In the “Privy Purse Expenses of King Henry VIII.” are various entries referring to stalking-horses, all of which appear to refer to the live animal; and there is one entry relating to a stalking-ox.
THE CALIVER.
The gun used on these occasions was either the “birding-piece” already described,[134] or the “caliver.” Shakespeare has appropriately mentioned the latter in connection with wild ducks, in the first part of his
Henry IV., where Falstaff speaks of cowards “such as fear the report of a ‘caliver’ worse than a struck fowl or a hurt wild-duck.”—Henry IV. Part I. Act iv. Sc. 2.
The derivation of the word “caliver” is not quite clear, unless it be the same weapon as the “culverin,” in which case it may be derived from the French couleuvrin, adder-like. In Cotgrave’s French and English Dictionary, 1660, the word is spelled “calœver,” and translated “harquebuse.” In Bailey’s “Dictionarium Britannicum,” 1736, the caliver is described as “a small gun used at sea.” In Worcester’s “Dictionary of the English Language,” 1859, “caliver” is said to be corrupted from caliber, and described as—1. a hand-gun or large pistol, an arquebuse; 2. a kind of light matchlock. In Scheler’s “Dictionnaire d’Etymologie Française,” 1862, we find—“couleuvre du L. colubra; It. colubro; Prov. colobre; du L. masc. coluber, bri; D. couleuvreau, couleuvrine, ou coulevrine, pièce d’artillerie; cp. les termes serpentin, et All. feldschlange.”
From these various explanations, as well as from that given by Archdeacon Nares in his “Glossary,” it would seem to have been a military rather than a sporting weapon. The best description which we have met with is that given by Sir S. D. Scott.[135] He says:—
“The Caliver was a kind of short musket or harquebus, fired by a matchlock, and from its lightness did not require a rest.”
“‘Put me a caliver in Wart’s hands,’ says Falstaff, reviewing his recruits, meaning thereby that Wart, who was a weak, undersized fellow, was not capable of managing a heavier weapon. It was sometimes called arquebuse de calibre, and was in fact an arquebus of specified bore, having derived its name from the corruption of calibre into caliver. ‘I remember,’ writes Edmund York, an officer who had served in the Netherlands, and was appointed by the Privy Council to report on the best mode of organizing the militia of London, in expectation of the Spanish invasion, ‘when I was first brought up in Piemount, in the Countie of Brisack’s Regiment of the old Bandes, we had our particular calibre of Harquebuze to our Regiment, both that for one bullett should serve all the harquebuses of our Regiment, as for that our Collonell would not be deceaved of his armes; of which worde Calibre, came first that unapt term we used to call a harquebuze a calliver, which is the height of the bullett, and not of the piece. Before the battell of Mountgunter (Moncontour, A.D. 1569) the Prynces of the Religion caused seven thousand harquebuzes to be made, all of one calibre, which were called Harquebuze du calibre de Monsieur le Prince. So as, I think, some man not understanding French brought hither the name of the height of the bullet of the piece; which worde calibre is yet contynued with our good cannoniers.’”[136]
A contemporary military writer, Sir John Smythe, gives his opinion that the term was derived from “the height of the bullet”—i.e. the bore. He says, “The caliver is only a harquebuse; savinge, that it is of greater circuite, or bullet, than the other is of; wherefore the Frenchman doth call it a piece de calibre, which is as much as to saie, a piece of bigger circuite.[137] I would that all harquebuses throughout the field should be of one caliver and height, to the intent that every soldier on the lack of bullets might use his fellows’ bullets.”
There are two specimens in the Tower Collection, of a caliver and a musket of the sixteenth century, from Penshurst Place, Kent. The length of the former (here figured) is 4 ft. 10 in., the latter 5 ft. 5¼ in.[138]