A bibliography of English military books up to 1642 and of ...

the bow and pike together was granted by the King to William Neade by
letters patent.
Copies. B.M.; Guildhall.
Contents.
A year before the publication of this work, Neade had presented
the MS. to Charles I., who commanded that the author should exhibit his
new weapon in St. James's Park, in his presence ; which was accordingly
done. Neade, thereupon, petitioned the king to make the use of his new
invention compulsory by law, and he and his son were shortly after authorized
by Proclamation* to instruct "all those who are fit to exercise arms in the
use of the weapon :
especially the chiefe officers and all others of Our Trayned-
Bands." The author commences with a short history of the occasions on
which the bow had been successfully employed in battle, and attempts to refute
the objections which had been made against it. What was his opinion of
gunpowder, may be gathered from the following passage: "Amongst all which,
Bartholdus Swart, the Franciscan Fryer, with his most deuellish Inuention
of Gunpowder, is the most damnable, and from hell itself inuented." He
gives the range of an arrow at from i8 to 20 score yards, and says that six of
them could be discharged in the time it took to load and fire one musket. The
chief advantage of his combination of bow and pike was that pikemen, by using
their bows, would be enabled to take part in the preliminary actions of a battle,
where before they had been lookers-on only.
When the enemy had approached
to within about 6 score yards, the bow was to be fastened to the pike, and the
ranks closed. If attacked by cavalry, the first five or six ranks were to charge
pikes, whilst those in rear were to continue discharging their arrows. The
bow was fastened to the pike at the place where the latter is shouldered.
The six woodcuts represent the following positions, on the page facing
being the words of command for each, together with the occasion on which
the position would be taken : I. The Pikeman at the order. II. At the
slope and shooting. III. At the port, ready to advance or retire. IV. At
the charge. V. Prepared for cavalry, with sword drawn. VI, In marching
order. Had the inventor lived before fire-arms came into general use, the
invention might have been of some pradical value. Sir Thomas Kellie*
speaks highly of it.
107. Sixteen-twenty-six. Cooke, Edward.
The Chara6ter of Warre, Or The Image of Martiall Discipline
: contayning many usefull direftions for Musters &
*
Entitled "A Proclamation for the use of the Bowe & the Pike together in
Militarie Discipline," London, 1633. Grose, in his "Military Antiquities," 1801,
vol. ii., p. 173, copies it in extenso.
'
"Pallas Armata," 1627, pp. 107, 108.
8s