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

and in the Low Countries, and, while disclaiming any private hatred or
malice, declares that all abuses are to be traced to the rise of the "detestable
new discipline;" and he accuses the followers of Leicester, in particular, of
dishonesty and greed
of gain, especially in the advice they gave the Queen's
favourite during his command in the Low Countries in 1585-6, and in
England in 1588, His account of the state of affairs is corroborated by
Digges in the " Paradoxes," and by others, although the corruption is
traced
by them to a different cause. The whole treatise is a protest against
the changes in the military art, which, since Smythe's youth, had gradually
been gaining ground, and were now being tested in the Low Countries. He
sets his face against any alteration, whether in training or arming. Even
as regards fire-arms, though, in his opinion, all are inferior to the Long Bow,
yet those in use in his time are to be preferred to those of more recent
invention.
calivers, though as
than muskets ;
For example, he considers *that harquebusses, by many miscalled
good fifty years ago as at the time of writing, were better
which, being of greater length and height of bullet, and more
ranforced, were heavier, and, moreover, required to be fired from rests ; a
necessity which precluded their employment in skirmishes.' "All the . . .
imperfedtions [in the loading of harquebus and musquet] " he goes on " are
the causes that upon many great skirmishes that have been verie hot, and
continued many hours, with new supplies on every side, it hath often happened,
that in discharging on both sides many thousand of bullets within
three, four, or five scores, and nearer, there hath not been on both sides slain
and hurt with bullets, thirty men."
As regards the maximum effedlive range
of the musket, the Spaniards, he says, put it at 8 to 10 score,' a statement
which Barwick, however, contradicts. When one considers the imperfections
of the fire-arms of that age, one can understand how it was that old
soldiers like Sir John should be prejudiced in favour of the bow, which had
proved so efFedlive in times past. He was not alone in his prejudice, as we
may learn from Barwick, in the Preface of his reply to this book ; and thirty
years later (1634) Markham was advocating the raising of bands of archers
as auxiliaries to the trained bands.
Sir John Smythe was the son of a sister of Jane Seymour, and consequently
first cousin to Edward VL He had studied the military art
abroad, under Maximilian H. and other princes," and became eventually an
accomplished soldier. In 1576 he was sent by Elizabeth to Philip H.,' in
order to intercede on behalf of the Netherlands ;
but the Queen's favour was
later on withdrawn, and no further employment was given him ; a reverse
*
Throughout this treatise, the word " yard " or " yards " is to be understood after
these calculations.
» « Instruaions and Orders Mylitarit " [No. 60] (1F1[1[4).
'
Egerton MSS. 2790. Instructions on his mission to the King of Spain.
41 G