History Compass 9/1 (2011): 1633, 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2010.00748.

Reappraising the Elizabethan and Early Stuart Soldier:

Recent Historiography on Early Modern English Military
Culture
David R. Lawrence*
Department of History, Glendon College, York University

Abstract

For much of the 20th century, historians could muster little praise for the late Tudor and early
Stuart soldiery, often portraying them as amateurs who were part of a decaying and moribund
military tradition isolated from the transformations shaping warfare on the European continent. In
the 1980s and 1990s, these theories were tested and found wanting by those who argued that the
English were fully engaged in the so-called early modern military revolution. Instead of decline
and decay, England is now considered to have been engaged in the military revolution from early
in the 16th century, with scholars arguing that the English art of war was in step with continental
practice. This article weighs the contributions of a new generation of historians to the ongoing
reappraisal of late Tudor and early Stuart soldiering over the last decade. Along with examining
England and the military revolution, new work has focused much attention on the motivations
and mentalities of English officers serving in France, the Low Countries and Ireland, with confessional zeal, honour and economic hardship seen as the primary factors motivating English volunteers to serve abroad. At the same time, scholars are also taking a fresh look at how military
administration and improvements to training affected the lives of common soldiers.

The late Tudor and early Stuart soldier has undergone a significant historical reappraisal
over the course of the last three decades. Prior to the 1980s, scholars portrayed the early
modern English soldiery as amateurish in the best of times and downright incompetent in
the worst. The words decayed, dormant, inexperienced, inefficient, uneducated
and isolated were commonly used to describe him and the evidence supporting this
gloomy portrait seemed, on the surface, to justify such criticisms.1 When a list of late
Tudor and early Stuart military expeditions is drawn up, the failures clearly outweigh the
successes evidence that few historians could overlook.2 Consequently, when Michael
Roberts advanced his military revolution thesis in 1956, outlining the emergence of innovations in weaponry, tactics and the growth of armies that transformed European warfare
from 15601660, he considered it a truly continental revolution, with few manifestations
on English soil. Geoffrey Parkers The Military Revolution: Military innovation and the rise of
the West, 15001800 (1988), a technologically deterministic elaboration of Roberts revolution proved kinder to the British Isles, but Parker still concluded that prior to 1642, the
English lagged far behind continental practice at home.3
The military revolution debates reinvigorated the study of early modern English military history with scholars weighing the influence of the revolution on the theory and
practice of war in the British Isles. Much of this groundbreaking work was carried out in
the late 1980s and 1990s with scholars such as Sir John Hale, David Eltis, Simon Adams,
John Nolan, Gervase Phillips, Mark Fissel and Bruce Lenman uncovering a much more
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vibrant military world in England than the one previously depicted.4 This first generation
of revisionist, as well as the generation that followed, have argued against the view of an
isolated and increasingly demilitarized England during this period. There is now a growing consensus that late Tudor and early Stuart society was in fact highly militarized, with
elites actively participating in the countrys military culture and an English citizenry quite
knowledgeable of military affairs.5
This essay will examine new research on late Tudor and early Stuart soldiering
published between 2002 and 2010 but will omit new military histories of the Wars of the
Three Kingdoms.6 I start the essay with a discussion of areas where consensus is appearing, especially in relation to English participation in the military revolution before
moving on to areas were historiographical debates are heating up, looking particularly at
what motivated gentlemen volunteers to serve abroad and exploring the influence of
confessional zeal, honour and economic hardship in their decision to take up arms. I conclude with new research into the effectiveness of the common soldier, both the men
pressed into service and the members of the trained bands the militia that protected the
country from invasion.
Grounds for Consensus: England and the Military Revolution
It is safe to say that Geoffrey Parkers depiction of the English as laggards has been put
to rest. Historians now see the English soldiery as actively engaged in the transformation
of European warfare from the second decade of the 16th century and, though debates
continue over the use of the term revolution to describe those developments, evidence
indicates English soldiers were keenly aware of the new tactics and technologies shaping
continental warfare. Readers hoping to better understand this process of engagement
across the breadth of the 16th century might begin by examining the works of James
Raymond, Luke MacMahon and David Grummitt. While their research explores the late
15th and early 16th centuries, students of the late Tudor and early Stuart periods should
not overlook these authors, as they challenge many of the long held beliefs about the
qualities and capabilities of the English soldier and the development of Englands military
machinery during the Tudor period. In his Henry VIIIs Military Revolution: The Armies of
Sixteenth-century Britain and Europe (2007) James Raymond (re)sets the date for English
participation in the military revolution, making a persuasive argument that English military theory and practice were broadly in-line with that of its continental neighbours from
the outset of the reign of Henry VIII.7 Raymond suggests that Henry and his generals
well-appreciated the value of gunpowder, engaging in the effective use of artillery and
the scientific application of the latest siege techniques.8 He finds evidence for the spread
of new military ideas and methods in manuscript military treatises circulated at court,
contesting David Eltis claim that it was printed military books published in the 1570s
and 1580s that marked the arrival of the military revolution in England. It is on this
point, however, that aspects of Raymonds thesis might also be questioned, as even he
points out that the extent to which military manuscripts were read and employed
remains unclear and that while products of military veterans, manuscripts might reflect
desirable best practice rather than battlefield actualities.9 Nevertheless, Raymond raises
an important point that I will return to throughout this essay, the existence of an institutional memory in the English army that was fostered by long-serving nobility, garrison
troops and a reliance on mercenary soldiers.
Similarly, in his essay Chivalry, Military Professionalism and the Early Tudor Army in
Renaissance Europe: A Reassessment (2003), Luke MacMahon rebuts Gilbert Millars
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claims that Henry VIIIs armies were unskilled and inexperienced.10 MacMahon finds no
lack of experience among the kings noble officers, nor does he see Henrys quest for
glory and honour undermining either his military judgment or his strategic interests.
Drawing on the State Papers and manuscript sources, as well as works by Steve Gunn
and David Grummit, MacMahon recognizes the emergence of a nascent professionalism
among two groups in Henrys ranks, European mercenaries and the kings bodyguard
garrisoning the coast and the Scots border.11 In weighing the traditions of chivalry against
the emergence of professionalism, MacMahon argues that the warrior nobility of early
Tudor England could be chivalrous and professional.12 Yet both MacMahon and
Raymond point out that throughout his reign, Henry was forced to rely on foreign mercenaries for his heavy cavalry, pikemen and arquebusiers, a decision that indicated the
kings grasp of the changing nature of warfare, but one that suggests English troops may
have been ill prepared for war. Even though Henry was committed to modernization, it
was a very slow process, with the English unable to fill these manpower gaps until much
later in the century.13
David Grummitts excellent monograph, The Calais Garrison: War and Military Service in
England, 14361558, offers yet another assenting voice that the English were well connected with continental military culture.14 Mining some rich veins of Chancery and
Exchequer records related to Calaiss administration, Grummitt describes the town as the
school of war for successive generations of soldiers and Englands largest permanent
establishment of military resources.15 Its loss in 1558 proved a major blow to national
pride and a significant setback to Englands military establishment.16 Like Raymond and
MacMahon, Grummitt offers up more evidence of the continuity of military practice up
to 1558, suggesting that the late Tudors owed a far greater military debt to their predecessors than was first thought.
I should also mention one other important work, Steve Gunn, David Grummitt and
Hans Cools first-rate comparative study, War, State and Society in England and the
Netherlands, 14771559 (2007), a book that scholars and students of early modern
English military history should include on their must-read list.17 In their monograph,
the authors shed much new light on the process of negotiation between rulers, subjects, bureaucrats, and armed forces and how far such negotiations modified not only
the broad balances of the constitution but also the social power of different groups at
different levels.18 The book, which reaches a Tillyian conclusion that war did shape
the state (the Netherlandish state more so than the English state), is divided into four
parts war and the state, towns at war, nobles at war and subjects at war.19 One of
the important themes of the book is continuity, with links forged between the patriotic and confessional duty of the early Tudor soldier and his late Tudor and early
Stuart counterparts.20 Gunn, Grummitt and Cools point to the creation of important
local loyalties (between noble captains and county militias) that were crucial to preparing the country for war relationships that predate those discussed by Neil Younger
and intimated at by Martyn Bennett and Hendrik Langeluddecke that I address later,
but ones that may well have established an institutional memory in towns and in the
countryside that aided, rather than hindered, the development of late Tudor and early
Stuart military organization under the lieutenancy.21 The authors emphasis on the
impact of war on towns is an important contribution to our knowledge of an overlooked aspect of English urban history. While town defence in mediaeval England has
been well researched, late mediaeval and early modern historians have not always given
the topic the emphasis it rightly deserves. Assembly, mayoral and parish records can
reveal much about military organization and soldiering and it is hoped that the work
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Reappraising the Elizabethan and Early Stuart Soldier 19

of Gunn et al. will provide a useful model for similar studies of war and society in late
Tudor and early Stuart England.
If the early Tudor military is now being viewed in a more positive light, much the same
can be said for the capacities of the late Tudor war machine (and to a lesser extent, its early
Stuart counterpart). An important contribution to our understanding of warfare in second
half of the 16th century comes via Paul Hammers Elizabeths Wars (2003), a politicalmilitary history of Englands lengthy war with Spain. Hammer asserts that in the war the
English not only avoided defeat, but perform[ed] well enough for individuals like [Sir
Walter] Ralegh to dream of reducing Spains imperial power to figs and oranges .22 He
builds on his extensive knowledge of later Tudor affairs to produce an excellent survey of
the social, political and diplomatic ramifications of late-16th century conflict on the English
state.23 The study opens with Henry VIIIs final and nearly catastrophic war with France in
15441545, a war Hammer believes showed the limitations of Englands military power
and also displayed the sheer weight of Henrys army.24 Hammers exploration of the
Henrician military offered proof of the Elizabethan military revival to come; a revival
marked by significant changes in military practice largely driven by the need to raise
the performance of English forces to match international best practice .25 However,
arguments by Raymond, MacMahon and Grummitt now suggest that Hammers Henrician
soldier may well be made of straw, with a fairly solid military foundation in place and the
modernization of Englands soldiery already well under way before any late Tudor revival.
The loss of Calais undermined that foundation for at least a generation, with Hammer noting that only then were Elizabeths armies able to develop a new cadre of veteran soldiers
which allowed them to face the Spanish army on something approaching equal terms.26
Those veterans served in France and the Low Countries and continued the importation of
new military ideas into England in latter half of the 16th and early 17th centuries.
The permanence of English arms throughout this period represents another area where
historians have reached some accord. Lacking a legislated standing army, companies of
experienced veterans did make up an English army that served with some distinction.
As Mark Fissel states in English Warfare 15111642, English companies served abroad
continuously in Ireland, France and the Low Countries27 from the 1580s and it is the
companies serving in France and the Netherlands that David Trim addresses in his
2002 dissertation, Fighting Jacobs Wars: The Employment of English and Welsh Mercenaries in the European Wars of Religion: France and the Netherlands 15621610.28
The dissertation was a significant contribution to the field, revising our understanding of
the nature of military culture in the period by revealing patterns of service and patronage
networks that sustained a conscious surrogate for a royal army.29 His work stands out
for its extensive use of archival sources from Britain and the continent and where permanence is concerned, Trim found that detachments of English volunteers fighting in
France and the Low Countries averaged 3000 or more serving annually from 1562
1610.30 In the introduction to his edited collections of essays, The Chivalric Ethos and the
Development of Military Professionalism (2003), Trim addressed the broader question of
permanence and professionalism, concluding that while there were many long-serving
veterans active in both countries, including many members of the aristocracy, they were
not professionals per se as the military profession had yet to come into existence.31
Instead, the chivalric tradition operated alongside a burgeoning and evolving professionalism and the constant call for volunteers allowed aristocrats, gentry and yeomen to gain
military experience and foster institutional memory within the ranks. By the end of the
16th century, the Low Countries replaced Calais as the training ground for generations of
English soldiers, becoming the countrys new school of war.
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Finally, common ground is emerging over the military role of the English aristocracy;
with historians suggesting the nobility played an active part in military affairs in the late
Tudor and early Stuart periods. Lawrence Stones claim that the aristocracy deserted
military service for court service has failed to stand up under a barrage of scrutiny.32 As I
will discuss in more detail below, the work of Trim and Roger Manning calls into
question the nobilitys demilitarization and suggests that aristocratic patronage networks
and clientage links provided the foundations of the English military hierarchy up to and
beyond the Civil War years. Mannings research revealed an increase in the number of
nobles serving abroad in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, while Trims goes against
most historiographical trends arguing that English mercenaries were drawn not from the
dregs of society but from the cream of society.33 Raymond, Grummitt and MacMahon
present further evidence of aristocratic military participation in the first half of the 16th
century, pointing out that during Henry VIIIs campaigns, the king was attended by
numerous noble and gentry veterans, among them the long-serving Thomas Howard, 3rd
Duke of Norfolk, George Talbot, 4th Earl of Shrewsbury, Charles Brandon, duke of
Suffolk, Sir John Wallop and Sir Richard Wingfield to name but a few. Both Henry VIII
and Elizabeth relied upon noble retinues to fill the ranks and, in Henrys case, repeated
use of the nobility and their attendants made for greater efficiency and experience with
each passing campaign.34 At the same time, nobles and their retinues promoted permanence and prolonged institutional memory within the English army.
Grounds for Debate: Motivations and Mentalites of the English Soldier
In 2001, Mark Fissel wrote that English warfare, as a nations conduct of the art of war,
can be understood by analysing the actions of groups of men and over the last decade
historians have taken up this task, weighing the actions of English soldiers on campaign,
as administrators and governors, and as theorists and social commentators.35 Scholars are
also blending newer historical approaches and methods inquiry with traditional drum and
trumpet operational histories. The works under discussion have been influenced by a
diversity of fields including, but not restricted to social, cultural, intellectual, economic,
administrative, urban, colonial, political and religious history. But with new approaches
and new conclusions come new debates. Front and centre is the question of motivations,
with scholars asking what led men to risk life and limb to leave the comfort of their
homes and volunteer for military service in Europe, Ireland and the New World. As I
have indicated, confessional zeal, honour and economic hardship have garnered the most
attention. Much of the new work on the importance of religion as a chief source of
motivation has come from David Trim. In his dissertation as well as in a series of articles
and an impressive number of Dictionary of National Biography entries, Trim has successfully
wed the two very disparate fields of military history and church history.36 Central to
Trims arguments is the assertion that a majority of English soldiers who fought in the
wars of religion saw themselves as part of a Calvinist international, engaged in a holy
war against the Hapsburgs and the Papacy. In his article Calvinist Internationalism
and the English Officer Corps, 15621642 (2006), Trim suggests the shared fear of
Catholicism created a conscious transnational movement, producing the steady stream of
English, Welsh and Scots recruits for the protestant armies in France and the Low
Countries between 1562 and 1642.37 These veterans then facilitated improvements to
administration, recruitment and combat effectiveness.38 Trim also sees a continuity
between the Elizabethan and early Stuart periods, challenging previously held beliefs that
the Treaty of London, signed by England and Spain in 1604, somehow disconnected the
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English from continental warfare and ushered in a lengthy period of peace, broken only
by the renewal of war between the two countries in 1624. In his essay Calvinist Internationalism in Timothy Wicks edited collection, Prince Henry Revived (2007), Trim claims
that while the Spanish were prohibited from recruiting in England after 1604, authorities
overlooked the activities of Dutch recruiters, albeit as long as Dutch captains and their
proxies kept a low profile. Of course, recruiting was further aided by English and Scots
officers who remained in Dutch service (but now under Dutch pay). It was these same
troops, Trim notes, who played an important role in saving the republic in 1607 and
1608, turning back Spinolas army before it could overwhelm the Dutch.39
For Trim, religion mattered most, because religion pervaded English society, and
because so many soldiers cited matters of faith as the reason why they took up the sword.
However, because motivating factors were not mutually exclusive, Trim also sees honour
and personal glory as deserving a place in the narrative as these were the tangible benefits
of military service for the nobility (who were not expected to receive monetary reward
for their service). As war was a vocation, the aristocracy served for honour and to further
a just cause (though with an expectation that their actions would be seen and rewarded),
writes Trim.40 If Trims work suffers from a weakness, it may be that in focusing primarily on English and Welsh mercenaries serving in the France and the Low Countries, it
overlooks men who went to Ireland.41 One wonders if religion becomes any less important if the rewards for service were different. Service in foreign armies offered fewer
opportunities for grants of land or governorships and may well have attracted men driven
by ideology, whereas in Ireland, the rewards included estates, governorships and seneschals that might have drawn those not necessarily bound by ideology.
Where Trim sees religion as the primary motivator, Roger Manning sees honour and
personal glory as central to the decision to serve abroad. Manning has made a significant
contribution to the field with his two books, Swordsmen: The Martial Ethos in the Three
Kingdoms (2003) and The Apprenticeship of Arms: The Origins of the British Army 1585
1702 (2006).42 The former looks at the remilitarization of the English aristocracy during
our period and the latter measures the impact of foreign service on the rise of the military
profession in Britain. Both books challenge Stones thesis of a declining nobility with its
concomitant loss of martial spirit. While Manning accepts a brief decline of that spirit
from 1560 to 1580 (he makes no mention of the loss of Calais in influencing the
decline), he states that any demilitarization after 1580 is a myth supported by very little
historical evidence.43 His calculations of the number of military peers reveals a very
different trend than the one described by Stone, with an overall increase, rather than a
decrease in the number of English nobles serving in the wars.44 The experience gleaned
from that service, he points out in The Apprenticeship of Arms, provided the means by
which the innovations of the military revolution were transmitted to the British Isles
and to further improvements in military leadership among Englands elite.45 Manning
pays lip service to religious motivations, suggesting that Low Countries volunteers were
conscious [they were] participating in a Protestant crusade, but that their actions spoke
louder than their words, with the Netherlands actually the chief theatre for demonstrating
virtue and honour.46 Manning has been praised for his excellent synthesis of works on
English soldiering but he has also had his critics. In downplaying religion, he overlooks a
very important motivator and an influential force in shaping the patronage networks of
noble and non-nobles alike.47 Secondly, and I think more importantly, his reliance on
printed rather than archival sources in both monographs overlooks important manuscript
material that could have revealed more about the transformation of military organization
in the 17th century and aristocratic responses to those changes. By emphasizing the arrival
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of the military revolution to England in the mid-17th century, Manning also overlooks
the impact of early and late Tudor developments on the aristocratic military ethos. Where
Manning sees a reticent aristocracy, reacting against the principles and practices of
modern warfare, others have found a nobility adaptable to change.48
In his monograph Military Honour and the Conduct of War (2006), Paul Robinson
addresses the relationship between honour and war from the ancients to the Iraq conflict.49 His study includes a chapter on the meaning of military honour in Elizabethan
England and, like Manning, Robinson recognizes honour as the product of various influences, including a romanticized form of chivalry which was largely Burgundian in origin,
Italian humanism and Protestantism a mix, he concludes, that often pulled [Elizabethans]
in very strange directions.50 Relying mainly on printed instructional manuals, Robinson
finds it difficult to downplay the importance of honour in English society as it pervaded
so many aspects of court and military culture. However, he reminds readers that even
contemporaries, notably Fulke Greville and William Shakespeare, doubted the honourable
intentions of courtiers and military men alike. Whereas Manning sees honour as more or
less static, with swordsmen asserting they were in possession of a distinctive culture and
value system with a continued reliance on edged weapons (hence the name swordsmen)
and a love of face-to-face combat,51 Robinson sees prowess as something in decline,
increasingly at odds with the educational revolution and the growing rationalization of
war. The rationalization was most clearly evidenced by the 200+ military manuals printed
in England in the 16th and early 17th centuries. Military authors, many of them veterans,
knew not only the value of honour, but also recognized that warfare was constantly
changing, with corporatism winning out over individualism as the increasing use of
gunpowder weapons made face-to-face combat less of an appealing option.
Keith Thomas takes a view of the value of honour similar to that of Robinson in his
The Ends of Life (2009), a study of fulfilment in early modern England.52 In a chapter
devoted to martial prowess, Thomas describes the 16th-century English elite as great
lovers of war, with Tudor military men finding combat a uniquely satisfying experience,
with the supreme end of life [being] the performance of military deeds.53 Like Robinson,
Thomas also sees a tempering of heroism by the end of the 16th century, when
disciplined obedience was what mattered most: sheer animal vigour became less important.54 Military display, whether it be the retaining of personal armouries or participation
in jousts (at least until their demise in 1625), remained the means by which the English
aristocracy and members of the gentry could showcase their status and masculinity. War
energized the society, while peace undermined it, generating sloth and effeminacy. The
influence of humanist learning may have turned Englishmen such as the churchman John
Colet into pacifists, but many military peers put their humanist education to good use
studying the art of war. Thomas argues that in the 16th century, Mars and Minerva grew
increasingly compatible, with learning regarded as essential for a commander.55
David Lawrences The Complete Soldier: Military Books and Military Culture in Early
Stuart England, 16031645 (2008) assesses the impact of printed books and drill manuals
on military training in pre-Civil War England. His research examined nearly 100 works
on the theory and practice of infantry, cavalry and siege warfare, and found that gentlemen soldiers readily adapted to changes in warfare, aided in part by the wide variety of
continental and English military books available to them. This was particularly the case
with the introduction of infantry drill to England in the early 17th century, when Low
Countries veterans brought news of the Maurician infantry reforms back with them from
the continent. While Manning believes that soldiers like Sir Francis Vere and Sir Edward
Cecil could fall prey to overly ambitious honourable intentions in the field, Lawrence
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found these soldiers were also thinking seriously about reforms to improve the training
and readiness of English soldiers through the use of printed manuals.56 Lawrence asserts
that the new military environment emerging on the continent and in England still
required individual martial prowess, but these skills no longer took precedence over the
corporate skills dominating the training ground and the battlefield. But in drawing
primarily on printed primary sources, Lawrences conclusions face some of the same criticisms as Mannings, with extant archival evidence of the actual use military manuals and
books in the field frustratingly elusive.
Recent research also has focused attention on soldiers serving in the Anglo-Irish wars
and the unique set of circumstances they faced during that conflict.57 English goals of colonization and control as well as Irish responses to English policies created a different kind
of war in Ireland. The Irish use of guerrilla warfare, rather than large, set-piece battles
and sieges, shaped the tenor of the conflict and resulted in a brutal struggle with atrocities
carried out by both sides. In Martial Power and Elizabethan Political Culture: Military Men in
England and Ireland, 15581594 (2009), Rory Rapple found a different set of motivations
at work in Ireland in the 1580s than those Trim discovered for France and the Low
Countries.58 For both, honourable intentions remained important, but for the captains
Rapple investigated it was political rewards that mattered most.59 Because Ireland was a
colonial project, political offices (with their wealth, power and patronage) were highly
sought after prizes. In researching the Irish State Papers and the literature of complaint,
which reflected the martialists frustrations with Elizabeths failure to provide adequate
patronage, Rapple uncovered baser motivations, but ones no less important than those
described by Trim and Manning.60 Excluded from political culture in England, Ireland
offered captains like Sir William Pelham, Sir Nicholas Malby and Sir Richard Bingham
an outlet for the social, political and economic dissatisfactions, and the chance to establish a functioning political culture that furthered Elizabethan policies.61 Individual captains
could be energetic and effective, both as administrators and as soldiers, often adept at juggling the interests and intrigues of the various competing factions in Ireland, including
the Anglo-Irish, the Gaelic-Irish and even their fellow captains.62 The captains that Rapple describes are hard men; they seem to care little for religion and more about money
or their newly procured estates hardly the ardent Calvinists that were traipsing off to
the Low Countries! They could be corrupt, brutal and wholly self-interested. Men like
Bingham and Humphrey Gilbert used violence to [exact] retribution, revenge and vengeance, behaviour that eventually helped to push the Irish into rebellion.63 But Rapples
portrait of English captains might be criticized for its small sample size of captains and by
the fact that the study concludes before the outbreak of the Nine Years War an event
that transformed the country from a military backwater into a hub of martial activity and
may very likely have changed the attitudes of the English soldiers serving there.
As John McGurk observes in Sir Henry Docwra 15641631: Derrys Second Founder
(2006), the life of an unsung hero of English rule in late Elizabethan and early Stuart Ireland, not all the captains were as infamous as Bingham or Gilbert.64 McGurks book is
both a political biography, assessing Docwras governorship of Derry and his service as a
treasurer of war and a keeper of the great seal in the 1620s, and a study of English military affairs in Ireland. Building on his earlier work on the Nine Years War, McGurk uses
the Irish and Carew State Papers, as well as Docwras letters to reveal a practical, pragmatic soldier with a highly developed gift for survival and revival.65 Docwra was both
a competent, far-seeing brave and well experienced commander who successfully
planted the garrison at Derry and an astute politician, who knew when and when not to
use martial law to silence Irish opposition to English rule.66 Unlike Bingham, Dowcra
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was neither sadistic or vindictive nor was he influenced by his familys adherence to the
reformed religion. But beyond the fact that Docwra was a good and honest soldier and
servant of the state, readers of McGurks biography may be left to ask what his career can
tell us about his place in English military culture during a dynamic and transformative
period. He was not motivated by religion nor did he apparently read military books. Yet
at the same time, Docwra seems to have grasped the essence of the military revolution;
he understood the importance of fortifications and gunpowder weaponry, he utilized
amphibious warfare and combined operations, and as McGurk notes, he does not appear
to have allowed chivalric ideals to interfere with the carrying out of his duties. Was
Docwra merely an anomaly, or can we assume that other gentlemen soldiers were inculcating similar abilities and sensibilities?
All of these monographs and articles point to the existence of a growing cadre of
experienced English officers motivated by a variety of factors and available to serve the
Elizabethan and early Stuart governments. Martyn Bennetts essay, The Officer Corps
and Army Command in the British Isles, 16201660, traces an emerging professionalism
in the ranks of the English officer corps up to and during the English Civil Wars.67 One
of three essays from David Trims The Chivalric Ethos and the Development of Military
Professionalism (2003) reviewed here, Bennett finds, as Manning did, that status and social
structure rather than experience influenced the selection of officers for early Stuart
expeditions.68 Bennett found this to be the case for officers chosen to command the
trained bands and those picked to lead the Mansfeldt (16241625), Cadiz (1625) and Re
expeditions (1627). Bennett makes only passing mention of the English who served in
the Thirty Years War, noting that the 1630s were marked by very little military activity
until the end of the decade before going on to discuss the important role that the same
war played in providing experience to the Scots, who were welcomed into the Covenanter army in 1639. The English, on the other hand, overlooked their veterans in favour of
men with social status but little training or battlefield knowledge. Over the course of the
early Stuart period, Bennett sees professionalism as developing largely from the experience of warfare and he concludes that the professionalism of veterans never penetrated
the trained bands in quite the way that Charles I had planned for the Exact or Perfect
Militia. Even with some veterans travelling the counties as muster-masters, their contribution was never enough to provide benefits for the officer corps of 1639.69 But one
area that Bennett overlooks, particularly in the 1620s and 1630s, is the military activity in
London, where seasoned veterans regularly interacted with amateurs at the artillery companies. As members gained in experience, they moved on to train militia companies in
Middlesex, Essex and other counties. As discussed in the following section, Hendrik
Langeluddecke argues we should be cautious about dismissing off-hand the efforts to
introduce the Perfect Militia in the 1630s and should take note of improvements to
training (aided by professionals) in the halcyon days of the Personal Rule.70
Grounds for Debate: The Performance of the Common Soldier
With recent historiography doing much to resurrect the reputations of late 16th- and
early 17th-century English officers, it might be expected that the standing of the common
soldier would naturally rise with the tide. To some extent, this has been the case, as there
is evidence to support the fact that good officers were producing their fair share of good
soldiers. While there have been few words of praise for the large-scale late Tudor and
early Stuart amphibious expeditions, small-scale riverine and lacustrine campaigning
did meet with greater success. One of the criticisms of Mark Fissels English Warfare
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Reappraising the Elizabethan and Early Stuart Soldier 25

15111642 was that its overwhelming concentration [was] on land warfare, so that
developments in naval administration and technology are given only cursory attention.71
In his essay English Amphibious Warfare, 15871656: Galleons, Galleys, Longboats and
Cots in Amphibious Warfare 10001700: Commerce, State Formation and European Expansion
(2006), Fissel seeks to fill this lacuna.72 He contends that small-scale amphibious operations, especially those in Ireland, were significant and consistently successful but that
Drakes surprise attack on Cadiz in 1587 and the victory over the Spanish Armada
instilled inordinate confidence in Elizabethan and early Stuart councillors who believed
that such naval feats could be easily reproduced.73 Fissel describes how few if any contemporary theorists broached the topic of amphibious warfare in military treatises and that
where small-scale operations were concerned, experience proved the best teacher. This
was especially the case in Ulster, where operations using combined arms carried out by
Henry Docwra, Connaught governor Sir Oliver Lambert, Captain John Dowdall and
Lord Mountjoy, were crucial in subduing Gaelic resistence.74 While Ireland and France
are addressed, Fissel neglects the role of early Stuart volunteers in riverine operations in
the Low Countries, where he also might have found some more small tactical successes,
albeit in tandem with Dutch forces. His article concludes that the English were able to
obtain tactical advantages through small-scale amphibious warfare but that the immaturity
of the English state and the practical complexities of combined operations ultimately
undermined its larger operations.75
The organizational problems associated with large-scale English expeditions have often
been attributed to the failings of pressed soldiers. Stephen J. Stearns article, Military Disorder and Martial Law in Early Stuart England (2007), points out that the condition and
conduct of pressed troops (the majority of men raised for military service were drafted),
so often described by contemporaries and modern historians as a lawless rabble, may be
an over-exaggeration.76 Stearns looked closely at the State Papers and found evidence
from the 1620s indicating that contingents raised for continental service were often well
governed and officered as they made their way to ports along the English coast. Using a
case study of Saltonstalls mutiny in Harwich in AprilMay 1627, Stearns puts blame for
the riots firmly at the feet of the ineffectual Caroline administration and indifferent or
financially overextended officers and local authorities, rather than the pressed men being
readied for the Re expedition. Stearns does not deny the fact that many of those pressed
into service in 1627 and 1628 sought to escape their predicament (often as fast as they
possibly could), but when these men were treated well by experienced officers and well
fed and furnished by sympathetic local authorities, they were much less likely to riot or
cause trouble on campaign.77 Just as E. P. Thompson described a moral economy
among the lower orders of society in the 18th century, Stearns paints a picture of a
military moral economy, with conscripts using riot only when conditions became
intolerable.78
If the common conscript could be brought to heel under good commanders, surely the
militia also would have benefited from the leadership and training of experienced veterans
of the Irish and continental wars. Neil Younger and Hendrik Langeluddecke address various aspects of this question, the former looking at the readiness of the militia during the
Armada crisis of 1588 in his 2006 dissertation and in two subsequent articles, and the
latter examining the trained bands during the Personal Rule of Charles I. Neil Youngers
dissertation, War and the Counties: The Elizabethan Lord Lieutenancy, 15851603, will
be of interest to anyone wishing to better understand the organization and administration
of county defences in the late Elizabethan period. As far as soldiering is concerned, his
chapter Preparations against Invasion, 15851588 details the training and readiness of
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26 Reappraising the Elizabethan and Early Stuart Soldier

the militia, arguing that it was not until the 1580s that the trained bands, the centrepiece
of Englands defence, were in a position to adequately protect the country.79 Making
extensive use of lieutenancy books from a number of different counties, as well as Exchequer and State Papers, Younger concludes that while the trained bands were not the finest soldiers they were not the dregs of society but substantial men, farmers and
landowners with an interest in protecting their property. Placed under the direction of a
more effective lieutenancy, significant headway was made in mobilizing resources for
post-military revolution warfare.80 In If the Armada had Landed: A Reappraisal of Englands Defences in 1588 (2008), Younger disputes Geoffrey Parkers claim that the militia
was ill-prepared to meet the 1588 invasion and would surely have been defeated by the
Spanish had Parmas army come ashore.81 Using Privy Council orders, State Papers and
lieutenancy books, Younger concludes that there was no army of English trained bands
assembled in the south to shadow the Armada as it made its way up the Channel. Instead,
the Privy Council used careful and flexible planning to call upon bands from various
southern counties to assemble when required and, if need be, make their way to London
if and when the capital was threatened. Where other historians have seen inefficiency in
the English preparations, Younger has found an efficient management of available
resources.82 Where training and readiness are concerned, Younger admits that most of
the trained bands were inexperienced, but he stresses that there was a sizeable pool of
officers with military experience available to lead these men against the Spanish. However, on the matter of effectiveness, Younger sounds a more cautious note, pointing out
that where training of the bands is concerned, sources related to the specifics of training
remain elusive.83 While the lieutenancy was able to put a great many men into the field,
one is left to ponder the degree to which they were well disciplined and well trained.
Consequently, the debates over the effectiveness of the trained bands in this period will
remain contentious.84
Questions about the effectiveness of Charles Is Exact or Perfect Militia are examined in Hendrik Langeluddeckes article, The Chiefest Strength and Glory of This
Kingdom: Arming and Training the Perfect Militia in the 1630s (2003).85 According
to Langeluddecke, it may be possible to uncover patterns and possibly evidence of the
effectiveness of militia training during the Personal Rule period by looking closely at parish account books as these listed payments for gunpowder, match and muster-masters.
Sampling account books from 24 counties, Langeluddecke found that while historians
have come to diverging conclusions over the success of Charles militia reform programme, evidence shows constables were busy with all manner of military affairs related
to militia training during the 1630s, including the purchase, storage and repair of arms
and the procurement of powder, match and bullets. Langeluddecke also found evidence
of parish constables and churchwardens paying muster-masters, updating muster rolls and
even supporting the activities of the saltpetermen throughout the period. All this activity
suggests that the trained bands were far from idle during the Personal Rule, and though
hardly perfect, the militia functioned reasonably well, another indication of the vibrancy
of English military culture in times of war and in times of peace.86 Langeluddeckes conclusions, when placed alongside those of Younger and Bennett, suggest that the lieutenancy was functioning effectively by the 1630s, downloading costs and burdens of county
military organization on local government. The works of Bennett and Langeluddecke
raise the question as to whether this might be the right time for a new study of the late
Tudor and early Stuart militia, one that makes use of county and town record offices
(something Lindsay Boynton did not do in his seminal work, The Elizabethan Militia
15581638) to test the degree to which elements of professionalism, such as permanence,
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Reappraising the Elizabethan and Early Stuart Soldier 27

expertise, education and efficiency may have permeated the trained bands before the war,
and what effect this may have had on the emergence of professionalism in the ranks of
the Royalist and Parliamentary armies.
Conclusions
Once described as ignorant, the English soldier is now included among the educated,
engaged in study, drawn to new ideas and quite capable of adapting to change. No longer
noted simply for his inefficiency, he has come to be counted among the effective,
the rational and the organized. Previously isolated, the English soldier is now seen as
experienced and involved, an active participant in European military culture and in the
early modern military revolution. The late Elizabethan and early Stuart periods hardly
represent the military backwater that historians once described. Yet, the reappraisal of
the early modern English soldier is still ongoing and far from complete. Even after three
decades of very fruitful work, much is still to be done, and it is hoped that scholars and
students of English warfare will continue to cultivate amidst the rich soil discussed in this
essay.
Short Biography
David R. Lawrence received his PhD from the Department of History, University of
Toronto in 2006 and is currently a Social Science and Humanities Research Council of
Canada (SSHRC) Postdoctoral Fellow and lecturer in the Department of History, Glendon College, York University. He recently published The Complete Soldier: Military Books
and Military Culture in Early Stuart England, 16031645 (2009) and has a forthcoming
essay on the evolution of the Jacobean drill manual in Negotiating Jacobean Print Culture
(Ashgate, 2011) as well as the study of urban militarism and civic military performance in
early 17th-century Great Yarmouth in Worth and Repute: The Play of Gender in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe (forthcoming). He is currently working on a study of urban
militarism and civic military performance in early Stuart England.
Notes
* Correspondence: Department of History, Glendon College, York University, 2275 Bayview Ave., Toronto, ON
M4N 3M6, Canada. Email: dlawrence@glendon.yorku.ca.
1

As Paul Hammer explains in his Elizabeths Wars (2003), the literature on the Tudor armies is small and consistently negative and much the same could be said for the early Stuart military. See P. Hammer, Elizabeths Wars
(Houndmills, UK: Palgrave, 2003), 7.
2
Historians focus primarily on the disastrous expeditions against Portugal (1589), Lower Germany (16241625),
Cadiz (1625) and the Isle of Re (1627), as well as Charles Is defeat at the hands of the Scots in the Bishops Wars
(16391640) as representatives of late Tudor and early Stuart military incompetence.
3
M. Roberts, The Military Revolution, 15601660, in C. Rogers (ed.), The Military Revolution Debate (Boulder,
CO: Westview Press, 1995): 1335; G. Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West,
15001800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988). For references in Parker on the influence of the military revolution on the art of war in Tudor and early Stuart England, see pp. 2631 (fortifications in England and
Ireland from 1530s to the 1650s), 4952 (British troops in continental service in the Dutch Revolt and Thirty
Years War) and 919 (English naval exploits).
4
J. R. Hale, The Art of War and Renaissance England (Washington, DC: Folger Library Press, l961); Armies, Navies
and the Art of War, in C. L. Mowat (ed.), New Cambridge Modern History, Vol. 3 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959); War and Society in Renaissance Europe 14501620 (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1985); and
The Military Education of the Officer Class in Early Modern Europe in J. R. Hale (ed.), Renaissance War Studies

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28 Reappraising the Elizabethan and Early Stuart Soldier

(London: Hamledon Press, l983): 22546; D. Eltis, The Military Revolution in the Sixteenth Century (London: Tauris
Academic Studies, 1995); M. Fissel, English Warfare 15111642 (London: Routledge, 2001). S. Adams, The English Military Clientele, 15421619, in C. Giry-Deloison and R. Mattam (eds.), Patronages et clientelismes 15501750
(France, Angleterre, Espagne, Italie) (Lille: Centre DHistorie De La Region Du Nord, 1995): 21727 and A Puritan
Crusade? The Composition of the Earl of Leicesters Expedition to the Netherlands, 15856, in S. Adams (ed.),
Leicester and the Court: Essays on Elizabethan Politics (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002): 17695. J. S.
Nolan, The Militarization of the Elizabethan State, The Journal of Military History, 58 (July 1994): 391420 and Sir
John Norreys and the Elizabethan Military World (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1997); G. Phillips, The Anglo-Scots
Wars 15131550 (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press, 1999) and B. Lenman, Englands Colonial Wars 15501688
(Harrow, UK: Pearson, 2001).
5
See R. B. Manning, Swordsmen: The Martial Ethos in the Three Kingdoms (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003),
9 and Nolan, The Militarization of the Elizabethan State. For discussions of the impact of war on English society,
readers should also consult P. A. Cahill, Unto the Breach: Martial Formations, Historical Trauma and the Early Modern
Stage (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008) and D. Randall, Credibility in Elizabethan and Early Stuart Military
News (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2008).
6
I have chosen this period because it includes works that appeared after the publication of Mark Fissels English
Warfare 15111642 in 2001, a book that brought new archival sources to light and summed up the important
research of the 1980s and 1990s, thereby helping to set the stage for new debates in the field.
7
J. Raymond, Henry VIIIs Military Revolution: The Armies of Sixteenth-century Britain and Europe (London: I.B.
Tauris, 2007), 3.
8
Ibid., 42.
9
Ibid., 188. Raymond draws on two manuscripts, Sir Thomas Audleys Booke of Orders for the Warre Both by Sea
and Land of which five copies are extant, four in the British Library and one in the Bodleian and Text B, a treatise
once attributed to Robert Hare, which Raymond suggests may be a product of the household of William Paulet,
Marquis of Winchester. He notes the existence of four copies of Text B, two in the British Library, one at
Cambridge and the other at the Bodleian. Audleys Booke of Orders for the Warre showed a detailed awareness of
the latest military techniques, notably advocating the integration of poke and shot (p. 9) while, Text B addresses
the use of pike and shot alongside the traditional bow and bill. Raymond cites the existence of four copies of Text
B. Both date from the 1540s.
10
L. MacMahon, Chivalry, Military Professionalism and the Early Tudor Army in Renaissance Europe: A Reassessment, in D. Trim (ed.), The Chivalric Ethos and the Development of Military Professionalism (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 183
212. See G. J. Millar Tudor Mercenaries and Auxiliaries, 14851547 (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1980).
11
See S. J. Gunns Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, c. 14841545 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1988); Early Tudor Government, 14851558 (New York: St Martins Press, 1995); Chivalry and Politics at the Early Tudor Court in S.
Anglo (ed.), Chivalry in the Renaissance (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press, 1990): 10728; The French Wars of
Henry VIII in J. Black (ed.), The Origins of War in Early Modern Europe (Edinburgh: J. Donald, 1987): 2851; and
Henry VIII and Charles the Bold History Today, 46 4 (1997), 2633. See D. Grummit, The Court, War and
Noble Power, c. 14751558, in S. Gunn and A Janse (eds.), The Court as a Stage: England and the Low Countries in
the Later Middle Ages (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press, 2006): 14555 and The English Experience in France: War,
Diplomacy and Cultural Exchange, c.14501558 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002).
12
MacMahon, Chivalry, Military Professionalism and the Early Tudor Army in Renaissance Europe: A Reassessment, 207.
13
Raymond, Henry VIIIs Military Revolution, 110.
14
D. Grummitt, The Calais Garrison: War and Military Service in England, 14361558 (Woodbridge, Suffolk:
Boydell and Brewer, 2008).
15
Ibid., 1.
16
Ibid., 48. Grummit notes that for more than a century, Calais served many valuable military roles as a jumping
off point for invasions of France, a training ground for officers and common soldiers, and a conduit for new military
ideas. Garrison inventories of military equipment reveal that the English were employing similar organisation,
weaponry and tactics to their European counterparts.
17
S. Gunn, D. Grummitt and H. Cools. War, State, and Society in England and the Netherlands, 14771559 (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2007).
18
Ibid., 4.
19
Ibid., 329.
20
Ibid., 242.
21
Ibid., 317.
22
Hammer, Elizabeths Wars, 1.
23
See also P. Hammer, The Polarisation of Elizabethan Politics: The Political Career of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of
Essex. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999); Myth-making: Politics, Propaganda and the Capture of
Cadiz in 1596, Historical Journal, 40 (1997): 62142; New Light on the Cadiz Expedition of 1596, Historical
Research, 70 (1997): 182202.

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Reappraising the Elizabethan and Early Stuart Soldier 29

24

The total force (including the militia) numbered 150,000 men under arms; an army that dwarfed any raised in
the Elizabethan era.
25
Ibid., 259.
26
Ibid., 104.
27
M. Fissel, English Warfare 15111642, 154.
28
D. Trim, Fighting Jacobs Wars: The Employment of English and Welsh Mercenaries in the European Wars
of Religion: France and the Netherlands 15621610, PhD diss. (University of London, 2002).
29
Ibid., 145.
30
Ibid., 28.
31
D. Trim (ed.), The Chivalric Ethos and the Development of Military Professionalism (Leiden, Brill, 2003), 23. Trim
lists seven elements of a profession: (1) a discrete occupational identity, (2) formal hierarchy, (3) permanence, (4) a
formal pay system, (5) a distinctive expertise and means of education therein, (6) efficiency in execution of expertise
and (7) a distinctive self-conceptualization.
32
L. Stone, Crisis of the Aristocracy (London: Oxford University Press, 1967).
33
Trim, Fighting Jacobs Wars , 93.
34
See Raymond, Henry VIIIs Military Revolution, 1212.
35
Fissel, English Warfare 15111642, 152.
36
See Trims Fin de siecle: The English Soldiers Experience at the End of the Sixteenth Century, Military and
Naval History Journal, 10 (July 1999): 113; Horace Vere in Holland and the Rhineland, 161012, Historical
Research, 72 (October 1999): 33451; Ideology, Greed and Social Discontent in Early Modern Europe: Mercenaries
and Mutinies in the Rebellious Netherlands, 15681609, in J. Hathaway (ed.), Rebellion, Repression, Reinvention:
Mutiny in Comparative Perspective (Westport, CN: Praeger, 2002): 4761.
37
D. Trim, Calvinist Internationalism and the English officer Corps, 15621642, History Compass, 4 16 (2006):
102448.
38
See D. Trim (ed.), The Chivalric Ethos and the Development of Military Professionalism (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 8.
39
D. Trim, Calvinist Internationalism, in T. Wilks (ed.), Prince Henry Revived: Image and Exemplarity in Early
Modern England (Southampton, UK: Southampton Solent University and Paul Holberton, 2007), 245.
40
Trim, Fighting Jacobs Wars , 86.
41
That said, some of the gentlemen soldiers Trim lists in the appendix of his dissertation did serve in Ireland and
the Low Countries.
42
R. B. Manning, An Apprenticeship in Arms: The Origins of the British Army 15851702 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006).
43
Manning, Swordsmen, 27.
44
Ibid., 17. Manning calculated that the number of military peers stood at 40% in 1585, and after a slight drop in
1600 to 36%, the numbers rose steadily to as many as 69% on the eve of the civil wars in 1642.
45
Ibid., 8.
46
Manning, An Apprenticeship in Arms, 40. See also Mannings Prince Maurices School of War: British Swordsmen and the Dutch, War & Society, 25 (May 2006): 119 for a discussion of the influence of the European military
courts of Maurice of Nassau and on the education of English soldiers. For a description of the emerging English
military court of Henry, Prince of Wales in the period 16081610, see Prince Henry Revived, particularly Timothy
Wilkss essay, The Pike Charged: Henry as Militant Prince, pp. 180211.
47
See J. Black, A Review of The Origins of the British Army 15851702: An Apprenticeship in Arms By Roger
Manning, History, 92 (April, 2007): 2601; I. Gentles, Review of An Apprenticeship in Arms: The Origins of the
British Army 15851702, American Historical Review, 112 (April 2007): 5834.
48
Manning explores the English aristocracys response to aspects of the military revolution in his Styles of
Command in Seventeenth Century English Armies. Journal of Military History, 71 (July 2007): 67199.
49
P. Robinson, Military Honour and the Conduct of War (London: Routledge, 2006). R. Cust, A Review of
Swordsmen: The Martial Ethos in the Three Kingdoms, English Historical Review, 492 (June 2006): 928.
50
Ibid., 83.
51
Manning, Swordsmen, 28.
52
K. Thomas, The Ends of Life: Roads to Fulfilment in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2009).
53
Ibid., 47.
54
Ibid., 50.
55
Ibid., 56.
56
D. Lawrence, The Complete Soldier: Military Books and Military Culture in Early Stuart England, 16031645 (Leiden: Brill, 2009). It was on the urging of Sir Francis Vere that Clement Edmondes, London remembrancer and
Privy Council clerk, wrote his short drill manual, The Maner of Our Moderne Training or Tacticke Practice in 1600. Sir
Edward Cecil was influential in his support of the Privy Councils Instructions for Musters and Armes, the governments first printed manual, published in 1623.

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30 Reappraising the Elizabethan and Early Stuart Soldier

57

On the history of the Anglo-Irish wars of the late 16th and early 17th century, see C. Falls, Elizabeths Irish War
(Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1997); H. Morgan, Tyrones Rebellion; the Outbreak of the Nine Years War
in Tudor Ireland (London: Royal Historical Society, 1993); G. A. Hayes-McCoy, Irish Battles (London: Longmans,
1969); N. Canny, The Elizabethan Conquest of Ireland: A Pattern Established 156576 (New York: Barnes and Noble
Books, 1976) and Making Ireland British, 15601680 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001); J. McGurk, The
Elizabethan Conquest of Ireland: The Burdens of the 1590s Crisis (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997);
T. Bartlett and K. Jeffrey (eds.) A Military History of Ireland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
58
R. Rapple, Martial Power and Elizabethan Political Culture: Military Men in England and Ireland, 15581594
(Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2009).
59
Ibid., 35. Rapple argues that in the early 16th century individual honour had become increasingly subsumed in
an overarching state honor .
60
Ibid., 16.
61
Ibid., 126.
62
In Taking Up Office in Elizabethan Connacht: The Case of Sir Richard Bingham, English Historical Review,
501 (April 2008): 27799, Rapple describes Binghams early career in Connacht and his complex character, as well
as the complexities of the Irish political situation Bingham was forced to navigate.
63
Rapple, Martial Power and Elizabethan Political Culture, 245.
64
J. McGurk, Sir Henry Docwra 15641631: Derrys Second Founder (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2006).
65
Ibid., 51.
66
Ibid., 25. McGurk does not consider Docwra to have been a paper soldier. He states that there is no evidence
that Docwra read any of the military treatises printed in the late Elizabethan period and claims his military education came from the school of hard knocks.
67
M. Bennett, The Officer Corps and Army Command in the British Isles, 16201660, in David Trim (ed.) The
Chivalric Ethos and the Development of Military Professionalism (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 291317.
68
See Mannings Styles of Command in Seventeenth Century English Armies, 673. He writes that social hierarchies remained more important than military hierarchies in positions of military command, and had the effect of
delaying the professionalism of the officer classes of the armies of the Three Kingdoms.
69
Bennett, The Officer Corps and Army Command in the British Isles, 299.
70
See page 11 for a discussion of Langeluddeckes The Chiefest Strength and Glory of This Kingdom: Arming
and Training the Perfect Militia in the 1630s, English Historical Review, 479 (November 2003): 1264303.
71
See S. Gunn, Review of English Warfare 15111642, War in History, 11 (2004): 1112.
72
M. Fissel, English Amphibious Warfare, 15871656: Galleons, Galleys, Longboats and Cots, in D. J. B. Trim
and M. C. Fissell (eds.), Amphibious Warfare, 10001700: Commerce, State Formation and European Expansion (Leiden:
Brill, 2006).
73
Ibid., 217, 223. Fissel argues that the large-scale expeditions were often undermined by a lack of strategic focus
and operational consensus.
74
Ibid., 256.
75
Ibid., 257.
76
S. J. Stearns, Military Disorder and Martial Law in Early Stuart England in B. Sharp and M. C. Fissel (eds.),
Law and Authority in Early Modern England: Essays Presented to Thomas Garden Barnes (Newark: University of
Delaware Press, 2007): 10635.
77
Ibid., 113.
78
Also see D. Trim, Ideology, Greed and Social Discontent in Early Modern Europe: Mercenaries and Mutinies
in the Rebellious Netherlands, 15681609, in J. Hathaway (ed.), Rebellion, Repression, Reinvention: Mutiny in
Comparative Perspective (Westport, CN: Praeger, 2002): 4761.
79
N. Younger, War and the Counties. The Elizabethan Lord Lieutenancy, 15851603, PhD diss. (University of
Birmingham, 2006).
80
Ibid., 321.
81
N. Younger, If the Armada had Landed: A Reappraisal of Englands Defences in 1588, History, 93 (July 2008):
32854. For Parkers arguments, see If the Armada had Landed, History, 61 (1976): 35868.
82
Ibid., 344.
83
Younger, War and the Counties, 156.
84
For studies on the Elizabethan and early Stuart militia, see L. Boynton, The Elizabethan Militia 15581638 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1967); T. Barnes, Somerset 16251640: A Countys Government During Personal Rule
(London: Oxford University Press, 1961); K. Sharpe, The Personal Rule of Charles I (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1992); M. Fissel, English Warfare 15111642 (London: Routledge, 2001) and The Bishops Wars: Charles Is
Campaigns against Scotland 16381640 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); and P. Hammer, Elizabeths
Wars (Houndmills, UK: Palgrave, 2003).
85
H. Langeluddecke, The Chiefest Strength and Glory of This Kingdom: Arming and Training the Perfect
Militia in the 1630s, English Historical Review, 479 (November 2003): 1264303.
86
Ibid., 1271, 1302.

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