourteen battalions of foot, fifty-six guns.

[292] Coxe, vol. i. p. 182.

[293] So Quincy. Coxe gives August 25-September 5 as the date, but the difference depends merely on the interpretation of the word investment.

[294] See the description in Kane.

[295] Burnet, Somerville, Tindall.

[296] 180 battalions. At this period a battalion is generally taken at 500, and a squadron at 120 men.

[297] Marlborough's Despatches, vol. i. p. 105.

[298]

Order of Battle. Campaign of 1703.
Right Wing only.
Left. Right.
1st Line.
Hamilton's
Brigade.		 Withers's
Brigade.		 Wood's
Brigade.		 Ross's
Brigade.
8th Foot. 1 Batt. 1st Guards. 1stDragoon Guards. 1st Royal Dragoons.
Foreign Regiments. 17th " 1 Batt. Royal Scots. 5th Dragoon Guards. 5thDragoons.
33rd " 15th Foot. 7th Dragoon Guards. Scots Greys.
20th " 24th " 6th Dragoon Guards. A Foreign Regiment.
13th " 23rd Royal Welsh. 3rd Dragoon Guards.
9th Foot.
2nd Line.
2nd Batt. Royal Scots.
16th Foot.
Foreign 26th Cameronians. Foreign
Regiments. 21st Royal Scots Fusiliers. Cavalry.
10th Foot.

Daily Courant, June 2, 1703.

[299] Despatches, vol. i. p. 198.

[300] Royal Dragoons; 2nd, 9th, 11th, 13th, 17th, 33rd Foot.

[301] Erle's Dragoons. Rooke's, Paston's, Deloraine's, Inchiquin's, Ikerryn's, Dungannon's, and Orrery's Foot. All the foot, except the two first, were raised in Ireland.

[302] Quincy, vol. iv. p. 245. It is said that of seventeen battalions only 1500 men reached the Elector of Bavaria at Donaueschingen.

[303] Thirty-four English field-pieces and four howitzers took part in the famous march to the Danube. There were 2500 horses in all in the train.—Postman, 18th May.

[304] Hare's Journal.

[305] The British cavalry (seven regiments) formed the extreme left of the left wing in the line of battle, with ten British battalions immediately to their right. Four more British battalions formed the extreme left of the infantry of the second line. See p. 445.

[306] These would appear to have been the 1st Guards, 1st Royals (2 batts.), 23rd, and perhaps the 37th.

[307] Their strength would be 1820 men; 130 men from each of fourteen battalions.

[308] 29 officers, 407 men killed; 86 officers, 1031 men wounded. Several details, with a full list of the casualties, will be found in the Postman of July 13, 1704. It is from this source that I draw the account of Mordaunt and Munden.

[309] Despatches, vol. i. p. 381.

[310] FeuquiÈres.

[311] Kane.

[312]

Order of Battle. Campaign of 1704.
Left. Left Wing only. Right.
1st Line.
Hamilton's Brigade. Row's Brigade.
Four Foreign Squadrons. Thirty-two Foreign Squadrons in three Brigades. 8th Foot. 10th Foot. Foreign Battalions.
5th Royal Irish Dragoons. 3rd Dragoon Guards, 2 squadrons. 20th " 23 Royal Welsh.
Scots Grey's, 1 squadron. 6th Dragoon Guards, 2 squadrons. 16th " 24th Foot.
7th Dragoon Guards, 2 squadrons. 1 Batt. Royal Scots. 21st Royal Scots Fusiliers.
5th Dragoon Guards, 1 squadron. 1 Batt. 1st Guards. 3rd Buffs.
1st Dragoon Guards, 3 squadrons.
2nd Line
Ferguson's Brigade.
Foreign Squadrons. 15th Foot. Foreign Battalions.
37th "
26thCameronians.
2nd Batt. Royal Scots.

From Dumont's Histoire Militaire.

[313] 2nd Dragoon Guards, Royal Dragoons, 2nd, 9th, 11th, 13th, 17th, 33rd Foot.

[314] Detachments of the 1st and Coldstream Guards, 13th and 35th of the Line.

[315] The 4th Foot. It had taken its marineship in exchange from another corps.

[316] St. Simon gives a curious account of Lewis's difficulty in arriving at the truth, owing to the general unwillingness to tell him bad news.

[317] It is stated in Records and Badges of the Army that Lillingston's was formed in 1702. But Narcissus Luttrell, Millar, and the Military Entry Books all give the date as 25th March (New Year's Day) 1705.

[318] Quincy's account of this portion of the campaign is, so far as concerns Marlborough, full of falsehoods.

[319] Four British regiments were of this detachment. Two battalions of the 1st Royals, the 3rd Buffs, and the 10th Foot.

[320] Narcissus Luttrell.

[321] It is worth noting that this was the first campaign in which Marlborough and the British took the post of honour at the extreme right of the Allied order of battle.

[322] His camp thus lay across the whole of Wellington's position at Waterloo, from east to west and considerably beyond it to westward, but fronted in the reverse direction.

[323]

Order of Battle. Campaign of 1705.
Left. Right Wing only. Right.
1st Line.
Foreign Troops. 3rd Buffs. 1 Batt. 1st Guards. 1st Dragoon Guards, 3 Squadrons. Scots Greys, 3 squadrons.
21st Royal Scots Fusiliers. 1 Batt. Royal Scots. 5th Dragoon Guards, 2 Squadrons. 5th Dragoons, 3 Squadrons.
37th Foot. 18th Royal Irish. 7th Dragoon Guards, 2 Squadrons.
Macartney's Foot. 23rd Royal Welsh. 6th Dragoon Guards, 2 Squadrons.
Evan's Foot. 28th Foot. 3rd Dragoon Guards, 2 Squadrons.
24th " Stringer's Foot.
15th " 26thCameronians.
16th Foot.
2nd Line.
Extreme Right of Centre.
2nd Batt. Royal Scots.
10th Foot.
Temple's Foot. Foreign troops.
29th Foot.
8th "

Newspaper.

[324] 2nd Dragoon Guards, 2nd, 9th (exchanged against the prisoners of Blenheim), 17th, 33rd, and Brudenell's Foot.

[325] It is somewhat singular that the first regiment which signally distinguished itself in this first Peninsular War was the 33rd (Duke of Wellington's), which covered itself with honour at the storm of Valenza.

[326] 6th, 34th, 36th, Elliott's, J. Caulfield's (late Pearce's), Gorges's.

[327] Guards (mixed battalion of the 1st and Coldstream), 13th, 35th, Mountjoy's, and four of Marines.

[328] Carleton.

[329] Peterborough's Dragoons; Mark Kerr's, Stanwix's, Lovelace's, Townsend's, Tunbridge's, Bradshaw's, Sybourg's, Price's Foot. Sybourg's was made up of Huguenots.

[330] Marlborough's Despatches, vol. ii. p. 262.

[331] This is the story told in Lamberti.

[332] The ground, though now drained, is still very wet.

[333] I have described the field at some length, since the map given by Coxe is most misleading.

[334] Coxe, by a singular error, makes the left consist exclusively of infantry, in face of Quincy, FeuquiÈres, the London Gazette and other authorities, thereby missing almost unaccountably an important feature in the action.

[335] Apparently the whole of Meredith's brigade, viz.: 1st, 18th, 29th, 37th, 24th, and 10th regiments. The place is still easily identifiable.

[336] Molesworth escaped and was rewarded four years later, at the age of twenty-two, with a regiment of foot.

[337]

Order of Battle. Ramillies, 12th-23rd May 1706.
Left. Right Wing only. Right.
1st Line.
Foreign Infantry. 3rd Buffs. 1 Batt. 1st Guards. 1st Dragoon Guards. Scots Greys.
21st Royal Scots Fusiliers. 1 Batt. Royal Scots. 5th Dragoon Guards. 5th Royal Irish Dragoons.
Evans's Foot. 16th Foot. 7th Dragoon Guards.
Macartney's Foot. 26th Cameronians. 6th Dragoon Guards.
Stringer's Foot. 28th Foot. 3rd Dragoon Guards.
15th Foot. 23rd Royal Welsh. Eighteen Dutch Squadrons.
8th Foot.
2nd Line.
Foreign Infantry. 2nd Batt. Royal Scots. Foreign Cavalry.
18th Royal Irish.
29th Foot.
37th "
24th "
10th "

From Kane's Campaigns.

[338] Despatches, vol. ii. p. 554.

[339] The British regiments regularly employed in the besieging army were the 8th, 10th, and 18th, and Evans's Foot; the Scots Greys, 3rd and 6th Dragoon Guards. The total loss of the Allies was 32 officers and 551 men killed, 83 officers and 1941 men wounded. The 18th Royal Irish lost 15 officers alone, and in one attack over 100 men in half an hour.

[340] 8th Dragoons (now Hussars), 30th and 34th Foot; two Dutch and two Neapolitan battalions.

[341] 2200 of them British, 2nd Dragoon Guards, 2nd, 9th, 17th, 33rd, and Brudenell's Foot.

[342] The total force comprehended 6900 men. Two squadrons each of the 3rd and 4th Dragoons (now Hussars) and seven squadrons of foreigners; the 28th, 29th, Hill's, Watkins's, Mark Kerr's, Macartney's Foot, two battalions of Marines, one of Germans and six of Huguenots.

[343] Colonel Parnell calls this a novelty and approves it; Colonel Frank Russell condemns it. The practice was not proscribed, but it was recognised as extremely hazardous (see Kane's Campaigns, ed. 1757, pp. 69-70), and received its final condemnation at the hands of Napoleon. Campagnes de Turenne.

[344] The British regiments present were the Queen's Bays, 3rd, 4th, and 8th Dragoons (now Hussars), Peterborough's and Pearce's Dragoons, Guards (mixed battalion); 2nd, 6th, 9th, 11th, 17th, 28th, 33rd, 35th, 36th, Mountjoy's, Macartney's, Breton's, Bowles's, Mark Kerr's Foot. List of casualties of officers will be found in the Postboy, 26th June 1707. See order of battle on next page.

Order of Battle. Almanza.
Left. Left Wing only. Right.
1st Line.
Wade's Brigade. Macartney's Brigade.
Guiscard's Dragoons Mountjoy's Foot. Four Dutch regiments of horse. Mordaunt's Foot. Two Dutch Brigades.
Essex's Dragoons (4thHussars). 17th Foot. Queen's Bays. Macartney's Foot.
7th Dragoons (Hussars). Peterborough's Dragoons. Tworegiments of Dutch horse. 35th Foot.
1st Royal Dragoons. 8th Dragoons (Hussars). 1 Batt. English Guards.
33rd Foot.
6th "
2nd Line.
Hill's Brigade.
Four 11th Foot. Four Bowles's.
Squadrons Mark Kerr's Foot. Portuguese Nassau's.
Portuguese Three Portuguese Squadrons. Squadrons. Bretton's.
Dragoons. 36th Foot. 2nd Foot.
9th "

Postboy, 5th-7th June 1707.

[345] Parker.

[346]

Order of Battle. Campaign of 1707.
Left. Right Wing only.
1st Line.
Lord North and
Grey's Brigade.		 Temple'sBrigade. Meredith'sBrigade.
3rd Buffs. 2nd Batt. Royal Scots. 1 Batt. 1st Guards. Orrery's Foot.
21st Royal Scots Fusiliers. 18th Royal Irish. 1 Batt. Royal Scots. Evans's Foot.
37th Foot. Temple's Foot. 16th Foot. Foreign horse.
26th Cameronians. 24th Foot. 23rd Royal Welsh.
15th Foot. 10th " 8th Foot.
Gore's "
Right.
Palmer's Brigade. Stair's Brigade.
1st Dragoon Guards. Scots Greys.
5th Dragoon Guards. 5th Royal Irish Dragoons.
7th Dragoon Guards.
6th Dragoon Guards.
3rd Dragoon Guards.

No British in the Second Line.

Postboy, 26th June 1707.

[347] Slane's, Brazier's, Delaune's, Jones's, Carles's, all raised in September.

[348] Mixed battalion of Guards, 19th Foot, Prendergast's (late Orrery's).

[349] 16 battalions and 30 squadrons. In these were included the brigades of Sabine, viz., 8th, 18th, 23rd, 37th; of Evans, viz., Orrery's, Evans's and two foreign battalions; and of Plattenberg, which included the Scotch regiments of the Dutch service.

[350] Among them the Royal Scots and Buffs.

[351] That is to say, on the western side of the road from Oudenarde to Deynze.

[352] The ground, though drained and built over about Bevere, seems to have lost little of its original character, and is worth a visit.

[353] British losses: 4 officers and 49 men killed, 17 officers and 160 men wounded.

[354] The force consisted of detachments of the 3rd and 4th Dragoons (now Hussars), 12th, 29th, Hamilton's, Dormer's, Johnson's, Moore's, Caulfield's, Townsend's, Wynne's Foot.

[355] See, for instance, the commendations of FeuquiÈres.

[356] 135 battalions, 260 squadrons.

[357] 122 battalions, 230 squadrons.

[358] These were, according to a contemporary plan (Fricx), the 16th, 18th, 21st, 23rd, 24th Foot.

[359] He is claimed as a Guardsman by General Hamilton (Hist. Grenadier Guards), though Millner assigns him to the 16th Foot. This is the only name of a man below the rank of a commissioned officer that I have encountered in any of the books on the wars of Marlborough, not excluding the works of Sergeants Deane and Millner. Littler was deservedly rewarded with a commission.

[360] The Allied order of battle was peculiar. The artillery was all drawn up in front, in rear of it came a first line of 100 squadrons, then a second line of 80 squadrons, then a third line of 104 battalions, with wings of 14 squadrons more thrown out to the right and left rear. Daily Courant, 6th September 1708.

[361] The five English regiments lost about 350 killed and wounded in this assault. This would mean probably from a fifth to a sixth of their numbers. Daily Courant, 6th September 1708.

[362] I have failed, in spite of much search, to identify the British regiments present, excepting one battalion of the 1st Royals. Marlborough, as Thackeray has reminded us by a famous scene in Esmond, attributed the credit of the action in his first despatch to Cadogan. Another letter, however, which appeared in the Gazette three days later (23rd September), does full justice to Webb, as does also a letter from the Duke to Lord Sunderland of 18th-29th September (Despatches, vol. iv. p. 243). Webb's own version of the affair appeared in the Gazette of 9th October, but does not mention the regiments engaged. Webb became a celebrated bore with his stories of Wynendale, but the story of his grievance against Marlborough would have been forgotten but for Thackeray, who either ignored or was unaware of the second despatch.

[363] Notably Prendergast's. Gazette, 25th November.

[364] The British troops employed were the 6th Foot, 600 marines, and a battalion of seamen.

[365] There are still some remains of the old walls of Tournay on the south side of the town, and the ruins of Vauban's citadel close by, from which the extent of the works may be judged.

[366] The British regiments employed in the siege were the 1st Royals (2 battalions), 3rd Buffs, 37th, Temple's, Evans's and Prendergast's Foot.

[367] The following description written from the trenches gives some idea of the work: "Now as to our fighting underground, blowing up like kites in the air, not being sure of a foot of ground we stand on while in the trenches. Our miners and the enemy very often meet each other, when they have sharp combats till one side gives way. We have got into three or four of the enemy's great galleries, which are thirty or forty feet underground and lead to several of their chambers; and in these we fight in armour by lanthorn and candle, they disputing every inch of the gallery with us to hinder our finding out their great mines. Yesternight we found one which was placed just under our bomb batteries, in which were eighteen hundredweight of powder besides many bombs: and if we had not been so lucky as to find it, in a very few hours our batteries and some hundreds of men had taken a flight into the air." Daily Courant, 20th August.

[368] 8th, 10th, 15th, 16th.

[369] Parker.

[370] A nominal list in the Postboy of 1st October gives 36 officers killed and 46 wounded. An earlier list of 17th September gives 40 officers and 511 men killed, 66 officers and 1020 men wounded; but this is admittedly imperfect.

[371]

Order of Battle. Campaign of 1709.
Left. Right Wing only.
1st Line.
8th Foot. 3rd Buffs. 2nd Batt. Royal Scots. 1 Batt. 1st Guards.
24th Foot. Temple'sFoot. 23rd Royal Welsh. 1 Batt. Coldstream Guards.
21st Royal Scots Fusiliers. Evans's Foot. Orrery's Foot. 1 Batt. Royal Scots.
18th Royal Irish. 16th Foot. 37th Foot.
10th Foot.
Right.
Two Foreign Brigadiers. Orrery's Brigade. Kelburn's Brigade. Sybourg's Brigade.
Twenty-seven squadrons 26th Cameronians. 1stDragoon Guards, 2squadrons. Scots Greys, 3Squadrons.
of foreign dragoons. Two foreign battalions. 5th Dragoon Guards, 2squadrons. 5th Royal Irish Dragoons, 2squadrons.
Prendergast's Foot. 7th Dragoon Guards, 2squadrons.
6th Dragoon Guards, 1squadron.
3rd Dragoon Guards, 2squadrons.

No British troops in the second line; but the 15th and 19th Foot were also present at the action of Malplaquet.

[372] Hotham's regiment and artillery.

[373] 5th, 13th, 20th, 39th, Paston's, Stanwix's.

[374] 2nd Dragoon Guards, Royal Dragoons, 8th Hussars, Nassau's and Rochford's Dragoons. Scots Guards, 6th, 33rd, Bowles's, Dormer's, Munden's, Dalzell's, Gore's. Together 4200 men, under General Stanhope.

[375] 2 brigadiers, 5 other officers and 73 men killed. 2 lieutenant-generals, 12 other officers and 113 men wounded.

[376] Having failed to ascertain the share of the British in this action, I omit it altogether. All that is sure is that they did their duty and that the cavalry suffered severely.

[377] Desbordes's, Gually's, Sarlandes's, Magny's, Assa's dragoons, all composed of Huguenots but borne on the English establishment; Dalzell's and Wittewrong's foot.

[378] 11th, 37th, Kane's, Clayton's, and one foreign battalion of foot. The losses of the expedition were 29 officers and 676 men drowned.

[379] Strangely enough it was in these very weeks (13th July) that Richard Cromwell, the ex-protector, died, at the age of eighty-seven; one of the very few men who had seen the rise of the New Model, the culmination of Oliver Cromwell's military work in the hands of Marlborough, and the fall of Marlborough himself.

[380] Nominally 30,000, but 4000 are deducted for Huguenot regiments.

[381] Including Huguenot regiments the numbers would be 22 regiments of dragoons and 81 of foot. The three regiments of Guards, though varying greatly in strength, may be reckoned practically at two battalions apiece; the Royal Scots had also two battalions, both on active service.

[382] These figures are based principally on the estimates submitted to the House of Commons, which are printed in the journals, but can only be approximately accurate. The confusion in the statement is worthy of the War Office. First, there is the establishment for England (after 1707 for Great Britain), including colonial garrisons. Next, establishment for Flanders and augmentation for Flanders; establishment for Portugal and augmentation for Portugal; establishment for Catalonia and augmentation for Catalonia, making, with Ireland, eight different establishments, involving transfers and changes and explanations without end. The House of Commons (see Journals, January 1708) was puzzled and dissatisfied, but obtained small satisfaction. Probably the Treasury was partly to blame as well as the War Office.

The estimates for 1709 provide for 69,000 men, exclusive of the Irish establishment and of Artillery. Commons Journals.

[383] Commons Journals, 3rd and 18th February 1708.

[384] Despatches, vol. ii. p. 460.

[385] Secretary's Common Letter Book, 26th May 1709. S. P., Dom., vol. xvii. p. 85.

[386] Thus in August 1710 the garrison of Portsmouth was reduced by drafts to 360 men. S. P., Dom., vol. xvii. p. 19.

[387] The men, as is plain from the pages of Parker, Kane, and Millner, looked forward to a wealth of spoil as soon as they should penetrate into the heart of France.

[388] Commons Journals, 18th February 1708.

[389] Cal. Treas. Papers, 18th November 1710.

[390] S. P., Dom., vol. xviii. p. 116.

[391] Deane.

[392] There is nothing more remarkable than the mortality among the British troops, in what town soever quartered, in the Peninsula. The complaints against the Portuguese will be found very bitter in the letters of Colonel Albert Borgard of the Artillery. S. P. Spain.

[393] Cal. Treas. Papers, 18th June and 18th November 1706.

[394] The regiment being in the Irish establishment the clothing was ordered in Ireland. When, after long delay, the clothing arrived at Bristol, it was discovered that, being of Irish manufacture, it could not be discharged without the Treasurer's warrant; which, of course, entailed the delay, appreciable enough in those days, of a journey to London and back.

[395] Cal. Treas. Papers, 18th November 1707.

[396] S. P., Dom., vol. viii. 81.

[397] S. P., Dom., vol. xvi. 92.

[398] Cal. Treas. Papers, 15th August 1711.

[399] Ibid., 12th October 1709.

[400] Secretary's Common Letter Book, 20th September and December 1705.

[401] S. P., Dom. (12th March 1711), vol. xix. 21.

[402] 5th, 6th, 8th Dragoons; 18th, 27th Foot.

[403] Two troops Household Cavalry, Scots Greys and 7th Dragoons, Scots Guards, and 1st Royals (each two battalions), 21st, 25th, 26th Foot.

[404] Secretary's Common Letter Book, 22nd May 1704.

[405] Not always, however, for among the capital offenders pardoned I find a boy of ten.

[406] Levy money of £2, of which one moiety for the recruit.

[407] Levy money of £1.

[408] Abundant instances in the Secretary's Common Letter Book.

[409] Ibid., 13th March 1704.

[410] S. P., Dom., vol. v. 135; vol. ix. 75.

[411] S. P., Dom., vol. v. 128.

[412] Tindal.

[413] A curious and, I imagine, illegal stretch of the Royal prerogative appears in the shape of a Royal warrant for the impressment of fifes, drums, and hautbois. H. O. M. E. B., 1st Jan. 1705.

[414] The levy-money was £4 per man, of which it seems that half was bounty, and half for expenses of the recruiting officer.

[415] The system was introduced by Lewis XIV. in the autumn of 1703. The still earlier suggestion of a short-service system in the sixteenth century has already been related.

[416] The number of volunteers enlisted in March 1708 for the regiments in the Peninsula was something over 800, of which London and Middlesex supplied just twenty-three.

[417] Newspapers, 13th March 1709.

[418] S. P., Dom. (15th September 1708), vol. xiv.

[419] E.g., Secretary's Common Letter Book, 21st September and 23rd December 1708.

[420] S. P., Dom., (undated), vol. x.

[421] Ibid. (20th February 1711), vol. xviii.; (14th April 1712), vol. xxii.

[422] Lord Lansdowne. Secretary's Common Letter Book, 12th March 1712. The question had originally been brought up a year before.

[423] Ibid., 23rd April 1711.

[424] Secretary's Common Letter Book, 6th July 1707.

[425] Four regiments destined for the Peninsula in 1711 were kept waiting three months for their ships at Cork. In that time they lost 500 men by desertion, probably not much less than a fourth of their numbers.

[426] A clause against concealment of deserters was inserted in the Mutiny Act of 1708-9.

[427] Abundant instances in Secretary's Common Letter Book.

[428] Ibid., 18th October 1707.

[429] Secretary's Common Letter Book, 25th, 27th July; 17th August; October 1705.

[430] See, for instance, the complaint of a regiment which had been paid in unsaleable tallies. Several officers had been arrested for debts contracted by their men for want of their pay. Secretary's Common Letter Book, 18th April 1711.

[431] Such a Board, or rather intermittent meeting of Generals, had been established in January 1706. For the report of St. John and Churchill and the new regulations, see Miscellaneous Orders, 4th February 1706; 14th January 1708.

[432] I can adduce only one instance in proof, that of the Duke of Schomberg, who offered £2 a man to old soldiers to join his regiment of dragoons (Newspaper Advertisement, 27th July 1705), but the fact is indubitable.

[433] There are two or three memoirs of her, attributed to Defoe and others.

[434] See Steele's Tatler (No. 87), 29th Oct. 1709.

[435] S. P., Dom. (11th September 1705), vol. vi.

[436] They went on guard once and were put in the guard-room once, that their names might appear on the list of prisoners.

[437] Commons Journals, 5th, 13th, 22nd February; 8th, 26th May 1711.

[438] See the case of Lillingston's regiment in Antigua, Cal. Treas. Papers, 18th November 1707: for the Mediterranean garrisons and Peninsula, S. P., Dom. (December 1705), vol. vii.; (19th June 1709), vol. xiv.

[439] E.g. Secretary's Common Letter Book, 22nd December 1710.

[440] Ibid., 22nd December 1708.

[441] Despatches, vol. v. pp. 21, 241. This colonel, Bennett by name, was an admirable officer at his work, and had done excellent service at Gibraltar.

[442] Cal. Treas. Papers, 18th November 1710, 6th January 1711. Recruits were practically bought and sold at from £2 to £3 a head at ordinary times, colonels receiving so much a man when they furnished drafts. In strictness one officer took a recruit from another, and paid to him the expenses of raising a substitute. See Commons Journals, 8th May 1711.

[443] See Humours of a Coffee House (a dialogue), 26th December 1707. Guzzle.—How go on your recruits this winter? Levy (an officer).—Very poorly. I am almost broke; they cost us so much to raise them, and run away so fast afterwards that, without the Government will consider us, we shall be undone, and the service will suffer into the bargain.... Some of us were forced to live on five shillings weekly; the rest was stopped by the Colonel for the charge we had been at in raising recruits; and after all they deserted from us and the service wanted what the nation paid for.... What recruits stayed with us, we were no better, for being most of them boys, they fell sick as soon as we got into the field.... If our regiments were only complete as they ought to be, you would hear something to surprise you in a campaign.

See also Secretary's Common Letter Book, 23rd April 1711, wherein the Generals report that under the present system of mustering, recruiting is impossible, and recommend that if any men die, desert, or are discharged, their names may be kept on the rolls for the next two musters; and see Coxe's Marlborough, vol. vi. pp. 232, 233.

[444] Miscellaneous Orders (Guards and Garrisons), 17th May 1707.

[445] Ibid. (Forces Abroad), 5th March 1706.

[446] Conyngham's regiment (8th Hussars) lost on passage to Portugal 27 chargers out of 70, and 141 troop horses out of 216, owing to the use of two such transports. The animals were beaten to pieces and stifled for want of room.

[447] "Good squat dragoon horses," S. P., Dom., 27th February, 10th August 1705.

[448] Secretary's Common Letter Book, 27th February, 10th August 1705.

[449] Ibid., 19th February 1709.

[450] Ibid., 15th February 1712.

[451] Hence the expression, once very common, of a widow's man. Readers of Marrayat will remember that when Peter Simple was searching the ship for Cheeks the marine, he was informed that Cheeks was a widow's man.

[452] Despatches, vol. v. pp. 356, 412. A scale of widows' pensions from £50 a year for a colonel's to £16 for a cornet's or ensign's was fixed by regulation, 23rd August 1708. Miscellaneous Orders (Guards and Garrisons), under date.

[453] E.g., Cadogan's regiment (5th Dragoon Guards). Marlborough tried to obtain relief for it. Secretary's Common Letter Book, 5th April 1705.

[454] W. O. Miscellaneous Orders. 17th April 1712.

[455] See account of Captain Richard Hill. S. P., Dom., Anne, vol. x. (undated).

[456] Miscellaneous Orders (Guards and Garrisons), 19th October 1711.

[457] Ibid. (Forces Abroad), 1st May 1711.

[458] Despatches, vol. v. p. 412. Amended regulations, Miscellaneous Orders (Forces Abroad), 7th September 1712. In the same letter Marlborough pleaded for the abolition of the 5 per cent purchase money paid to Chelsea Hospital, which was done by Order of 1st April 1712. H. O. M. E. B., under date.

[459] Even as things were, officers were occasionally obliged to accept a Chelsea pension; a captain of horse being admitted on the footing of a corporal of horse. Secretary's Common Letter Book, 10th January 1712.

[460] Coxe's Marlborough, vol vi. p. 232, 233.

[461] Journals of Irish House of Commons. Speeches from the throne, 1703, 1707, 1710, 1713.

[462] Secretary's Common Letter Book, 21st August 1704. "The marines are entirely under the Prince's (George of Denmark's) direction. You must apply to his secretary."

[463] The Commissary of the Musters at Portsmouth was "a superannuated old man who was rolled about in a wheel-barrow." Cal. Treas. Papers, 15th November 1703.

[464] E.g., Caermarthen's and Shovell's, ibid., 7th November 1706.

[465] S. P., Dom. (29th March 1709), vol. xiv. Thirty-eight mutineers marched on London from Portsmouth in order to lay down their arms publicly at Whitehall. They were stopped at Putney. See also Cal. Treas. Papers of same date.

[466] H. O. M. E. B., under date.

[467] H. O. M. E. B., St. John's Commission, 20th April 1704, 8th June 1707; Walpole's, 23rd February 1708; Granville's, 17th October 1710; Windham's, 28th June 1712; Francis Gwynne's, 31st August 1713.

[468] Compare the Duke of Wellington's evidence in 1837: "The Commander-in-Chief cannot at this moment move a corporal's guard (four men) from hence to Windsor without going to a civil department for authority."

[469] Secretary's Common Letter Book, 22nd December 1708.

[470] Ibid., 29th January 1709.

[471] Ibid., 7th March 1709.

[472] Ibid., 14th May 1709.

[473] Ibid., 22nd December 1710.

[474] Secretary's Common Letter Book, 1st and 3rd March, 24th May 1712.

[475] H. O. M. E. B., 30th June 1702. Marlborough was appointed Master-General on 26th March.

[476] Commons Journals, 29th March 1707. The cost of Dutch muskets was £8000, and of English £11,000 per 10,000; but great superiority was claimed for the English.

[477] H. O. M. E. B., 16th April 1703. April 1704 (arms of Evans's regiment).

[478] Secretary's Common Letter Book, 12th June 1706.

[479] H. O. M. E. B., 14th October 1704. Commons Journals, 19th March 1707.

[480] Parker. See the account of the meeting between the Royal Irish of England and of France at Malplaquet.

[481] Millner. 30th May, 1707.

[482] The Duke of Marlborough's new exercise of firelocks and bayonets, by an officer in the Foot Guards. London, N.D.

[483] The most appalling sentence was that given to a guardsman at home who had slaughtered his colonel's horse for lucre of the hide—seven distinct floggings of eighteen hundred lashes apiece, or twelve thousand six hundred lashes in all. His life was despaired of after the first flogging, and the Queen remitted the remaining six. Secretary's Common Letter Book, 12th Jan. 1712.

[484] Newspapers, 3rd March 1703.

[485] Despatches, vol. iii. pp. 309, 335, 461; S. P., Dom., vol. xix. 23.

[486] The testimony to these exertions is to be found only in Hare's Journal, but it is emphatic.

[487] Lediard.

[488] "The Duke does not say much, but no one's countenance speaks more." Hare's Journal.

[489] Mahon, Hist. of England, vol. iii. p. 368.

[490] St. John.

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE

Seven Footnotes (298, 312, 323, 337, 344, 346, 371) with Tables describing the 'Order of Battle' had many elements printed sideways in the original text. These have been made horizontal in the etext, with the regiments listed in each column deployed from right to left.

The original text had two dots under the date superscripts 'th', 'st', 'nd' and 'rd'; these dots have been removed in the etext.

A frequent abbreviation in the Footnotes is 'Cal. S. P. Dom.'; this stands for 'Calendar of State Papers, Domestic'. Also 'H. O. M. E. B.' stands for 'Home Office Military Entry Book'.

Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within the text and consultation of external sources.

Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text, and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained. For example, firearms, fire-arms; bodyguard, body-guard; footmen, foot-men; renascence; intestine; blent; mulcted; jobbery; doggrel.

Pg xxi, 'Action at Edghill' replaced by 'Action at Edgehill'.
Pg xxvi, page number '251' replaced by '351'.
Pg 107, 'Lickenau's memorial' replaced by 'Liebenau's memorial'.
Pg 125, 'for an arequebus' replaced by 'for an arquebus'.
Pg 248, 'sixteeen of horse' replaced by 'sixteen of horse'.
Pg 263, 'Neverthless after six' replaced by 'Nevertheless after six'.
Pg 306, 'Churchhill, Grafton' replaced by 'Churchill, Grafton'.
Pg 347, 'Of fourteeen' replaced by 'Of fourteen'.
Pg 445, 'wholly ontwitted' replaced by 'wholly outwitted'.
Pg 506, sidenote date range '19-20' replaced by '9-10'.
Pg 513, sidenote date range '19/23' replaced by '19/30'.
Pg 518, 'Sart and Blangies' replaced by 'Sart and Blaugies'.
Pg 536, 'made commanner-in-chief' replaced by 'made commander-in-chief'.
Pg 538, 'did not undestand' replaced by 'did not understand'.
Pg 574, 'was unwiliing to' replaced by 'was unwilling to'.
Pg 577, 'through mismangement' replaced by 'through mismanagement'.
Footnote [224], 'Guardes Suisses' replaced by 'Gardes Suisses'.





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