J. Fortescue - The History of the British Army

There they were, brave English gentlemen, all wearing the scarf of orange and blue, fighting side by side with the pupils of Francis Vere, learning their work for the days when they should be divided into Cavaliers and Roundheads and flying at each other's throats. It was a merry life enough, though with plenty of grim earnest. Before each relief marched off for the night to the trenches it drew off in parado [141] to the quarters of the colonel in command, heard prayers, sang a psalm and so went to its work; but though there was a preacher to every regiment and a sermon in the colonel's tent, there was no compulsion to attend, and there were few listeners except a handful of well-disposed persons.[142] It was to be a very different matter with some of them ten years later, but that they could not foresee; and in truth we find among the gentlemen volunteers some very familiar types. One of them arrived with eighteen suits of clothes, got drunk immediately on landing and remained drunk, hiccuping "thy pot or mine," for the rest of his stay. It is not difficult to understand why this gentleman was sent to the wars. Another, Ensign Duncombe, came for a different reason; he had fallen in love with a girl, who though worthy of him was not approved of by his parents. So he too was sent out to forget her, as such foolish boys must be; and he became a great favourite and did well. But unluckily he could not forget; so one day he sat down and wrote two letters, one full of passion to his beloved, and another full of duty to his father, and having done so, addressed the passionate epistle, as is the way of such poor blundering boys, to his father and the dutiful one to the lady. And so it came about that some weeks later the regiment was horrified to hear that young Duncombe had shot himself; and there was an ensign the less in the Low Countries and a broken heart the more in England, sad silence at the officers' table and much morbid discussion of the incident in the ranks. It is such trifles as these that recall to us that these soldiers of old times were really living creatures of flesh and blood.

The men too were learning their business with all the elaborate exercise of musket and of pike, and familiarising themselves with the innumerable words of command and with the refinements in the execution of the same. The pikeman learned by interminable directions to handle his weapon with the better grace, and listened to such cautions as the following. "Now at the word Order your pikes , you place the butt end of your pike by the outside of your right foot, your right hand holding it even with your eye and your thumb right up; then your left arm being set akimbo by your side you shall stand with a full body in a comely posture." The musketeer too grasped that the minutest motion must be executed by word of command. Stray grains of powder spilled around the pan disappeared at the word Blow off your loose corns , sometimes by a puff or two sometimes by a "sudden strong blast," but always in accordance with regulation. At the word Give fire again he learned the supreme importance of "gently pressing the trigger without starting or winking," and soon revived the old English reputation, first won by the archers, for fine marksmanship. An eye-witness records with delight that after each shot they would lean on their rests and look for the result as coolly as though they had been so many fowlers watching for the fall of their bird. Lastly, they learned a new feat, untaught in any drill-book, with which this section may fitly be closed. Pikemen and musketeers were drawn up in line, every pike with a wisp of straw at its head, and every musket loaded with powder only; and at the word every wisp was kindled and every musket fired in rapid succession. The volley met with a stop at first, to use the words of our authority, as was perhaps natural at a first attempt, but eventually it ran well; and thus was fired before Bois le Duc in the year 1629 the first feu de joie that is recorded of the British Army.[143]

Authorities.—The chief sources of information for the actions of the British in the Low Countries are the histories of Meteren, Grimeston and Commelyn; Roger Williams's Actions of the Low Countries; Hexham; Vere's Commentaries; the Leicester Correspondence (Camden Society); the Calendars of State Papers, Domestic and Foreign Series; and the Holland Papers in the Record Office. These last, consisting of several scores of portfolios of manuscript documents, I cannot pretend to have studied exhaustively. Sir Clements Markham's Fighting Veres and Mr. Dalton's Life of Lord Wimbledon are the best modern books on the subject, and I wish to acknowledge to the full my obligation to them. Hexham's Principles of the Art Military is the best authority for the Dutch system of drill. The Tactics of Ælian, translated with commentary by Captain John Bingham, 1616, is also valuable. Last, but not least, the reader will supply for himself the familiar name of Motley.

Table of Contents

It is now needful to turn to the second and perhaps more important school of the British Army. As in the Low Countries we found English and Scots fighting side by side, but gave to the English, as their numerical preponderance demanded, the greater share of attention, so now in the German battlefields of the Thirty Years' War we shall see them again ranked together, but must devote ourselves for the same reason to the actions of the Scots.

The North Britons seem to have found their way very quickly to the banners of Gustavus Adolphus, and to have fought with him in his earlier campaigns long before he had established himself as the champion of Protestantism. To mention but two memorable names, Sir John Hepburn and Sir Alexander Leslie had risen to high rank in his service many years before he crossed the Baltic for his marvellous campaigns in Germany. But to trace the history of the famous Scottish regiments aright, they must be briefly followed from their first departure from Scotland to take service under King Christian the Fourth of Denmark, who curiously enough forms the link that connects the two schools of Maurice of Nassau and Gustavus Adolphus.

1626,

August 17.

It was in reliance on promises of subsidy from the English King Charles the First that Christian first levied an army and took the field for the Protestant cause. His plan was for a defensive campaign, but this was impossible unless his soldiers were regularly paid, which they would be, as he hoped, with English money. Needless to say, Charles when the moment came was unable to fulfil his promise; Christian was driven to take the offensive and was completely defeated by Tilly at Lutter. The unhappy king appealed indignantly to Charles for help, but Charles could send nothing but four English regiments which had been raised for service in the Low Countries two years before, and were now, through the prevailing maladministration in every department of English affairs, weak, disorganised and useless. Their numbers were however supplemented by the press-gang, and a body of some five thousand men, unpaid and ill-found, ripe for disease and disorder, were shipped off to the Elbe.

A little earlier than the defeat at Lutter one of the many gentlemen-adventurers in Scotland, Sir Donald Mackay, had obtained leave from King Charles to raise and transport five thousand men for King Christian's ally, the famous free lance, Count Ernest Mansfeld. It does not appear that he succeeded in recruiting even half of that number, for heavy drafts had already been made upon the centre and south of Scotland for levies. Still some two thousand men were collected by fair means or foul, and even if some of them were taken from the Tolbooth at Edinburgh, it was fitting that in a corps so famous there should be representatives from the Heart of Midlothian. But it is certain that a goodly proportion were taken from the northern counties and in particular from the district of the Clan Mackay, and that these took the field in their national costume and so were the first organised body deserving the name of a kilted regiment. The officers, from their names and still more from their subsequent behaviour, seem to have been without exception gentlemen of birth and standing, worthy to represent their nation. Some of them probably had already experience of war; one at least, Robert Munro, the historian of the regiment, had served in the Scottish body-guard of the King of France, and had learned from sad experience the meaning of the word discipline.[144]