Reappraising the Elizabethan and Early Stuart Soldier: Recent Historiography on Early Modern English Military Culture David R

History Compass 9/1 (2011): 16–33, 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2010.00748.x

Reappraising the Elizabethan and Early Stuart Soldier: Recent Historiography on Early Modern English Military Culture David R. Lawrence* Department of History, Glendon College, York University

Abstract For much of the 20th century, historians could muster little praise for the late Tudor and early Stuart soldiery, often portraying them as amateurs who were part of a decaying and moribund military tradition isolated from the transformations shaping warfare on the European continent. In the 1980s and 1990s, these theories were tested and found wanting by those who argued that the English were fully engaged in the so-called early modern military revolution. Instead of decline and decay, England is now considered to have been engaged in the military revolution from early in the 16th century, with scholars arguing that the English art of war was in step with continental practice. This article weighs the contributions of a new generation of historians to the ongoing reappraisal of late Tudor and early Stuart soldiering over the last decade. Along with examining England and the military revolution, new work has focused much attention on the motivations and mentalities of English ofﬁcers serving in France, the Low Countries and Ireland, with confessional zeal, honour and economic hardship seen as the primary factors motivating English volunteers to serve abroad. At the same time, scholars are also taking a fresh look at how military administration and improvements to training affected the lives of common soldiers.

The late Tudor and early Stuart soldier has undergone a significant historical reappraisal over the course of the last three decades. Prior to the 1980s, scholars portrayed the early modern English soldiery as amateurish in the best of times and downright incompetent in the worst. The words ‘decayed’, ‘dormant’, ‘inexperienced’, ‘inefficient’, ‘uneducated’ and ‘isolated’ were commonly used to describe him and the evidence supporting this gloomy portrait seemed, on the surface, to justify such criticisms.1 When a list of late Tudor and early Stuart military expeditions is drawn up, the failures clearly outweigh the successes – evidence that few historians could overlook.2 Consequently, when Michael Roberts advanced his military revolution thesis in 1956, outlining the emergence of innovations in weaponry, tactics and the growth of armies that transformed European warfare from 1560–1660, he considered it a truly continental revolution, with few manifestations on English soil. Geoffrey Parker’s The Military Revolution: Military innovation and the rise of the West, 1500–1800 (1988), a technologically deterministic elaboration of Roberts’ revolution proved kinder to the British Isles, but Parker still concluded that prior to 1642, the English ‘lagged far behind continental practice at home’.3 The military revolution debates reinvigorated the study of early modern English military history with scholars weighing the influence of the revolution on the theory and practice of war in the British Isles. Much of this groundbreaking work was carried out in the late 1980s and 1990s with scholars such as Sir John Hale, David Eltis, Simon Adams, John Nolan, Gervase Phillips, Mark Fissel and Bruce Lenman uncovering a much more

ª 2011 The Author History Compass ª 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd Reappraising the Elizabethan and Early Stuart Soldier 17 vibrant military world in England than the one previously depicted.4 This ﬁrst generation of revisionist, as well as the generation that followed, have argued against the view of an isolated and increasingly demilitarized England during this period. There is now a growing consensus that late Tudor and early Stuart society was in fact highly militarized, with elites actively participating in the country’s military culture and an English citizenry quite knowledgeable of military affairs.5 This essay will examine new research on late Tudor and early Stuart soldiering published between 2002 and 2010 but will omit new military histories of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms.6 I start the essay with a discussion of areas where consensus is appear- ing, especially in relation to English participation in the military revolution before moving on to areas were historiographical debates are heating up, looking particularly at what motivated gentlemen volunteers to serve abroad and exploring the inﬂuence of confessional zeal, honour and economic hardship in their decision to take up arms. I con- clude with new research into the effectiveness of the common soldier, both the men pressed into service and the members of the trained bands – the militia that protected the country from invasion.

Grounds for Consensus: England and the Military Revolution It is safe to say that Geoffrey Parker’s depiction of the English as ‘laggards’ has been put to rest. Historians now see the English soldiery as actively engaged in the transformation of European warfare from the second decade of the 16th century and, though debates continue over the use of the term ‘revolution’ to describe those developments, evidence indicates English soldiers were keenly aware of the new tactics and technologies shaping continental warfare. Readers hoping to better understand this process of engagement across the breadth of the 16th century might begin by examining the works of James Raymond, Luke MacMahon and David Grummitt. While their research explores the late 15th and early 16th centuries, students of the late Tudor and early Stuart periods should not overlook these authors, as they challenge many of the long held beliefs about the qualities and capabilities of the English soldier and the development of England’s military machinery during the Tudor period. In his Henry VIII’s Military Revolution: The Armies of Sixteenth-century Britain and Europe (2007) James Raymond (re)sets the date for English participation in the military revolution, making a persuasive argument that ‘English military theory and practice were broadly in-line with that of its continental neighbours from the outset of the reign of Henry VIII’.7 Raymond suggests that Henry and his general’s ‘well-appreciated the value of gunpowder’, engaging in the effective use of artillery and ‘the scientific application of the latest siege techniques’.8 He finds evidence for the spread of new military ideas and methods in manuscript military treatises circulated at court, contesting David Eltis’ claim that it was printed military books published in the 1570s and 1580s that marked the arrival of the military revolution in England. It is on this point, however, that aspects of Raymond’s thesis might also be questioned, as even he points out that ‘the extent to which military manuscripts were read and employed remains unclear’ and that while products of military veterans, manuscripts might reflect ‘desirable best practice’ rather than battlefield actualities.9 Nevertheless, Raymond raises an important point that I will return to throughout this essay, the existence of an institutional memory in the English army that was fostered by long-serving nobility, garrison troops and a reliance on mercenary soldiers. Similarly, in his essay ‘Chivalry, Military Professionalism and the Early Tudor Army in Renaissance Europe: A Reassessment’ (2003), Luke MacMahon rebuts Gilbert Millar’s

ª 2011 The Author History Compass 9/1 (2011): 16–33, 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2010.00748.x History Compass ª 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd 18 Reappraising the Elizabethan and Early Stuart Soldier claims that Henry VIII’s armies were unskilled and inexperienced.10 MacMahon finds no lack of experience among the king’s noble officers, nor does he see Henry’s quest for glory and honour undermining either his military judgment or his strategic interests. Drawing on the State Papers and manuscript sources, as well as works by Steve Gunn and David Grummit, MacMahon recognizes the emergence of a nascent professionalism among two groups in Henry’s ranks, European mercenaries and the king’s bodyguard garrisoning the coast and the Scots border.11 In weighing the traditions of chivalry against the emergence of professionalism, MacMahon argues that the ‘warrior nobility of early Tudor England could be chivalrous and professional’.12 Yet both MacMahon and Raymond point out that throughout his reign, Henry was forced to rely on foreign mercenaries for his heavy cavalry, pikemen and arquebusiers, a decision that indicated the king’s grasp of the changing nature of warfare, but one that suggests English troops may have been ill prepared for war. Even though Henry was ‘committed to modernization’, it was a very slow process, with the English unable to fill these manpower gaps until much later in the century.13 David Grummitt’s excellent monograph, The Calais Garrison: War and Military Service in England, 1436–1558, offers yet another assenting voice that the English were well con- nected with continental military culture.14 Mining some rich veins of Chancery and Exchequer records related to Calais’s administration, Grummitt describes the town as the ‘school of war’ for successive generations of soldiers and England’s ‘largest permanent establishment of military resources’.15 Its loss in 1558 proved a major blow to national pride and a significant setback to England’s military establishment.16 Like Raymond and MacMahon, Grummitt offers up more evidence of the continuity of military practice up to 1558, suggesting that the late Tudors owed a far greater military debt to their prede- cessors than was first thought. I should also mention one other important work, Steve Gunn, David Grummitt and Hans Cools’ first-rate comparative study, War, State and Society in England and the Netherlands, 1477–1559 (2007), a book that scholars and students of early modern English military history should include on their must-read list.17 In their monograph, the authors shed much new light on the process of negotiation ‘between rulers, subjects, bureaucrats, and armed forces’ and ‘how far such negotiations modified not only the broad balances of the constitution but also the social power of different groups at different levels’.18 The book, which reaches a Tillyian conclusion that war did shape the state (the Netherlandish state more so than the English state), is divided into four parts – war and the state, towns at war, nobles at war and subjects at war.19 One of the important themes of the book is continuity, with links forged between the ‘patri- otic and confessional duty’ of the early Tudor soldier and his late Tudor and early Stuart counterparts.20 Gunn, Grummitt and Cools point to the creation of important local loyalties (between noble captains and county militias) that were crucial to prepar- ing the country for war – relationships that predate those discussed by Neil Younger and intimated at by Martyn Bennett and Hendrik Langelu¨ddecke that I address later, but ones that may well have established an institutional memory in towns and in the countryside that aided, rather than hindered, the development of late Tudor and early Stuart military organization under the lieutenancy.21 The authors’ emphasis on the impact of war on towns is an important contribution to our knowledge of an overlooked aspect of English urban history. While town defence in mediaeval England has been well researched, late mediaeval and early modern historians have not always given the topic the emphasis it rightly deserves. Assembly, mayoral and parish records can reveal much about military organization and soldiering and it is hoped that the work

ª 2011 The Author History Compass 9/1 (2011): 16–33, 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2010.00748.x History Compass ª 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd Reappraising the Elizabethan and Early Stuart Soldier 19 of Gunn et al. will provide a useful model for similar studies of war and society in late Tudor and early Stuart England. If the early Tudor military is now being viewed in a more positive light, much the same can be said for the capacities of the late Tudor war machine (and to a lesser extent, its early Stuart counterpart). An important contribution to our understanding of warfare in second half of the 16th century comes via Paul Hammer’s Elizabeth’s Wars (2003), a political–military history of England’s lengthy war with Spain. Hammer asserts that in the war the English not only avoided defeat, ‘but perform[ed] well enough for individuals like [Sir Walter] Ralegh to dream of reducing Spain’s imperial power to ‘‘figs and oranges’’ ’.22 He builds on his extensive knowledge of later Tudor affairs to produce an excellent survey of the social, political and diplomatic ramifications of late-16th century conflict on the English state.23 The study opens with Henry VIII’s final and nearly catastrophic war with France in 1544–1545, a war Hammer believes ‘showed the limitations of England’s military power’ and also displayed the sheer weight of Henry’s army.24 Hammer’s exploration of the Henrician military offered proof of the Elizabethan military revival to come; a revival marked by significant ‘changes in military practice … largely driven by the need to raise the performance of English forces to match international ‘‘best practice’’ ’.25 However, arguments by Raymond, MacMahon and Grummitt now suggest that Hammer’s Henrician soldier may well be made of straw, with a fairly solid military foundation in place and the modernization of England’s soldiery already well under way before any late Tudor revival. The loss of Calais undermined that foundation for at least a generation, with Hammer noting that only then were Elizabeth’s armies able ‘to develop a new cadre of veteran soldiers which allowed them to face the Spanish army on something approaching equal terms’.26 Those veterans served in France and the Low Countries and continued the importation of new military ideas into England in latter half of the 16th and early 17th centuries. The permanence of English arms throughout this period represents another area where historians have reached some accord. Lacking a legislated standing army, companies of experienced veterans did make up an English ‘army’ that served with some distinction. As Mark Fissel states in English Warfare 1511–1642, English ‘companies served abroad continuously’ in Ireland, France and the Low Countries27 from the 1580s and it is the companies serving in France and the Netherlands that David Trim addresses in his 2002 dissertation, ‘Fighting ‘‘Jacobs Wars’’: The Employment of English and Welsh Mer- cenaries in the European Wars of Religion: France and the Netherlands 1562–1610’.28 The dissertation was a significant contribution to the field, revising our understanding of the nature of military culture in the period by revealing patterns of service and patronage networks that sustained a ‘conscious surrogate for a royal army’.29 His work stands out for its extensive use of archival sources from Britain and the continent and where permanence is concerned, Trim found that detachments of English volunteers fighting in France and the Low Countries averaged 3000 or more serving annually from 1562– 1610.30 In the introduction to his edited collections of essays, The Chivalric Ethos and the Development of Military Professionalism (2003), Trim addressed the broader question of permanence and professionalism, concluding that while there were many long-serving veterans active in both countries, including many members of the aristocracy, they were not professionals per se as the military ‘profession’ had yet to come into existence.31 Instead, the chivalric tradition operated alongside a burgeoning and evolving professionalism and the constant call for volunteers allowed aristocrats, gentry and yeomen to gain military experience and foster institutional memory within the ranks. By the end of the 16th century, the Low Countries replaced Calais as the training ground for generations of English soldiers, becoming the country’s new ‘school of war’.

ª 2011 The Author History Compass 9/1 (2011): 16–33, 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2010.00748.x History Compass ª 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd 20 Reappraising the Elizabethan and Early Stuart Soldier

Finally, common ground is emerging over the military role of the English aristocracy; with historians suggesting the nobility played an active part in military affairs in the late Tudor and early Stuart periods. Lawrence Stone’s claim that the aristocracy deserted military service for court service has failed to stand up under a barrage of scrutiny.32 As I will discuss in more detail below, the work of Trim and Roger Manning calls into question the nobility’s demilitarization and suggests that aristocratic patronage networks and clientage links provided the foundations of the English military hierarchy up to and beyond the Civil War years. Manning’s research revealed an increase in the number of nobles serving abroad in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, while Trim’s ‘goes against most historiographical trends’ arguing that English mercenaries were drawn ‘not from the dregs of society but from the cream of society’.33 Raymond, Grummitt and MacMahon present further evidence of aristocratic military participation in the first half of the 16th century, pointing out that during Henry VIII’s campaigns, the king was attended by numerous noble and gentry veterans, among them the long-serving Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, George Talbot, 4th Earl of Shrewsbury, Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk, Sir John Wallop and Sir Richard Wingfield to name but a few. Both Henry VIII and Elizabeth relied upon noble retinues to fill the ranks and, in Henry’s case, repeated use of the nobility and their attendants made for greater efficiency and experience with each passing campaign.34 At the same time, nobles and their retinues promoted permanence and prolonged institutional memory within the English army.

Grounds for Debate: Motivations and Mentalite´s of the English Soldier In 2001, Mark Fissel wrote that ‘English warfare, as a nation’s conduct of the art of war, can be understood by analysing the actions of groups of men’ and over the last decade historians have taken up this task, weighing the actions of English soldiers on campaign, as administrators and governors, and as theorists and social commentators.35 Scholars are also blending newer historical approaches and methods inquiry with traditional ‘drum and trumpet’ operational histories. The works under discussion have been influenced by a diversity of fields including, but not restricted to social, cultural, intellectual, economic, administrative, urban, colonial, political and religious history. But with new approaches and new conclusions come new debates. Front and centre is the question of motivations, with scholars asking what led men to risk life and limb to leave the comfort of their homes and volunteer for military service in Europe, Ireland and the New World. As I have indicated, confessional zeal, honour and economic hardship have garnered the most attention. Much of the new work on the importance of religion as a chief source of motivation has come from David Trim. In his dissertation as well as in a series of articles and an impressive number of Dictionary of National Biography entries, Trim has successfully wed the two very disparate fields of military history and church history.36 Central to Trim’s arguments is the assertion that a majority of English soldiers who fought in the wars of religion saw themselves as part of a ‘Calvinist international’, engaged in a holy war against the Hapsburgs and the Papacy. In his article ‘Calvinist Internationalism and the English Officer Corps, 1562–1642’ (2006), Trim suggests the shared fear of Catholicism created a ‘conscious transnational movement’, producing the steady stream of English, Welsh and Scots recruits for the protestant armies in France and the Low Countries between 1562 and 1642.37 These veterans then facilitated improvements to administration, recruitment and combat effectiveness.38 Trim also sees a continuity between the Elizabethan and early Stuart periods, challenging previously held beliefs that the Treaty of London, signed by England and Spain in 1604, somehow disconnected the

ª 2011 The Author History Compass 9/1 (2011): 16–33, 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2010.00748.x History Compass ª 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd Reappraising the Elizabethan and Early Stuart Soldier 21

English from continental warfare and ushered in a lengthy period of peace, broken only by the renewal of war between the two countries in 1624. In his essay ‘Calvinist Interna- tionalism’ in Timothy Wicks’ edited collection, Prince Henry Revived (2007), Trim claims that while the Spanish were prohibited from recruiting in England after 1604, authorities overlooked the activities of Dutch recruiters, albeit as long as Dutch captains and their proxies kept a low profile. Of course, recruiting was further aided by English and Scots officers who remained in Dutch service (but now under Dutch pay). It was these same troops, Trim notes, who played an important role in saving the republic in 1607 and 1608, turning back Spinola’s army before it could overwhelm the Dutch.39 For Trim, religion mattered most, because religion pervaded English society, and because so many soldiers cited matters of faith as the reason why they took up the sword. However, because motivating factors were not mutually exclusive, Trim also sees honour and personal glory as deserving a place in the narrative as these were the tangible benefits of military service for the nobility (who were not expected to receive monetary reward for their service). As war was a vocation, the aristocracy ‘served for honour and to further a just cause (though with an expectation that their actions would be seen and rewarded)’, writes Trim.40 If Trim’s work suffers from a weakness, it may be that in focusing primarily on English and Welsh mercenaries serving in the France and the Low Countries, it overlooks men who went to Ireland.41 One wonders if religion becomes any less important if the rewards for service were different. Service in foreign armies offered fewer opportunities for grants of land or governorships and may well have attracted men driven by ideology, whereas in Ireland, the rewards included estates, governorships and senesch- als that might have drawn those not necessarily bound by ideology. Where Trim sees religion as the primary motivator, Roger Manning sees honour and personal glory as central to the decision to serve abroad. Manning has made a significant contribution to the field with his two books, Swordsmen: The Martial Ethos in the Three Kingdoms (2003) and The Apprenticeship of Arms: The Origins of the British Army 1585– 1702 (2006).42 The former looks at the remilitarization of the English aristocracy during our period and the latter measures the impact of foreign service on the rise of the military profession in Britain. Both books challenge Stone’s thesis of a declining nobility with its concomitant loss of martial spirit. While Manning accepts a brief decline of that spirit from 1560 to 1580 (he makes no mention of the loss of Calais in influencing the decline), he states that any demilitarization after 1580 is a ‘myth supported by very little historical evidence’.43 His calculations of the number of military peers reveals a very different trend than the one described by Stone, with an overall increase, rather than a decrease in the number of English nobles serving in the wars.44 The experience gleaned from that service, he points out in The Apprenticeship of Arms, provided the means by which the ‘innovations of the military revolution were transmitted to the British Isles’ and to further improvements in military leadership among England’s elite.45 Manning pays lip service to religious motivations, suggesting that Low Countries volunteers were ‘conscious [they were] participating in a Protestant crusade’, but that their actions spoke louder than their words, with the Netherlands actually the ‘chief theatre for demonstrating virtue and honour’.46 Manning has been praised for his excellent synthesis of works on English soldiering but he has also had his critics. In downplaying religion, he overlooks a very important motivator and an influential force in shaping the patronage networks of noble and non-nobles alike.47 Secondly, and I think more importantly, his reliance on printed rather than archival sources in both monographs overlooks important manuscript material that could have revealed more about the transformation of military organization in the 17th century and aristocratic responses to those changes. By emphasizing the arrival

ª 2011 The Author History Compass 9/1 (2011): 16–33, 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2010.00748.x History Compass ª 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd 22 Reappraising the Elizabethan and Early Stuart Soldier of the military revolution to England in the mid-17th century, Manning also overlooks the impact of early and late Tudor developments on the aristocratic military ethos. Where Manning sees a reticent aristocracy, reacting ‘against the principles and practices of modern warfare’, others have found a nobility adaptable to change.48 In his monograph Military Honour and the Conduct of War (2006), Paul Robinson addresses the relationship between honour and war from the ancients to the Iraq conflict.49 His study includes a chapter on the meaning of military honour in Elizabethan England and, like Manning, Robinson recognizes honour as the product of various influ- ences, including ‘a romanticized form of chivalry which was largely Burgundian in origin, Italian humanism and Protestantism’ a mix, he concludes, that ‘often pulled [Elizabethans] in very strange directions’.50 Relying mainly on printed instructional manuals, Robinson finds it difficult to downplay the importance of honour in English society as it pervaded so many aspects of court and military culture. However, he reminds readers that even contemporaries, notably Fulke Greville and William Shakespeare, doubted the honourable intentions of courtiers and military men alike. Whereas Manning sees honour as more or less static, with swordsmen ‘asserting they were in possession of a distinctive culture and value system’ with a continued reliance on edged weapons (hence the name swordsmen) and a love of face-to-face combat,51 Robinson sees prowess as something in decline, increasingly at odds with the educational revolution and the growing rationalization of war. The rationalization was most clearly evidenced by the 200+ military manuals printed in England in the 16th and early 17th centuries. Military authors, many of them veterans, knew not only the value of honour, but also recognized that warfare was constantly changing, with corporatism winning out over individualism as the increasing use of gunpowder weapons made face-to-face combat less of an appealing option. Keith Thomas takes a view of the value of honour similar to that of Robinson in his The Ends of Life (2009), a study of fulfilment in early modern England.52 In a chapter devoted to martial prowess, Thomas describes the 16th-century English elite as great lovers of war, with Tudor military men finding combat ‘a uniquely satisfying experience’, with the ‘supreme end of life [being] the performance of military deeds’.53 Like Robinson, Thomas also sees a tempering of heroism by the end of the 16th century, when ‘disciplined obedience was what mattered most: sheer animal vigour became less important’.54 Military display, whether it be the retaining of personal armouries or participation in jousts (at least until their demise in 1625), remained the means by which the English aristocracy and members of the gentry could showcase their status and masculinity. War energized the society, while peace undermined it, generating sloth and effeminacy. The influence of humanist learning may have turned Englishmen such as the churchman John Colet into pacifists, but many military peers put their humanist education to good use studying the art of war. Thomas argues that in the 16th century, Mars and Minerva grew increasingly compatible, with learning regarded as ‘essential for a commander’.55 David Lawrence’s The Complete Soldier: Military Books and Military Culture in Early Stuart England, 1603–1645 (2008) assesses the impact of printed books and drill manuals on military training in pre-Civil War England. His research examined nearly 100 works on the theory and practice of infantry, cavalry and siege warfare, and found that gentlemen soldiers readily adapted to changes in warfare, aided in part by the wide variety of continental and English military books available to them. This was particularly the case with the introduction of infantry drill to England in the early 17th century, when Low Countries veterans brought news of the Maurician infantry reforms back with them from the continent. While Manning believes that soldiers like Sir Francis Vere and Sir Edward Cecil could fall prey to overly ambitious honourable intentions in the field, Lawrence

ª 2011 The Author History Compass 9/1 (2011): 16–33, 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2010.00748.x History Compass ª 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd Reappraising the Elizabethan and Early Stuart Soldier 23 found these soldiers were also thinking seriously about reforms to improve the training and readiness of English soldiers through the use of printed manuals.56 Lawrence asserts that the new military environment emerging on the continent and in England still required individual martial prowess, but these skills no longer took precedence over the corporate skills dominating the training ground and the battlefield. But in drawing primarily on printed primary sources, Lawrence’s conclusions face some of the same criticisms as Manning’s, with extant archival evidence of the actual use military manuals and books in the field frustratingly elusive. Recent research also has focused attention on soldiers serving in the Anglo-Irish wars and the unique set of circumstances they faced during that conflict.57 English goals of col- onization and control as well as Irish responses to English policies created a different kind of war in Ireland. The Irish use of guerrilla warfare, rather than large, set-piece battles and sieges, shaped the tenor of the conflict and resulted in a brutal struggle with atrocities carried out by both sides. In Martial Power and Elizabethan Political Culture: Military Men in England and Ireland, 1558–1594 (2009), Rory Rapple found a different set of motivations at work in Ireland in the 1580s than those Trim discovered for France and the Low Countries.58 For both, honourable intentions remained important, but for the captains Rapple investigated it was political rewards that mattered most.59 Because Ireland was a colonial project, political offices (with their wealth, power and patronage) were highly sought after prizes. In researching the Irish State Papers and the ‘literature of complaint’, which reflected the martialist’s frustrations with Elizabeth’s failure to provide adequate patronage, Rapple uncovered baser motivations, but ones no less important than those described by Trim and Manning.60 Excluded from political culture in England, Ireland offered captains like Sir William Pelham, Sir Nicholas Malby and Sir Richard Bingham ‘an outlet for the social, political and economic dissatisfactions’, and the chance to estab- lish a functioning political culture that furthered Elizabethan policies.61 Individual captains could be energetic and effective, both as administrators and as soldiers, often adept at jug- gling the interests and intrigues of the various competing factions in Ireland, including the Anglo-Irish, the Gaelic-Irish and even their fellow captains.62 The captains that Rap- ple describes are hard men; they seem to care little for religion and more about money or their newly procured estates – hardly the ardent Calvinists that were traipsing off to the Low Countries! They could be corrupt, brutal and wholly self-interested. Men like Bingham and Humphrey Gilbert used violence to ‘[exact] retribution, revenge and ven- geance’, behaviour that eventually helped to push the Irish into rebellion.63 But Rapple’s portrait of English captains might be criticized for its small sample size of captains and by the fact that the study concludes before the outbreak of the Nine Years’ War – an event that transformed the country from a military backwater into a hub of martial activity and may very likely have changed the attitudes of the English soldiers serving there. As John McGurk observes in Sir Henry Docwra 1564–1631: Derry’s Second Founder (2006), the life of an unsung hero of English rule in late Elizabethan and early Stuart Ire- land, not all the captains were as infamous as Bingham or Gilbert.64 McGurk’s book is both a political biography, assessing Docwra’s governorship of Derry and his service as a treasurer of war and a keeper of the great seal in the 1620s, and a study of English military affairs in Ireland. Building on his earlier work on the Nine Years War, McGurk uses the Irish and Carew State Papers, as well as Docwra’s letters to reveal a ‘practical, prag- matic soldier’ with a ‘highly developed gift for survival and revival’.65 Docwra was both a ‘competent, far-seeing brave and well experienced commander’ who successfully planted the garrison at Derry and an astute politician, who knew when and when not to use martial law to silence Irish opposition to English rule.66 Unlike Bingham, Dowcra

ª 2011 The Author History Compass 9/1 (2011): 16–33, 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2010.00748.x History Compass ª 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd 24 Reappraising the Elizabethan and Early Stuart Soldier was neither ‘sadistic or vindictive’ nor was he influenced by his family’s adherence to the reformed religion. But beyond the fact that Docwra was a good and honest soldier and servant of the state, readers of McGurk’s biography may be left to ask what his career can tell us about his place in English military culture during a dynamic and transformative period. He was not motivated by religion nor did he apparently read military books. Yet at the same time, Docwra seems to have grasped the essence of the military revolution; he understood the importance of fortifications and gunpowder weaponry, he utilized amphibious warfare and combined operations, and as McGurk notes, he does not appear to have allowed chivalric ideals to interfere with the carrying out of his duties. Was Docwra merely an anomaly, or can we assume that other gentlemen soldiers were incul- cating similar abilities and sensibilities? All of these monographs and articles point to the existence of a growing cadre of experienced English officers motivated by a variety of factors and available to serve the Elizabethan and early Stuart governments. Martyn Bennett’s essay, ‘The Officer Corps and Army Command in the British Isles, 1620–1660’, traces an emerging professionalism in the ranks of the English officer corps up to and during the English Civil Wars.67 One of three essays from David Trim’s The Chivalric Ethos and the Development of Military Professionalism (2003) reviewed here, Bennett finds, as Manning did, that status and social structure rather than experience influenced the selection of officers for early Stuart expeditions.68 Bennett found this to be the case for officers chosen to command the trained bands and those picked to lead the Mansfeldt (1624–1625), Cadiz (1625) and Re´ expeditions (1627). Bennett makes only passing mention of the English who served in the Thirty Years’ War, noting that ‘the 1630s were marked by very little military activity until the end of the decade’ before going on to discuss the important role that the same war played in providing experience to the Scots, who were welcomed into the Covenan- ter army in 1639. The English, on the other hand, overlooked their veterans in favour of men with social status but little training or battlefield knowledge. Over the course of the early Stuart period, Bennett sees professionalism as developing ‘largely from the experience of warfare’ and he concludes that the professionalism of veterans never penetrated the trained bands in quite the way that Charles I had planned for the ‘Exact’ or ‘Perfect Militia’. Even with some veterans travelling the counties as muster-masters, their contribution was never enough to provide ‘benefits for the officer corps of 1639’.69 But one area that Bennett overlooks, particularly in the 1620s and 1630s, is the military activity in London, where seasoned veterans regularly interacted with amateurs at the artillery companies. As members gained in ‘experience’, they moved on to train militia companies in Middlesex, Essex and other counties. As discussed in the following section, Hendrik Langelu¨ddecke argues we should be cautious about dismissing off-hand the efforts to introduce the ‘Perfect Militia’ in the 1630s and should take note of improvements to training (aided by professionals) in the ‘halcyon days’ of the Personal Rule.70

Grounds for Debate: The Performance of the Common Soldier With recent historiography doing much to resurrect the reputations of late 16th- and early 17th-century English ofﬁcers, it might be expected that the standing of the common soldier would naturally rise with the tide. To some extent, this has been the case, as there is evidence to support the fact that good ofﬁcers were producing their fair share of good soldiers. While there have been few words of praise for the large-scale late Tudor and early Stuart amphibious expeditions, small-scale riverine and lacustrine campaigning did meet with greater success. One of the criticisms of Mark Fissel’s English Warfare

ª 2011 The Author History Compass 9/1 (2011): 16–33, 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2010.00748.x History Compass ª 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd Reappraising the Elizabethan and Early Stuart Soldier 25

1511–1642 was that its ‘overwhelming concentration [was] on land warfare, so that developments in naval administration and technology are given only cursory attention’.71 In his essay ‘English Amphibious Warfare, 1587–1656: Galleons, Galleys, Longboats and Cots’ in Amphibious Warfare 1000–1700: Commerce, State Formation and European Expansion (2006), Fissel seeks to fill this lacuna.72 He contends that small-scale amphibious operations, especially those in Ireland, ‘were significant and consistently successful’ but that Drake’s surprise attack on Cadiz in 1587 and the victory over the Spanish Armada instilled ‘inordinate confidence’ in Elizabethan and early Stuart councillors who believed that such naval feats could be easily reproduced.73 Fissel describes how few if any con- temporary theorists broached the topic of amphibious warfare in military treatises and that where small-scale operations were concerned, experience proved the best teacher. This was especially the case in Ulster, where operations using combined arms carried out by Henry Docwra, Connaught governor Sir Oliver Lambert, Captain John Dowdall and Lord Mountjoy, were ‘crucial in subduing Gaelic resistence’.74 While Ireland and France are addressed, Fissel neglects the role of early Stuart volunteers in riverine operations in the Low Countries, where he also might have found some more small tactical successes, albeit in tandem with Dutch forces. His article concludes that the English were able to obtain tactical advantages through small-scale amphibious warfare but that ‘the immaturity of the English state and the practical complexities of combined operations’ ultimately undermined its larger operations.75 The organizational problems associated with large-scale English expeditions have often been attributed to the failings of pressed soldiers. Stephen J. Stearns’ article, ‘Military Dis- order and Martial Law in Early Stuart England’ (2007), points out that the condition and conduct of pressed troops (the majority of men raised for military service were drafted), so often described by contemporaries and modern historians as a lawless rabble, may be an over-exaggeration.76 Stearns looked closely at the State Papers and found evidence from the 1620s indicating that contingents raised for continental service were often well governed and officered as they made their way to ports along the English coast. Using a case study of Saltonstall’s mutiny in Harwich in April–May 1627, Stearns puts blame for the riots firmly at the feet of the ineffectual Caroline administration and ‘indifferent or financially overextended’ officers and local authorities, rather than the pressed men being readied for the Re´ expedition. Stearns does not deny the fact that many of those pressed into service in 1627 and 1628 sought to escape their predicament (often as fast as they possibly could), but when these men were treated well by experienced officers and well fed and furnished by sympathetic local authorities, they were much less likely to riot or cause trouble on campaign.77 Just as E. P. Thompson described a ‘moral economy’ among the lower orders of society in the 18th century, Stearns paints a picture of a military moral economy, with conscripts using riot only when conditions became intolerable.78 If the common conscript could be brought to heel under good commanders, surely the militia also would have benefited from the leadership and training of experienced veterans of the Irish and continental wars. Neil Younger and Hendrik Langelu¨ddecke address various aspects of this question, the former looking at the readiness of the militia during the Armada crisis of 1588 in his 2006 dissertation and in two subsequent articles, and the latter examining the trained bands during the Personal Rule of Charles I. Neil Younger’s dissertation, ‘War and the Counties: The Elizabethan Lord Lieutenancy, 1585–1603’, will be of interest to anyone wishing to better understand the organization and administration of county defences in the late Elizabethan period. As far as soldiering is concerned, his chapter ‘Preparations against Invasion, 1585–1588’ details the training and readiness of

ª 2011 The Author History Compass 9/1 (2011): 16–33, 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2010.00748.x History Compass ª 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd 26 Reappraising the Elizabethan and Early Stuart Soldier the militia, arguing that it was not until the 1580s that the trained bands, the ‘centrepiece’ of England’s defence, were in a position to adequately protect the country.79 Making extensive use of lieutenancy books from a number of different counties, as well as Exche- quer and State Papers, Younger concludes that while the trained bands were not the fin- est soldiers they were not the dregs of society but ‘substantial men’, farmers and landowners with an interest in protecting their property. Placed under the direction of a more effective lieutenancy, significant headway was made in ‘mobilizing resources for post-military revolution warfare’.80 In ‘If the Armada had Landed: A Reappraisal of Eng- land’s Defences in 1588’ (2008), Younger disputes Geoffrey Parker’s claim that the militia was ill-prepared to meet the 1588 invasion and would surely have been defeated by the Spanish had Parma’s army come ashore.81 Using Privy Council orders, State Papers and lieutenancy books, Younger concludes that there was no ‘army’ of English trained bands assembled in the south to shadow the Armada as it made its way up the Channel. Instead, the Privy Council used ‘careful and flexible planning’ to call upon bands from various southern counties to assemble when required and, if need be, make their way to London if and when the capital was threatened. Where other historians have seen inefficiency in the English preparations, Younger has found an ‘efficient management of available resources’.82 Where training and readiness are concerned, Younger admits that most of the trained bands were inexperienced, but he stresses that there was ‘a sizeable pool of officers with military experience’ available to lead these men against the Spanish. How- ever, on the matter of effectiveness, Younger sounds a more cautious note, pointing out that where training of the bands is concerned, sources related to the specifics of training remain ‘elusive’.83 While the lieutenancy was able to put a great many men into the field, one is left to ponder the degree to which they were well disciplined and well trained. Consequently, the debates over the effectiveness of the trained bands in this period will remain contentious.84 Questions about the effectiveness of Charles I’s ‘Exact’ or ‘Perfect’ Militia are examined in Hendrik Langelu¨ddecke’s article, ‘ ‘‘The Chiefest Strength and Glory of This Kingdom’’: Arming and Training the ‘‘Perfect Militia’’ in the 1630s’ (2003).85 According to Langelu¨ddecke, it may be possible to uncover patterns and possibly evidence of the effectiveness of militia training during the Personal Rule period by looking closely at parish account books as these listed payments for gunpowder, match and muster-masters. Sampling account books from 24 counties, Langelu¨ddecke found that while historians have come to ‘diverging conclusions’ over the success of Charles’ militia reform pro- gramme, evidence shows constables were busy with all manner of military affairs related to militia training during the 1630s, including the purchase, storage and repair of arms and the procurement of powder, match and bullets. Langelu¨ddecke also found evidence of parish constables and churchwardens paying muster-masters, updating muster rolls and even supporting the activities of the saltpetermen throughout the period. All this activity suggests that the trained bands were ‘far from idle during the Personal Rule’, and though hardly perfect, the militia functioned ‘reasonably well’, another indication of the vibrancy of English military culture in times of war and in times of peace.86 Langelu¨ddecke’s conclusions, when placed alongside those of Younger and Bennett, suggest that the lieutenancy was functioning effectively by the 1630s, downloading costs and burdens of county military organization on local government. The works of Bennett and Langelu¨ddecke raise the question as to whether this might be the right time for a new study of the late Tudor and early Stuart militia, one that makes use of county and town record offices (something Lindsay Boynton did not do in his seminal work, The Elizabethan Militia 1558–1638) to test the degree to which elements of professionalism, such as permanence,

ª 2011 The Author History Compass 9/1 (2011): 16–33, 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2010.00748.x History Compass ª 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd Reappraising the Elizabethan and Early Stuart Soldier 27 expertise, education and efﬁciency may have permeated the trained bands before the war, and what effect this may have had on the emergence of professionalism in the ranks of the Royalist and Parliamentary armies.

Conclusions Once described as ignorant, the English soldier is now included among the educated, engaged in study, drawn to new ideas and quite capable of adapting to change. No longer noted simply for his inefﬁciency, he has come to be counted among the effective, the rational and the organized. Previously isolated, the English soldier is now seen as experienced and involved, an active participant in European military culture and in the early modern military revolution. The late Elizabethan and early Stuart periods hardly represent the ‘military backwater’ that historians once described. Yet, the reappraisal of the early modern English soldier is still ongoing and far from complete. Even after three decades of very fruitful work, much is still to be done, and it is hoped that scholars and students of English warfare will continue to cultivate amidst the rich soil discussed in this essay.

Short Biography David R. Lawrence received his PhD from the Department of History, University of Toronto in 2006 and is currently a Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Postdoctoral Fellow and lecturer in the Department of History, Glen- don College, York University. He recently published The Complete Soldier: Military Books and Military Culture in Early Stuart England, 1603–1645 (2009) and has a forthcoming essay on the evolution of the Jacobean drill manual in Negotiating Jacobean Print Culture (Ashgate, 2011) as well as the study of urban militarism and civic military performance in early 17th-century Great Yarmouth in Worth and Repute: The Play of Gender in Late Medi- eval and Early Modern Europe (forthcoming). He is currently working on a study of urban militarism and civic military performance in early Stuart England.

Notes * Correspondence: Department of History, Glendon College, York University, 2275 Bayview Ave., Toronto, ON M4N 3M6, Canada. Email: [email protected].

1 As Paul Hammer explains in his Elizabeth’s Wars (2003), the literature on the Tudor armies ‘is small and consistently negative’ and much the same could be said for the early Stuart military. See P. Hammer, Elizabeth’s Wars (Houndmills, UK: Palgrave, 2003), 7. 2 Historians focus primarily on the disastrous expeditions against Portugal (1589), Lower Germany (1624–1625), Cadiz (1625) and the Isle of Re´ (1627), as well as Charles I’s defeat at the hands of the Scots in the Bishops’ Wars (1639–1640) as representatives of late Tudor and early Stuart military incompetence. 3 M. Roberts, ‘The Military Revolution, 1560–1660’, in C. Rogers (ed.), The Military Revolution Debate (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995): 13–35; G. Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988). For references in Parker on the influence of the military revolution on the art of war in Tudor and early Stuart England, see pp. 26–31 (fortifications in England and Ireland from 1530s to the 1650s), 49–52 (British troops in continental service in the Dutch Revolt and Thirty Years’ War) and 91–9 (English naval exploits). 4 J. R. Hale, The Art of War and Renaissance England (Washington, DC: Folger Library Press, l961); ‘Armies, Navies and the Art of War’, in C. L. Mowat (ed.), New Cambridge Modern History, Vol. 3 (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer- sity Press, 1959); War and Society in Renaissance Europe 1450–1620 (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1985); and ‘The Military Education of the Officer Class in Early Modern Europe’ in J. R. Hale (ed.), Renaissance War Studies

ª 2011 The Author History Compass 9/1 (2011): 16–33, 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2010.00748.x History Compass ª 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd 28 Reappraising the Elizabethan and Early Stuart Soldier

(London: Hamledon Press, l983): 225–46; D. Eltis, The Military Revolution in the Sixteenth Century (London: Tauris Academic Studies, 1995); M. Fissel, English Warfare 1511–1642 (London: Routledge, 2001). S. Adams, ‘The Eng- lish Military Clientele, 1542–1619’, in C. Giry-Deloison and R. Mattam (eds.), Patronages et clientelismes 1550–1750 (France, Angleterre, Espagne, Italie) (Lille: Centre D’Historie De La Region Du Nord, 1995): 217–27 and ‘A Puritan Crusade? The Composition of the Earl of Leicester’s Expedition to the Netherlands, 1585–6’, in S. Adams (ed.), Leicester and the Court: Essays on Elizabethan Politics (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002): 176–95. J. S. Nolan, ‘The Militarization of the Elizabethan State’, The Journal of Military History, 58 (July 1994): 391–420 and Sir John Norreys and the Elizabethan Military World (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1997); G. Phillips, The Anglo-Scots Wars 1513–1550 (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press, 1999) and B. Lenman, England’s Colonial Wars 1550–1688 (Harrow, UK: Pearson, 2001). 5 See R. B. Manning, Swordsmen: The Martial Ethos in the Three Kingdoms (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 9 and Nolan, ‘The Militarization of the Elizabethan State’. For discussions of the impact of war on English society, readers should also consult P. A. Cahill, Unto the Breach: Martial Formations, Historical Trauma and the Early Modern Stage (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008) and D. Randall, Credibility in Elizabethan and Early Stuart Military News (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2008). 6 I have chosen this period because it includes works that appeared after the publication of Mark Fissel’s English Warfare 1511–1642 in 2001, a book that brought new archival sources to light and summed up the important research of the 1980s and 1990s, thereby helping to set the stage for new debates in the field. 7 J. Raymond, Henry VIII’s Military Revolution: The Armies of Sixteenth-century Britain and Europe (London: I.B. Tauris, 2007), 3. 8 Ibid., 42. 9 Ibid., 188. Raymond draws on two manuscripts, Sir Thomas Audley’s ‘Booke of Orders for the Warre Both by Sea and Land’ of which five copies are extant, four in the British Library and one in the Bodleian and Text B, a treatise once attributed to Robert Hare, which Raymond suggests may be a product of the household of William Paulet, Marquis of Winchester. He notes the existence of four copies of Text B, two in the British Library, one at Cambridge and the other at the Bodleian. Audley’s ‘Booke of Orders for the Warre’ showed ‘a detailed awareness of the latest military techniques, notably advocating the integration of poke and shot’ (p. 9) while, Text B addresses the use of pike and shot alongside the traditional bow and bill. Raymond cites the existence of four copies of Text B. Both date from the 1540s. 10 L. MacMahon, ‘Chivalry, Military Professionalism and the Early Tudor Army in Renaissance Europe: A Reassess- ment’, in D. Trim (ed.), The Chivalric Ethos and the Development of Military Professionalism (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 183– 212. See G. J. Millar Tudor Mercenaries and Auxiliaries, 1485–1547 (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1980). 11 See S. J. Gunn’s Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, c. 1484–1545 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1988); Early Tudor Govern- ment, 1485–1558 (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1995); ‘Chivalry and Politics at the Early Tudor Court’ in S. Anglo (ed.), Chivalry in the Renaissance (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press, 1990): 107–28; ‘The French Wars of Henry VIII’ in J. Black (ed.), The Origins of War in Early Modern Europe (Edinburgh: J. Donald, 1987): 28–51; and ‘Henry VIII and Charles the Bold’ History Today,46⁄ 4 (1997), 26–33. See D. Grummit, ‘The Court, War and Noble Power, c. 1475–1558’, in S. Gunn and A Janse (eds.), The Court as a Stage: England and the Low Countries in the Later Middle Ages (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press, 2006): 145–55 and The English Experience in France: War, Diplomacy and Cultural Exchange, c.1450–1558 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002). 12 MacMahon, ‘Chivalry, Military Professionalism and the Early Tudor Army in Renaissance Europe: A Reas- sessment’, 207. 13 Raymond, Henry VIII’s Military Revolution, 110. 14 D. Grummitt, The Calais Garrison: War and Military Service in England, 1436–1558 (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell and Brewer, 2008). 15 Ibid., 1. 16 Ibid., 48. Grummit notes that for more than a century, Calais served many valuable military roles as a jumping off point for invasions of France, a training ground for officers and common soldiers, and a conduit for new military ideas. Garrison inventories of military equipment reveal that the English ‘were employing similar organisation, weaponry and tactics to their European counterparts’. 17 S. Gunn, D. Grummitt and H. Cools. War, State, and Society in England and the Netherlands, 1477–1559 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). 18 Ibid., 4. 19 Ibid., 329. 20 Ibid., 242. 21 Ibid., 317. 22 Hammer, Elizabeth’s Wars,1. 23 See also P. Hammer, The Polarisation of Elizabethan Politics: The Political Career of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999); ‘Myth-making: Politics, Propaganda and the Capture of Cadiz in 1596’, Historical Journal, 40 (1997): 621–42; ‘New Light on the Cadiz Expedition of 1596’, Historical Research, 70 (1997): 182–202.

ª 2011 The Author History Compass 9/1 (2011): 16–33, 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2010.00748.x History Compass ª 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd Reappraising the Elizabethan and Early Stuart Soldier 29

24 The total force (including the militia) numbered 150,000 men under arms; an army that dwarfed any raised in the Elizabethan era. 25 Ibid., 259. 26 Ibid., 104. 27 M. Fissel, English Warfare 1511–1642, 154. 28 D. Trim, ‘Fighting ‘‘Jacobs Wars’’: The Employment of English and Welsh Mercenaries in the European Wars of Religion: France and the Netherlands 1562–1610’, PhD diss. (University of London, 2002). 29 Ibid., 145. 30 Ibid., 28. 31 D. Trim (ed.), The Chivalric Ethos and the Development of Military Professionalism (Leiden, Brill, 2003), 23. Trim lists seven elements of a profession: (1) a discrete occupational identity, (2) formal hierarchy, (3) permanence, (4) a formal pay system, (5) a distinctive expertise and means of education therein, (6) efficiency in execution of expertise and (7) a distinctive self-conceptualization. 32 L. Stone, Crisis of the Aristocracy (London: Oxford University Press, 1967). 33 Trim, ‘Fighting ‘‘Jacobs Wars’’ ’, 93. 34 See Raymond, Henry VIII’s Military Revolution, 121–2. 35 Fissel, English Warfare 1511–1642, 152. 36 See Trim’s ‘Fin de siecle: The English Soldier’s Experience at the End of the Sixteenth Century’, Military and Naval History Journal, 10 (July 1999): 1–13; ‘Horace Vere in Holland and the Rhineland, 1610–12’, Historical Research, 72 (October 1999): 334–51; ‘Ideology, Greed and Social Discontent in Early Modern Europe: Mercenaries and Mutinies in the Rebellious Netherlands, 1568–1609’, in J. Hathaway (ed.), Rebellion, Repression, Reinvention: Mutiny in Comparative Perspective (Westport, CN: Praeger, 2002): 47–61. 37 D. Trim, ‘Calvinist Internationalism and the English officer Corps, 1562–1642’, History Compass,4⁄ 16 (2006): 1024–48. 38 See D. Trim (ed.), The Chivalric Ethos and the Development of Military Professionalism (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 8. 39 D. Trim, ‘Calvinist Internationalism’, in T. Wilks (ed.), Prince Henry Revived: Image and Exemplarity in Early Modern England (Southampton, UK: Southampton Solent University and Paul Holberton, 2007), 245. 40 Trim, ‘Fighting ‘‘Jacobs Wars’’ ’, 86. 41 That said, some of the gentlemen soldiers Trim lists in the appendix of his dissertation did serve in Ireland and the Low Countries. 42 R. B. Manning, An Apprenticeship in Arms: The Origins of the British Army 1585–1702 (Oxford: Oxford Univer- sity Press, 2006). 43 Manning, Swordsmen, 27. 44 Ibid., 17. Manning calculated that the number of military peers stood at 40% in 1585, and after a slight drop in 1600 to 36%, the numbers rose steadily to as many as 69% on the eve of the civil wars in 1642. 45 Ibid., 8. 46 Manning, An Apprenticeship in Arms, 40. See also Manning’s ‘Prince Maurice’s School of War: British Swords- men and the Dutch’, War & Society, 25 (May 2006): 1–19 for a discussion of the influence of the European military courts of Maurice of Nassau and on the education of English soldiers. For a description of the emerging English military court of Henry, Prince of Wales in the period 1608–1610, see Prince Henry Revived, particularly Timothy Wilks’s essay, ‘The Pike Charged: Henry as Militant Prince’, pp. 180–211. 47 See J. Black, ‘A Review of The Origins of the British Army 1585–1702: An Apprenticeship in Arms – By Roger Manning’, History, 92 (April, 2007): 260–1; I. Gentles, ‘Review of An Apprenticeship in Arms: The Origins of the British Army 1585–1702’, American Historical Review, 112 (April 2007): 583–4. 48 Manning explores the English aristocracy’s response to aspects of the military revolution in his ‘Styles of Command in Seventeenth Century English Armies’. Journal of Military History, 71 (July 2007): 671–99. 49 P. Robinson, Military Honour and the Conduct of War (London: Routledge, 2006). R. Cust, ‘A Review of Swordsmen: The Martial Ethos in the Three Kingdoms’, English Historical Review, 492 (June 2006): 928. 50 Ibid., 83. 51 Manning, Swordsmen, 28. 52 K. Thomas, The Ends of Life: Roads to Fulfilment in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). 53 Ibid., 47. 54 Ibid., 50. 55 Ibid., 56. 56 D. Lawrence, The Complete Soldier: Military Books and Military Culture in Early Stuart England, 1603–1645 (Lei- den: Brill, 2009). It was on the urging of Sir Francis Vere that Clement Edmondes, London remembrancer and Privy Council clerk, wrote his short drill manual, The Maner of Our Moderne Training or Tacticke Practice in 1600. Sir Edward Cecil was influential in his support of the Privy Council’s Instructions for Musters and Armes, the government’s first printed manual, published in 1623.

ª 2011 The Author History Compass 9/1 (2011): 16–33, 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2010.00748.x History Compass ª 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd 30 Reappraising the Elizabethan and Early Stuart Soldier

57 On the history of the Anglo-Irish wars of the late 16th and early 17th century, see C. Falls, Elizabeth’s Irish War (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1997); H. Morgan, Tyrone’s Rebellion; the Outbreak of the Nine Years’ War in Tudor Ireland (London: Royal Historical Society, 1993); G. A. Hayes-McCoy, Irish Battles (London: Longmans, 1969); N. Canny, The Elizabethan Conquest of Ireland: A Pattern Established 1565–76 (New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 1976) and Making Ireland British, 1560–1680 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001); J. McGurk, The Elizabethan Conquest of Ireland: The Burdens of the 1590s Crisis (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997); T. Bartlett and K. Jeffrey (eds.) A Military History of Ireland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). 58 R. Rapple, Martial Power and Elizabethan Political Culture: Military Men in England and Ireland, 1558–1594 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2009). 59 Ibid., 35. Rapple argues that in the early 16th century ‘individual honour had become increasingly subsumed in an overarching ‘‘state honor’’ ’. 60 Ibid., 16. 61 Ibid., 126. 62 In ‘Taking Up Office in Elizabethan Connacht: The Case of Sir Richard Bingham’, English Historical Review, 501 (April 2008): 277–99, Rapple describes Bingham’s early career in Connacht and his complex character, as well as the complexities of the Irish political situation Bingham was forced to navigate. 63 Rapple, Martial Power and Elizabethan Political Culture, 245. 64 J. McGurk, Sir Henry Docwra 1564–1631: Derry’s Second Founder (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2006). 65 Ibid., 51. 66 Ibid., 25. McGurk does not consider Docwra to have been a ‘paper soldier’. He states that there is no evidence that Docwra read any of the military treatises printed in the late Elizabethan period and claims his military education came from the school of hard knocks. 67 M. Bennett, ‘The Officer Corps and Army Command in the British Isles, 1620–1660’, in David Trim (ed.) The Chivalric Ethos and the Development of Military Professionalism (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 291–317. 68 See Manning’s ‘Styles of Command in Seventeenth Century English Armies’, 673. He writes that ‘social hierarchies remained more important than military hierarchies in positions of military command, and had the effect of delaying the professionalism of the officer classes of the armies of the Three Kingdoms’. 69 Bennett, ‘‘The Officer Corps and Army Command in the British Isles’’, 299. 70 See page 11 for a discussion of Langelu¨ddecke’s ‘ ‘‘The Chiefest Strength and Glory of This Kingdom’’: Arming and Training the ‘‘Perfect Militia’’ in the 1630s’, English Historical Review, 479 (November 2003): 1264–303. 71 See S. Gunn, ‘Review of English Warfare 1511–1642’, War in History, 11 (2004): 111–2. 72 M. Fissel, ‘English Amphibious Warfare, 1587–1656: Galleons, Galleys, Longboats and Cots’, in D. J. B. Trim and M. C. Fissell (eds.), Amphibious Warfare, 1000–1700: Commerce, State Formation and European Expansion (Leiden: Brill, 2006). 73 Ibid., 217, 223. Fissel argues that the large-scale expeditions were ‘often undermined by a lack of strategic focus and operational consensus’. 74 Ibid., 256. 75 Ibid., 257. 76 S. J. Stearns, ‘Military Disorder and Martial Law in Early Stuart England’ in B. Sharp and M. C. Fissel (eds.), Law and Authority in Early Modern England: Essays Presented to Thomas Garden Barnes (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2007): 106–35. 77 Ibid., 113. 78 Also see D. Trim, ‘Ideology, Greed and Social Discontent in Early Modern Europe: Mercenaries and Mutinies in the Rebellious Netherlands, 1568–1609’, in J. Hathaway (ed.), Rebellion, Repression, Reinvention: Mutiny in Comparative Perspective (Westport, CN: Praeger, 2002): 47–61. 79 N. Younger, ‘War and the Counties. The Elizabethan Lord Lieutenancy, 1585–1603’, PhD diss. (University of Birmingham, 2006). 80 Ibid., 321. 81 N. Younger, ‘If the Armada had Landed: A Reappraisal of England’s Defences in 1588’, History, 93 (July 2008): 328–54. For Parker’s arguments, see ‘If the Armada had Landed’, History, 61 (1976): 358–68. 82 Ibid., 344. 83 Younger, ‘War and the Counties’, 156. 84 For studies on the Elizabethan and early Stuart militia, see L. Boynton, The Elizabethan Militia 1558–1638 (Lon- don: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1967); T. Barnes, Somerset 1625–1640: A County’s Government During Personal Rule (London: Oxford University Press, 1961); K. Sharpe, The Personal Rule of Charles I (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992); M. Fissel, English Warfare 1511–1642 (London: Routledge, 2001) and The Bishops’ Wars: Charles I’s Campaigns against Scotland 1638–1640 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); and P. Hammer, Elizabeth’s Wars (Houndmills, UK: Palgrave, 2003). 85 H. Langelu¨ddecke, ‘ ‘‘The Chiefest Strength and Glory of This Kingdom’’: Arming and Training the ‘‘Perfect Militia’’ in the 1630s’, English Historical Review, 479 (November 2003): 1264–303. 86 Ibid., 1271, 1302.

ª 2011 The Author History Compass 9/1 (2011): 16–33, 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2010.00748.x History Compass ª 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd Reappraising the Elizabethan and Early Stuart Soldier 31

Bibliography Adams, S., ‘The English Military Clientele, 1542–1619’, in C. Giry-Deloison and R. Mattam (eds.), Patronages et clientelismes 1550–1750 (France, Angleterre, Espagne, Italie) (Lille: Centre D’Historie De La Region Du Nord, 1995), 217–27. Adams, S., ‘A Puritan Crusade? The Composition of the Earl of Leicester’s Expedition to the Netherlands, 1585– 86’, in S. Adams (ed.), Leicester and the Court: Essays on Elizabethan Politics (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002), 176–95. Barnes, T., Somerset 1625–1640: A County’s Government During Personal Rule (London: Oxford University Press, 1961). Bartlett, T., and Jeffrey, K. (eds.), A Military History of Ireland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). Bennett, M., ‘The Ofﬁcer Corps and Army Command in the British Isles, 1620–1660’, in David Trim (ed.), The Chivalric Ethos and the Development of Military Professionalism (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 291–317. Black, J., Rethinking Military History (London: Routledge, 2004). Boynton, L., The Elizabethan Militia 1558–1638 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1967). Cahill, P., Unto the Breach: Martial Formations, Historical Trauma and the Early Modern Stage (Oxford: Oxford Univer- sity Press, 2008). Canny, N., The Elizabethan Conquest of Ireland: A Pattern Established 1565–76 (New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 1976). Canny, N., Making Ireland British, 1560–1680 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). Donagan, B., ‘Halcyon Days and the Literature of War: England’s Military Education Before 1642’, Past and Present, 147 (May 1995): 65–100. Eltis, D., The Military Revolution in the Sixteenth Century (London: Tauris Academic Studies, 1995). Falls, C., Elizabeth’s Irish War (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1997). Fissel, M., The Bishops’ Wars: Charles I’s Campaigns against Scotland 1638–1640 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). Fissel, M., ‘English Amphibious Warfare, 1587–1656: Galleons, Galleys, Longboats and Cots’, in M. Fissel and D. Trim (eds.), Amphibious Warfare 1000–1700:Commerce, State Formation and European Expansion (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 217–61. Fissel, M., English Warfare 1511–1642 (London: Routledge, 2001). Grummitt, D., The Calais Garrison: War and Military Service in England, 1436–1558 (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell and Brewer, 2008). Grummitt, D., ‘The Court, War and Noble Power, c. 1475–1558’, in S. Gunn and A. Janse (eds.), The Court as a Stage: England and the Low Countries in the Later Middle Ages (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press, 2006), 145–55. Grummitt, D., ‘The Defense of Calais and the Development of Gunpowder Weaponry in England in the Late Fifteenth Century’, War in History,7⁄ 3 (2000): 253–72. Grummitt, D., The English Experience in France: War, Diplomacy and Cultural Exchange, c.1450–1558 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002). Gunn, S., Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, c. 1484–1545 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1988). Gunn, S., ‘Chivalry and Politics at the Early Tudor Court’, in S. Anglo (ed.), Chivalry in the Renaissance (Wood- bridge, UK: Boydell Press, 1990), 107–28. Gunn, S., Early Tudor Government, 1485–1558 (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1995). Gunn, S., ‘The French Wars of Henry VIII’, in J. Black (ed.), The Origins of War in Early Modern Europe (Edinburgh: J. Donald, 1987), 28–51. Gunn, S., ‘Henry VIII and Charles the Bold’, History Today,46⁄ 4 (1997): 26–33. Gunn, S., ‘Review of English Warfare 1511–1642’, War in History, 11 (2004): 111–2. Gunn, S., Grummitt, D., and Cools, H., War, State, and Society in England and the Netherlands, 1477–1559 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). Hale, J. R., ‘Armies, Navies and the Art of War’, in C. L. Mowat (ed.), New Cambridge Modern History, Vol. 3 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959), 171–208. Hale, J. R., The Art of War and Renaissance England (Washington, DC: Folger Library Press, l961). Hale, J. R., ‘The Military Education of the Ofﬁcer Class in Early Modern Europe’, in J. R. Hale (eds.), Renaissance War Studies (London: Hamledon Press, l983), 225–46. Hale, J. R., War and Society in Renaissance Europe 1450–1620 (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1985). Hammer, P., Elizabeth’s Wars (Houndmills, UK: Palgrave, 2003). Hammer, P., ‘Myth-making: Politics, Propaganda and the Capture of Cadiz in 1596’, Historical Journal, 40 (1997a): 621–42. Hammer, P., ‘New Light on the Cadiz Expedition of 1596’, Historical Research, 70 (1997b): 182–202. Hammer, P., The Polarisation of Elizabethan Politics: The Political Career of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). Hayes-McCoy, G. A., Irish Battles (London: Longmans, 1969).

ª 2011 The Author History Compass 9/1 (2011): 16–33, 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2010.00748.x History Compass ª 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd 32 Reappraising the Elizabethan and Early Stuart Soldier

Langelu¨ddecke, H., ‘ ‘‘The Chiefest Strength and Glory of This Kingdom’’: Arming and Training the ‘‘Perfect Militia’’ in the 1630s’, English Historical Review, 479 (November 2003): 1264–303. Lawrence, D., The Complete Soldier: Military Books and Military Culture in Early Stuart England, 1603–1645 (Leiden: Brill, 2009). Lenman, B., England’s Colonial Wars 1550–1688 (Harrow, UK: Pearson, 2001). MacMahon, L., ‘Chivalry, Military Professionalism and the Early Tudor Army in Renaissance Europe: A Reassess- ment’, in D. Trim (ed.), The Chivalric Ethos and the Development of Military Professionalism (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 183–212. Manning, R. B., An Apprenticeship in Arms: the Origins of the British Army 1585–1702 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). Manning, R. B., ‘Prince Maurice’s School of War: British Swordsmen and the Dutch’, War & Society, 25 (May 2006): 1–19. Manning, R. B., ‘Styles of Command in Seventeenth Century English Armies’, Journal of Military History, 71 (July 2007): 671–99. Manning, R. B., Swordsmen: The Martial Ethos in the Three Kingdoms (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). Marshall, T., Theatre and Empire: Great Britain on the London Stages under James VI and I (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000). McGurk, J., The Elizabethan Conquest of Ireland: The Burdens of the 1590s Crisis (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997). McGurk, J., Sir Henry Docwra 1564–1631: Derry’s Second Founder (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2006). Millar, G., Tudor Mercenaries and Auxiliaries, 1485–1547 (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1980). Morgan, H., Tyrone’s Rebellion; the Outbreak of the Nine Years’ War in Tudor Ireland (London: Royal Historical Soci- ety, 1993). Nolan, J. S., ‘The Militarization of the Elizabethan State’, The Journal of Military History, 58 (July 1994): 391–420. Nolan, J. S., Sir John Norreys and the Elizabethan Military World (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1997). Parker, G., ‘If the Armada had Landed’, History, 61 (1976): 358–68. Parker, G., The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988). Phillips, G., The Anglo-Scots Wars 1513–1550 (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press, 1999). Randall, D., Credibility in Elizabethan and Early Stuart Military News (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2008). Rapple, R., Martial Power and Elizabethan Political Culture: Military Men in England and Ireland, 1558–1594 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2009). Rapple, R., ‘Taking Up Office in Elizabethan Connacht: The Case of Sir Richard Bingham’, English Historical Review, 501 (April 2008): 277–99. Raymond, J., Henry VIII’s Military Revolution: The Armies of Sixteenth-century Britain and Europe (London: I.B. Tauris, 2007). Roberts, M., ‘The Military Revolution, 1560–1660’, in C. Rogers (ed.), The Military Revolution Debate (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995), 13–35. Robinson, P., Military Honour and the Conduct of War (London: Routledge, 2006). Sharpe, K., The Personal Rule of Charles I (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992). Somogyi, N., Shakespeare’s Theatre of War (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1998). Stearns, S. J., ‘Military Disorder and Martial Law in Early Stuart England’, in B. Sharp and M. C. Fissel (eds.), Law and Authority in Early Modern England: Essays Presented to Thomas Garden Barnes (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2007), 106–35. Stone, L., Crisis of the Aristocracy (London: Oxford University Press, 1967). Thomas, K., The Ends of Life: Roads to Fulfilment in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). Trim, D., ‘Calvinist Internationalism’, in T. Wilks (ed.), Prince Henry Revived: Image and Exemplarity in Early Modern England (Southampton, UK: Southampton Solent University and Paul Holberton, 2007), 239–58. Trim, D., ‘Calvinist Internationalism and the English officer Corps, 1562–1642’, History Compass,4⁄ 16 (2006): 1024–48. Trim, D. (ed.), The Chivalric Ethos and the Development of Military Professionalism (Leiden: Brill, 2003). Trim, D., ‘Fighting ‘‘Jacobs Wars’’ The Employment of English and Welsh Mercenaries in the European Wars of Religion: France and the Netherlands 1562–1610’, PhD diss. (University of London, 2002a). Trim, D., ‘Fin de siecle: The English Soldier’s Experience at the End of the Sixteenth Century’, Military and Naval History Journal, 10 (July 1999): 1–13. Trim, D., ‘Horace Vere in Holland and the Rhineland, 1610–12’, Historical Research, 72 (Oct. 1999): 334–51. Trim, D., ‘Ideology, Greed and Social Discontent in Early Modern Europe: Mercenaries and Mutinies in the Rebellious Netherlands, 1568–1609’, in J. Hathaway (ed.), Rebellion, Repression, Reinvention: Mutiny in Compara- tive Perspective (Westport, CN: Praeger, 2002b), 47–61. Younger, N., ‘If the Armada had Landed: A Reappraisal of England’s Defences in 1588’, History, 93 (July 2008): 328–54.

ª 2011 The Author History Compass 9/1 (2011): 16–33, 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2010.00748.x History Compass ª 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd Reappraising the Elizabethan and Early Stuart Soldier 33

Younger, N., ‘War and the Counties. The Elizabethan Lord Lieutenancy, 1585–1603’, PhD diss. (University of Birmingham, 2006). Younger, N., ‘William Lambarde on the Politics of Enforcement in Elizabethan England’, Historical Research,83 (February 2010): 69–82.

ª 2011 The Author History Compass 9/1 (2011): 16–33, 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2010.00748.x History Compass ª 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd