Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages / Third Edition

by Edward Lewes Cutts

In the Weise Könige,[399] on plate 44, is a representation of a camp surrounded by the baggage waggons; on plates 91 and 96 a square fort of timber in the field of battle; on plates 57, 84, &c., are cannons surrounded by mantelets, some of wicker probably filled with earth; on plate 60 is a good representation of a column of troops defiling out of the gate of a city.

The following account, from Grafton’s Chronicle, of the array in which Henry VIII. took the field when he marched to the siege of Boulogne, will illustrate the picture:—

“The xxj. day of July (1513), when all thinges by counsayle had bene ordered concernyng the order of battaile, the king passed out of the town of Calice in goodly array of battaile, and toke the field. And notwithstandyng that the forewarde and the rerewarde of the kinges great armye were before Tyrwin, as you have heard, yet the king of his own battaile made three battailes after the fassion of the warre. The Lord Lisle, marshall of the hoste, was captain of the foreward, and under him three thousand men; Sir Rychard Carew, with three hundred men, was the right-hand wing to the foreward; and the Lord Darcy, with three hundred men, was wing on the left hande; the scowrers and fore-ryders of this battaile were the Northumberland men on light geldings. The Erle of Essex was lieutenaunt-generall of the speres, and Sir John Pechy was vice-governour of the horsemen. Before the king went viij. hundred Almaynes, all in a plump by themselves. After them came the standard with the red dragon, next the banner of our ladie, and next after the banner of the Trinitie: under the same were all the kinges housholde servauntes. Then went the banner of the armes of Englande, borne by Sir Henry Guilforde, under which banner was the king himselfe, with divers noblemen and others, to the number of three thousand men. The Duke of Buckyngham, with sixe hundred men, was on the kinges left hande, egall with the Almaynes; in like wise on the right hande was Sir Edward Pournynges, with other sixe hundred men egall with the Almaynes. The Lord of Burgoynie, with viij. hundred men, was wing on the right hande; Sir William Compton, with the retinue of the Bishop of Winchester, and Master Wolsey, the king’s almoner,[400] to the number of viij. hundred, was in manner of a rereward. Sir Anthony Oughtred and Sir John Nevell, with the kinges speres that followed, were foure hundred; and so the whole armie were xj. thousand and iij. hundred men. The Mayster of the Ordinaunce set forth the kinges artillerie, as fawcons, slinges, bombardes, cartes with powder, stones, bowes, arrowes, and suche other thinges necessary for the fielde; the whole number of the carriages were xiij. hundreth; the leaders and dryvers of the same were xix hundreth men; and all these were rekened in the battaile, but of good fightyng men there were not full ix. thousande. Thus in order of battayle the king rode to Sentreyla.”

Pikeman.

A little after we have a description of the king’s camp, which will illustrate the other pictures above noted.

“Thursedaie, the fourth daye of Auguste, the king, in good order of battaile, came before the city of Tyrwyn, and planted his siege in most warlike wise; his camp was environed with artillerie, as fawcons, serpentines, crakys, hagbushes, and tryed harowes, spien trestyles, and other warlike defence for the savegard of the campe. The king for himselfe had a house of timber, with a chimney of iron; and for his other lodgings he had great and goodlye tents of blewe waterworke, garnished with yellow and white, and divers romes within the same for all officers necessarie. On the top of the pavalions stoode the kinges bestes, holding fanes, as the lion, the dragon, the greyhound, the antelope, the Done Kowe.[401] Within, all the lodginge was paynted full of the sunnes rising: the lodginge was a hundred xxv. foote in length.”

At folio 5 of the MS. already referred to (Aug. III.) is a connected arrangement of numerous tents, as if to form some such royal quarters. But at folio 8 are two gorgeous suites of tents, which can hardly have been constructed for any other than a very great personage. One suite is of red, watered, with gold ornamentation; the other is of green and white stripes (or rather gores), with a gilded cresting along the ridge, and red and blue fringe at the eaves.

Our next engravings are from coloured drawings at f. 9, in the same MS., and respectively represent very clearly the half-armour worn by the pikeman and the arquebusier, and the weapons from which they took their name.

In the reign of Elizabeth and James I. armour was probably very little worn; but every country knight and esquire possessed a suit of armour, which usually hung in his hall over his chair of state, surrounded by corslets and iron hats, pikes and halberts, cross-bows and long-bows, wherewith to arm his serving-men and tenants, if civil troubles or foreign invasion should call the fighting-men of the country into the field.[402] The knights and esquires of these times are also commonly represented in armour, kneeling at the prayer-desk, in their monumental effigies. The fashion of the armour differs from that of preceding reigns. The elaborate ingenuities of the latter part of the fifteenth century have been dispensed with, and the extravagant caprices also by which the armour of Henry VIII.’s time imitated in steel the fashion of the ordinary costume of the day are equally abandoned. The armour is simply made to fit the breast, body, arms, and legs; the thighs being protected by a modification of the tuilles in the form of a succession of overlapping plates (tassets or cuisses) which reach from the corslet to the knee.