CHAPTER II

The accession of the Tudors to the throne of England marks an important period in our military history. The nation, after thirty years of furious internal war, during which it had lost all sense of national honour, began to settle down once more to a life of peace, and awoke to the fact that England was now no more than an insular power. France was lost to her except Calais, but Calais was something more than a mere sentimental possession. It was the bridge-head that secured to the English their passage of the Channel; and while it remained in the hands of an English garrison there was always the temptation to engage in Continental wars and to employ the army for purposes of aggression as well as of defence. Still the prospects of regaining the ancestral possessions of the Plantagenets in France seemed so hopeless that the English sovereigns might well doubt whether it were not now time to give the Navy the first and the Army the second place; and this question, already half decided by the keen good sense of King Henry the Eighth, was finally determined by the loss of Calais itself. There was, of course, always a frontier to be guarded on the Tweed, but with the cessation of expeditions to France, which had invariably called the Scotch armies across the border, there was no longer the same danger of Scottish invasion; and moreover, England and Scotland were now beginning to draw closer together. Thus it would seem that after the death of Queen Mary there should have been little reason for the existence of an English army, and[109] indeed it will be seen that the national force became in many respects lamentably deficient. But meanwhile the wars of Europe changed from a contest between nation and nation to a death struggle between Catholic and Protestant. It was religion that drew the Scotch from their old alliance with the French to their former enemies the English; and it was religion which led the English to the battlefields of the Low Countries, where they learned the new art of war. The reign of the Tudor dynasty therefore falls for the purpose of this history into three periods, which are conveniently separated by the fall of Calais or the more familiar landmark of the accession of Elizabeth, and by the first departure of English volunteers to the Low Countries in 1572.

It is extremely difficult to discover the exact condition of England's military organisation when Henry the Seventh was fairly seated on the throne. The old feudal system, which had been turned by the nobles to such disastrous account for their own ends in the Civil War, seems to have been but half alive. Compositions, indents, and commissions of array had already weakened it in the past, and indents in themselves had been shown to be unsafe. The difficulties wherein Henry found himself are shown by two statutes imposing the obligation of military service on two new classes, namely holders of office, fees or annuities under the crown, or of honours and lands under the King's letters patent. It was stipulated that they should receive wages from the day of leaving their homes until the day of their return to them; but they were strictly forbidden to depart without leave, and their service was declared to be due both within the kingdom and without. But in fact the sovereign seems to have been driven back on the force which represented the old Saxon fyrd, and had its legal existence under the Statute of Winchester. Noblemen and gentlemen could of course still show a body of retainers, but many, indeed most, of the ancient magnates had perished, and recent experience had shown the danger[110] of permitting their retinue to become too powerful. A curious complication, to which I shall presently return, in the collapse of the old feudal service was the extreme dearth of good horses. Altogether everything tended to compel resort to the national militia as the principal military force of England. Two allowances to the levies of the shire seem to have been finally established in this reign, namely coat-money and conduct-money. The first, as its name denotes, helped the soldier to provide himself with clothing and was a step further towards uniform; and indeed it is possible that it was deliberately designed to exclude the liveries of the nobility, already condemned by statute, in favour of the national white with the red cross of St. George. The conduct-money was simply the old allowance which was seen in the days of William Rufus, but which from henceforth apparently was refunded to the shire from the Exchequer. Both, however, though paid in advance to the soldier, were ultimately deducted from his pay, and are therefore of interest in the history of the British soldier's stoppages. Finally, we find indications of a stricter discipline in a statute that makes desertion while on service outside the kingdom into felony, and subjects captains who defraud men of their pay to forfeiture of goods and to imprisonment.

A few points remain to be mentioned before we pass to the reign of Henry the Eighth. The first was the establishment of that royal body-guard, which with its picturesque old dress and original title of Yeomen[90] of the Guard still survives among us. Though doubtless imitated from the Scottish Guard of the French kings, it is of greater interest as being composed not of aliens but of Englishmen, and as the first permanent corps of trained English soldiers in our history. Another smaller matter cannot be ignored without disrespect[111] to military sentiment. After the victory of Bosworth Field Henry offered at the altar of St. Paul's Cathedral a banner charged with "a red fiery dragon" upon a field of white and green, the ensign of Cadwallader, the last of the British kings, from whom he was fond of tracing his descent. The scarlet of this red fiery dragon became from this time the royal livery, and was for the present reserved, together with purple, to the King's use alone.[91] But the green and white was more liberally distributed both to soldiers and mariners. A white jacket with the red cross of St. George had long been a common distinction of the English soldier, and the white as a colour of the Tudors now became so general that for a time "white coat" was used as a synonym for soldier.

Lastly must be noticed the definite establishment of the Office of Ordnance for the custody of military stores. The early history of the office is exceedingly obscure, and the existence of King Edward the Second's artillator hardly warrants us in assuming the permanent foundation of the department in the fourteenth century. The record of a Clerk of the Ordnance in 1418 sets the office on surer ground, and in 1483 the appointment of a Master-General advances it to a stage at which it becomes recognisable by us even at the present day; for the title of Master-General was held by John, Duke of Marlborough, and by Arthur, Duke of Wellington.

With Henry the Eighth we reach a new example in our history of an English soldier-king. Young, able, accomplished, and ambitious, he was strongly imbued with the military spirit, and possessed many qualities that must have made him a popular and might have made him a distinguished commander. He excelled[112] in every exercise of arms; he was the finest archer in his kingdom; he had studied the art of war in the best authorities; he understood the conduct both of a siege and of a campaign; and lastly, he was no mean artillerist. This last attribute, however, he shared with several sovereigns of his time. Artillery was a favourite hobby with the crowned heads of Europe, possibly as a symbol of their military strength, for being unable to give themselves the pleasure of a great review owing to the inevitable confusion and expense, they were fain to console themselves with the several pieces, each one of them called by its pet name, that composed their park of ordnance. Altogether Henry was a prince who bade fair to restore the military prestige of England.
1509.
1511.

His first step was to increase his standing force by the creation of a second body-guard of men-at-arms,[92] composed of young men of noble blood; the reason given being that there were far too many such young men in the kingdom who were untrained in arms. The corps, as might have been expected with the best dressed sovereign in Europe, was so gorgeously arrayed that it perished after a few years under the weight of its own cost. His next act was more practical, a writ to the sheriffs for the better enforcement of the Statute of Winchester, which is interesting for its attempt to restore the command of the forces of the shore to their original holders.[93] Concurrently, however, we encounter a large number of the old-fashioned indents and commissions of array, all issued in prospect of English intervention in the eternal strife of the Hapsburgs and the Valois.[94] In 1512 an expedition was sent to the south of France, and there the defects of the army were lamentably seen. Although the importation of hand-guns and arquebuses shows that England was not blind to the progress of fire-arms in Europe, this force [113]was armed principally if not exclusively with the old-fashioned bows and bills, and worse than all, these bows, which had been issued from the stores in the Tower, were found nearly all of them to be useless. Moreover, the victuals were "untruly served" to the men, their pay was withheld from them, and, acutest of all grievances, they could get no beer. The Council of War, in which the command was vested, could never agree as to a plan of operations, and though it kept the men thus inactive made no attempt to drill or exercise them. The natural result was a mutiny. One large band struck work for eightpence a day in lieu of the regular sixpence, several others swore that nothing should keep them from going home, and the disturbance was only quelled by the hanging of a ringleader.[95]
1513.

Henry seems to have had suspicions of the state of affairs, for in the same year Acts were passed to renew the existing statutes against desertion and fraud; though from the incessant re-enactment of these particular provisions it is clear that they were either easily evaded or negligently enforced. In the following year, however, Henry took the field in person in Normandy, where his presence appears materially to have altered the complexion of affairs. His force was designed to have consisted of thirty thousand men, but was reduced by impending trouble with Scotland to less than half that number. The details of its organisation are still extant, and it is curious to find that, after but two generations of severance from France, the French terms vanguard, battle, and rearguard have given place to fore-ward, mid-ward, and rear-ward. Another novelty is the addition of wings, which had formerly been attached to the vanguard only, to the midward also; which was clearly a new departure.[96] There is again a strong tendency, which after a year becomes a rule, to make the tactical units of uniform strength, one hundred men being the common establishment for a company. [114]Every captain too has an officer under him called his petty captain, a name which appears in the statutes of the previous reign, and was not yet displaced by the title, as yet reserved to the King's deputies only,[97] of lieutenant. The ensign[98] does not yet make his appearance, for the grouping of companies is strictly territorial, and one standard apparently alone is allowed to each shire. Every company, however, has the distinctive badge of its captain, and the archers of the King's Guard are dressed in uniform of white gaberdines. Lastly, there are in the army fifteen hundred Almains, the landsknechts of whom account was given in a previous section, eight hundred of whom, "all in a plump," marched immediately before the King. Possibly this place of honour was granted to them to kindle the emulation of the English, but more probably because Henry, following the evil example of the French, trusted more to trained mercenaries than to his own subjects. We shall constantly meet with such contingents of aliens among the English during the next forty years, until at last England awakes, like every other nation in Europe, to the truth that her own children, as carefully trained, are worth just double of the foreigners.

The most remarkable of the mounted men in this army were the Northern Horsemen, who, called into being at some uncertain period by the eternal forays on the Scottish border, now appear regularly on the strength of every expedition as perfectly indispensable. They were light cavalry, the first deserving the name [115]ever seen in our army, and probably the very best in Europe. They wore defensive armour of back and breast and iron cap, carried lance and buckler or sometimes a bow, and were mounted on "nags" which were probably nearer thirteen than fourteen hands high. For duties of reconnaissance they were perfect, and they must be reckoned the first regular English horse that were the eyes and ears of the army. We shall see them at a later stage merged in a mounted body much resembling them, namely the demi-lances, which were destined, during the period of transition that is before us, to fill the place already almost vacated by the men-at-arms.

There is no need to dwell on the incidents of a not very eventful campaign. The panic flight of the French at the Battle of the Spurs upheld the old belief that they could not stand before the English; and the siege and capture of Terouenne under the personal direction of Henry helped to confirm it. A fruitless attack on an English convoy, curiously resembling the Battle of the Herrings in its main features, also helped to maintain the ancient reputation of the English archers. Lastly, the siege of Tournay gave Henry an opportunity of showing off some of his new artillery. There were twelve huge pieces, called the twelve apostles, of which he was particularly proud; but as St. John stuck in the mud and was unfortunately captured, it is well not to say too much of them. But the French were by no means impressed with the appearance of their old enemies in the field. "The English," wrote Fleuranges in a patronising way, "are good men and fight well when parked in a strong position, but otherwise I make no great account of them."
1513,
September.
September 9.

But while Henry was plying his apostles against Tournay, some still older enemies of the nation had formed a very different opinion of the English. For in September, Thomas, Earl of Surrey, met the Scots at Flodden Field, and dealt them a blow from which they never wholly recovered. The odds against the[116] English were heavy, for they could bring but twenty-six thousand men against forty thousand or, as some say, eighty thousand Scots, and the position taken up by James the Fourth was so strong that Surrey could not venture to attack it. With ready intelligence he made a detour from south to north of the Scottish host, and James, who had not attempted to molest him during the movement, hurried down, fearful of being cut off from his base, to meet him in the open field. The sequel is an example of the helplessness of pedantry, even of the newest pattern, in the face of genuine military instinct. The Scotch had studied the methods of the landsknechts; they were armed principally with pikes; they were drawn up in five huge battalions, after the Swiss model, and they advanced to the attack in silence "after the Almain manner." Lastly, they had with them some of the finest artillery hitherto seen.[99] Yet all this availed them nothing. The English too were formed, after a method which had lately come into fashion, in two divisions, fore-ward and rear-ward, each with two wings; but Surrey boldly wheeled both into one grand line,[100] holding but one small body of horse in reserve, and appears to have overlapped the cumbrous masses of the enemy. There is no need to give details of the battle; it began between four and five in the evening and was over in an hour. The English leaders seem to have shown not only bravery but skill. The English archers as usual wrought havoc against unarmoured men; the English bills got the better of the Scottish pikes, and the English light cavalry, admirably handled, twice saved the infantry from defeat. Ten thousand Scots were slain, and James himself, with the head and heir of almost every noble house in Scotland around him, lay covered with ghastly wounds among the dead. He had, from some whimsical return to an obsolete practice, dismounted his men-at-arms, who, in obedience to the new fashion which counselled [117]protection against the new-fangled bullets, were clad in the heaviest armour. Arrows fell harmlessly from them, and even bills could not cut them down with less than half a dozen strokes; but they could not fly, and the bill-men did not weary of killing. And so on Flodden Field was shown a forecast of what was to be seen later in Italy, when infantry, finding men-at-arms prostrate on the ground, hammered them to death like lobsters within their shells before they could break through their armour.

Still the lesson of Flodden to the English was mainly that bows and bills were still irresistible; and to a conservative people none could have been more welcome. Henry, who was an enthusiastic archer, had already renewed a statute of his father's prohibiting the use of the cross-bow without a licence, and he now withdrew all licences and extended the prohibition to hand-guns.[101] The long-bow, on the other hand, received all the encouragement that enactments and sentiment could afford it. Henry dressed himself and his body-guard in green, which was the archer's peculiar colour; and the Venetian ambassador Giustiniani writing in 1519 described, with but slight exaggeration, the English military forces as consisting of one hundred and fifty thousand men, whose peculiar though not exclusive weapon was the long-bow. Men-at-arms were extinct, light cavalry insignificant in number. Giustiniani, however, did not add that the archers were now more efficiently equipped than at any previous period, being provided with two stakes instead of one, and further protected by a breastplate.[102] Nor did he notice a new weapon, the Moorish or Morris pike, which had lately come into use among the English, and had brought them a little closer to the famous infantry of the Continent.
1520.

It is, however, almost with a smile that we see Henry with undiminished satisfaction flaunting his [118]archers in the face of Francis at the Field of Cloth of Gold. Francis on his side produced his Swiss, and gave the English an opportunity of studying the first infantry in Europe. Fleuranges was at their head, and as his eye wandered from the scarlet and gold of the body-guard to the white and green of the other English troops, he probably felt justified in his opinion that they could not meet his own men in the open field. Henry, however, was unchangeable,[103] and the only sign of novelty that we see at this famous pageant is a horn-shaped flag borne in the retinue of Cardinal Wolsey, the cornette, which was in due time to give its name to the standard-bearers of the English cavalry.[104]
1522.
1523.
1525.

Peace never endured long in those days, and in 1522 Henry was again at war with Francis, in alliance with Charles the Fifth. Again the English deficiencies became patent. In his expedition to France, which led to little result, Henry was forced to rely principally on Charles for cavalry;[105] and when it was evident that France would require to be fought on the Scottish border also, the Earl of Surrey, who held command in the north, begged for a reinforcement of four thousand landsknechts. The French, he said, would certainly bring pikes with them, and the English were not accustomed to pikes, though they would soon learn from the Almains.[106] In plain words, the English soldiers with their existing equipment were unfit to meet the French in the field. Fortunately the Duke of Albany, who was opposed to Surrey, was a coward, and little came of the alarm in the north. But the danger seems for the moment to have aroused Henry to a sense of his backwardness, for we find in 1523 a scheme for the purchase of ten thousand eighteen-foot [119]pikes and corselets, five thousand halberds, and ten thousand hand-culverins with matches,[107] bullet-moulds and powder-flasks complete. This is the first indication of a design to equip the army according to the best rules of the age, and, if it had been adopted, little change would have been needed for a century and a half. It is difficult to say why it was not, for at this time there are signs of an intention to take the improvement of the army seriously in hand.[108] But Henry changed his policy. Peace was made, and was immediately followed by a proclamation to enforce the statute for the encouragement of the long-bow and the discountenance of cross-bows and hand-guns.[109] We must come down to the prolonged rejection of breech-loading artillery by the country in our own day before we can find a parallel to such perversity.
1539.

Nevertheless, in spite of all Henry's efforts fire-arms seem to have taken some hold on England, and particularly on London. In the general alarm that followed the insurrection known as the Pilgrimage of Grace, the King relied principally on London; and in 1537 he granted a Charter of Incorporation to the Artillery Company of the city, an association formed for the improved training of the citizens in weapons of volley, which term included hand-guns and cross-bows as well as the long-bow. This association survives as the Honourable Artillery Company. Again, at the great review of the London trained-bands two years later we find like symptoms of a change. The old account of this pageant is of singular interest for the sight which it gives us of the most efficient soldiers in England. The force consisted of fifteen thousand picked men, all able-bodied and properly equipped, and all, except the officers, clothed in white even to their shoes. [120]White was at once the old colour of England, the colour of the city, and the colour of the Tudors. The men paraded at Mile End, the famous drill-ground which was later to pass into a proverb, at six o'clock in the morning, and at eight moved off on their march to Westminster, in the three orthodox divisions of fore-ward, mid-ward, and rear-ward. First came the artillery, thirteen field-pieces, with their ammunition and "gun-stones," for shot was not yet always made of metal, in carts behind them. Then came the banners of the city, and then the musketeers, five in rank, with five feet of distance between ranks; after them came the bowmen in open order, every man a bow's length[110] from his neighbour; then followed the pikemen with their morris-pikes, "after the Almain manner," and lastly came the bills. Every one of the five divisions in each ward had its own band, its own colours, and its officers riding at its head; and it is worthy of note that the hand-guns and pikes took precedence of the bows and bills. So they marched on in their spotless white to Westminster, where the King awaited them on a platform. As the musketeers passed him they fired volleys, for a volley was of old the salute to the living as well as to the dead, the great guns were man?uvred and "shot off very terribly," doubtless to an accompaniment of female screams, and the force marched back through St. James' Park to the city. The review was intended as a demonstration against the menaces of foreign powers, and it had its due effect.
1544.

The danger passed away; but within four years Henry was again in the field fighting with Charles the Fifth against the French. There is little that is worth remarking in the campaigns that followed. The English as usual took with them their bows and bills, and the archers still came off with credit. A contingent of landsknechts was with them, who behaved so ill[121] as to draw upon themselves more than ordinary dislike; and indeed the palmy days of the landsknechts were over. One portion of the English army alone provoked the warm admiration of Charles, namely, the Northern Horsemen. Wallop, the English commander, took justifiable pride in them, and detached them to clear the country before the Emperor on his departure. Away started the sturdy border-men on their tough little ponies, while Charles watched with all his eyes; and when he saw them breast an ascent before them and "hurl" up the hill, he cried out with honest delight.[111]

Nevertheless it must be confessed that Henry, though the eight and thirty years of his reign were perhaps the most eventful in the history of the modern art of war, did singularly little for the army. The passion for the bow, which evinced itself in repeated enactments and proclamations to the very close of his reign, and the false system of hiring mercenaries, led to a neglect of the infantry which might easily have proved disastrous. For the cavalry, though here again he was inclined to use mercenaries, he showed more care. He was much exercised by the decay of the English breed of horses, and passed three several Acts for its remedy. The wording of these throws a flood of light on our ancient troop-horse. To improve the breed it was enacted that every owner of a park should keep from two to four brood-mares not less than thirteen hands high, and that no stallions under fourteen hands should be employed for breeding; the hand to be reckoned as four inches and the measurement to be made to the withers. From the operation of this Act the counties of Northumberland, Cumberland, and Westmoreland, the home of the Northern Horsemen, were excluded. By a subsequent Act it was ordained that all chases, forests, and commons should be driven once a year, the unlikely mares and foals slaughtered, and no stallions allowed to run free that were under fifteen hands in height. What effect these measures may have wrought[122] I am unable to say; but the knowledge of the small stature of brood-mares can help us to a better understanding of the difficulties which beset the maintenance of an efficient cavalry.[112]
1513.

But the arm wherein Henry worked most improvement was undoubtedly the artillery. We find him at first purchasing all his guns abroad, for the most part in Flanders, and procuring his gunners also from foreign parts; but it is clear, from the number of Englishmen whose appointment to the post of gunner remains on record, that the English were rapidly learning their business from their instructors, while as early as 1514 we find Lord Darcy pleading for the employment of native gunners.[113] There is evidence too that the artilleryman's art was by no means so rare as it had been, gunners receiving no more than the ordinary soldier's pay of sixpence a day.[114] The casting of ordnance in England was less common, though there are scattered notices of English gun-founders from the beginning of the reign. Finally, in the year 1535 John Owen began to make even the largest guns, and obviated the necessity of depending on foreign makers for artillery. In 1543, moreover, Henry induced two foreigners to settle in England, Peter Bawd and Peter van Collen, who among other improvements devised mortar-pieces[115] of large calibre and shells to fire from them. Shell, indeed, was frequently used in the campaign of 1544, and Henry was early in appreciating its advantages. There was, however, still the difficulty of finding horses to draw the field-guns, which he seems to have attempted to overcome as early [123]as in the third year of his reign by some kind of registration of waggoners and teams. The drivers were to wear the white coat and red cross, and to be mustered and paid every month; and for their protection it was ordered that their paymaster should take no bribes from them beyond one penny a month from each man, a curious commentary on the financial morality of the army. Be that as it may, however, there exists no doubt that Henry the Eighth created the British gunner who, as his proud motto tells, has since worked his guns all over the world.
1542.
1544.

His zeal as an artillerist led Henry also, perhaps almost insensibly, towards the peculiar organisation for defence which was copied at a later period by the colonies, and for a short time was expanded even into an imperial system. The mounting of valuable guns entailed the necessity of maintaining a small body of trained men to keep them in order; and thus grew up the practice of stationing small independent garrisons in all the principal fortresses, which garrisons were immovably attached to their particular posts and constituted what was really a permanent force. Thus almost at a stroke the military resources of England fell into three divisions—the standing garrisons just mentioned, the militia which could be called out in case of invasion, and the levies, nominally feudal but in reality mercenary, which were brought together for foreign service and disbanded as soon as the war was over. The attention devoted by Henry to the defence of the coast identifies his name peculiarly with certain modern strongholds, which stand on the same site and bear the same appellation as he gave them three centuries ago. Nor must it be forgotten that, though he did comparatively little for the army, Henry did very much for the navy, and perceived that the true defence of England was the maintenance of her power on the sea.

Two small points remain to be mentioned before we dismiss the most popular of English kings. A dear lover of music he took an interest in his military bands,[124] and we find him sending all the way to Vienna to procure kettle-drums that could be played on horseback "after the Hungarian (that is to say the Hussars') manner," together with men that could make and play them skilfully. Ten good drums and as many fifers were ordered at the same time, with advantage, as may be hoped, to the English minstrels. Lastly, Henry was the first man of whom we may authentically say that he brought the English red-coats into the field for active service. Red garded with yellow was the uniform worn by his body-guard at the siege of Boulogne; and perhaps it was right that the scarlet should have made its first appearance in the presence of such old and gallant enemies as the French.
1547.
1549.

Under the rule of his boy successor we find little change in the old order of things. There was the usual fight with the Scotch on the border, and yet another crushing defeat, at Pinkie, of the old inveterate enemy. But hired Italian musketeers contributed not a little to the victory; and the state of the forces of the shires was most unsatisfactory. Fraudulent enlistment and desertion, doubly expensive since the payment of coat- and conduct-money had been instituted, were as common as ever, and the dishonesty of officers was never more flagrant. A stringent Act was passed to check these irregularities, with apparently the usual infinitesimal measure of success. Foreign troops were never so much employed in England, though even they complained of unjust dealing. The insurrection in the west was suppressed principally by landsknechts and Italian harquebusiers, not however before they had suffered one repulse from the men of Devon, beyond doubt to the secret joy of all true Englishmen. Nevertheless the reign saw the rise of the Gentlemen Pensioners and, more important still, the appointment of a lord-lieutenant in every county, to be responsible for the forces of the shire. The latter was no doubt a stroke in the right direction, but it did not touch the heart of the matter. The worn-out machinery which[125] had been patched and tinkered for five centuries was not so easily to be repaired; and a new fly-wheel, though it might turn magnificently on its own axis, could not keep the other broken-down wheels in motion.
1553.

The reign of Queen Mary brought the most important change in the military system of the country that had occurred for two centuries. The Statute of Winchester was superseded and a new Act enacted in its place. The reform, however, was in reality quite inadequate to the occasion. It provided for the supply of more modern weapons and for a new distribution, according to a new assessment, of the burdens entailed by the maintenance of a national force; but in substance the new statute was drafted on the lines of the old, and the variations were very superficial. The extinction of men-at-arms hinted at by Guistiniani is sufficiently proved by the mention of two different kinds of cavalry, "demi-lances" or "medium" horse and the light horse with which we are already acquainted; and progress in the equipment of the infantry is shown by the mention of long pikes and corselets and of harquebuses. But alongside of these improved weapons are the familiar bows and bills; and a clause which, considering that Mary had married the heir of Spain is truly marvellous, provides that a bow shall in all cases be accepted as an efficient substitute for an arquebus. These details, however, are comparatively unimportant. The difficulty was one, not of arms, but of men; and Mary knew it. She would have formed a standing army if she had dared, but as she designed it principally for the coercion of her own subjects she ventured neither to ask for the money to establish it nor to brave the indignation that would have followed on its establishment.
1557.
1558.

Her unpopularity at the close of her reign, so strikingly in contrast with the devoted loyalty which she had enjoyed on first mounting the throne, told heavily against the efficiency, always largely dependent[126] on sentiment, of the forces of the shire. Never children crept more unwillingly to school than the English contingent which joined the Spaniards after the battle of St. Quentin. Never half-witted woman looked on with more helpless, impotent distraction at the robbery of her jewels than the once iron-willed Mary, when Guise marched up to Calais. The English garrison made all the resistance that could be expected of brave men, but they were outnumbered, and the commanders asked in vain for reinforcements. The Government awoke to the danger too late; and, yet more sadly significant, the forces of the shires came unwillingly to the musters and came unarmed. Yet Mary's name is bound up with two material benefits conferred on the British soldier. The men who went to St. Quentin received eightpence a day, the sum for which her father's men had mutinied forty years before; and from this time, for two full centuries, eightpence replaces sixpence as the soldier's daily stipend. More thoughtful too than any of the kings that came before her, she left directions in her will for the provision of a house in London, with a clear endowment of four hundred marks a year, "for the relief and help of poor, impotent and aged soldiers" who had suffered loss or wounds in the service of their country. For all her man's voice and masculine will, she had a woman's heart which warmed to the deserving old soldier, and whatever her demerits in the eyes of those who wear the gown, her memory may at least be cherished by those who wear the red coat.