Early Modern Warfare

Pike, shot and pay

A soldier of 1500 carried a bow, a bill or a lance, served his lord for forty days under a system older than the Conquest, and went home. A soldier of 1700 carried a flintlock musket with a bayonet on the end, wore a red coat issued by the state, was paid by the state, and could expect to serve until he was discharged or dead. Between the two lies the most complete change in the composition of English armies before the twentieth century. Gunpowder drove the first half of it. The matchlock musket, in use from the early sixteenth century, could put a ball through any armour at fifty paces but took a minute to reload, so it had to be protected by men with pikes sixteen to eighteen feet long; the two together, pike and shot, were the infantry of every European army by 1600. Cavalry gave up the lance for the pistol. Cannon made the stone castle obsolete. Politics drove the second half. When Parliament fought the king from 1642 it found that county levies would not march out of their counties, and in February 1645 it built an army of 22,000 men paid, clothed, disciplined and promoted by the state: the New Model Army. It won the war in a year and outlasted the war by fifteen, and the argument over whether England should keep a standing army at all was still being fought in 1689. The exam asks what changed, what stayed the same, and why. This module gives you the dated evidence.

Five words the examiners use

Each definition ends with the moment it mattered, because a bare definition earns nothing in a 12-mark answer.

Two centuries of change, in order

Put these six developments in the order they happened.

• The matchlock musket enters English service and begins to replace the longbow
• The trained bands are set up, county militia drilled a few days a year in pike and shot
• Parliament creates the New Model Army, the first English army paid and controlled by the state
• Charles II keeps a small standing army after the Restoration
• The Bill of Rights makes a peacetime army illegal without the consent of Parliament
• The socket bayonet and the flintlock end the pike, and every infantryman becomes a musketeer

Why did Parliament create the New Model Army?

For two and a half years Parliament had fought the king with the armies it had. Which explanation best accounts for the decision of February 1645 to build a new one?

• The old armies were regional: the Eastern Association and the other county forces would not march far from home, and their soldiers went unpaid for months and deserted; the commanders were nobles and members of Parliament such as Essex and Manchester who were half-hearted about beating the king, and the Self-Denying Ordinance of April 1645 removed them; Cromwell had shown in the Eastern Association cavalry that paid, disciplined, godly troopers promoted on merit could beat Royalist gentlemen; and after the drawn second battle of Newbury in October 1644 Parliament concluded that only a single national army could end the war.
• The king had built a professional army first and Parliament copied it.
• Parliament hired a Swedish army and renamed it.
• Cromwell seized power and created it for himself.

An army of 1500 and an army of 1700

Put the two ends of the period side by side and every similarity or difference question on this bullet is answered on this card.

Impact on civilians

Five statements about the Civil Wars. Tap the TWO that give evidence of the impact of war on civilians, as opposed to the fighting itself.

• Both sides took free quarter, lodging soldiers in houses and paying with tickets that were rarely honoured, and requisitioned horses, carts, food and cloth; in 1645 farmers in the west formed the Clubmen, armed bands to keep both armies off their land.
• At Naseby on 14 June 1645 the New Model Army destroyed the main Royalist field army in under three hours and captured the correspondence of the king.
• Parliament introduced the excise on beer, meat and salt in 1643 and a weekly assessment on property, taxes heavier than any the king had levied, and the Royalists did the same in their counties.
• The flintlock musket, known from the 1630s, replaced the matchlock in the English army by the 1690s.
• The Self-Denying Ordinance of April 1645 required members of both Houses to resign their military commands.

What the New Model Army changed

Select the THREE statements that correctly describe why the New Model Army was a structural change and not just a winning side.

• It was paid by the state from a national tax, the assessment, at 8 pence a day for the foot and 2 shillings for the horse, so that soldiers served the army rather than a colonel who owed them wages.
• Promotion went by merit and conduct rather than birth, so that a trooper could become a captain and a former draper, Thomas Rainsborough, a colonel, which no earlier English army had allowed.
• It was a single national force of fixed establishment, 22,000 men in 12 regiments of foot and 11 of horse, that would march anywhere in the kingdom, replacing the county armies that had refused to leave their regions.
• It was made up entirely of volunteers who believed in the cause.
• It was created by the king to fight Parliament.
• It was disbanded the day the war ended in 1646.

The grade-9 point: structure, not victory

The 16-mark question on this bullet will usually ask how far the New Model Army was a turning point, or how far weapons rather than politics changed warfare in the period. The strong answer explains what the New Model Army changed in the way armies were made, and then asks how much of it lasted. What it changed. Before 1645 an English army was a temporary collection of retinues, county levies and hired companies, paid late or never, commanded by whoever was grandest, and dissolved when the campaign ended. The New Model Army was permanent for as long as Parliament chose, paid from a national tax, uniformed, drilled to a single standard, and promoted by conduct. Those five things are what a modern army is. The weapons it carried were the same pike and matchlock the Royalists had. How much lasted. The army itself went in 1660, and the Restoration Parliament hated it enough to write the fear of standing armies into the Bill of Rights in 1689. But Charles II kept regiments anyway, the Mutiny Act made them legal a year at a time, and by 1700 England had exactly the kind of force Parliament had invented in 1645: paid, uniformed, permanent and under its own control. This meant that the structural change survived the political reaction against it, and a judgement that separates the army from the idea of the army reaches the top level.

In the shoes of Parliament, 1644 to 1689

Four decisions about how England should raise its armies. Choose what was actually done, and notice what each choice led to.

• November 1644. You sit in Parliament. The second battle of Newbury has been a draw, the Earl of Manchester says that if the king is beaten ninety-nine times he is still king, and the county armies will not march. What do you do?
• Spring 1645. The new army needs 14,400 foot and the old armies have supplied barely half. What do you do?
• 1647. The war is won. The army is owed months of pay, Parliament wants it disbanded or sent to Ireland, and the soldiers have elected agitators to speak for them. What do you do?
• 1689. James II has fled and William III needs an army for a war with France. Parliament remembers 1647 and 1660. What do you write into the settlement?

From cause to consequence

Because the matchlock took a minute to reload, musketeers had to be protected by blocks of _____ until the socket bayonet of the 1690s let one man do both jobs. Because the county armies of 1642 to 1644 would not leave their regions, Parliament built a single national army of _____ men in February 1645. Because the New Model Army was paid from a national _____, it belonged to the state and not to its colonels. Because that army seized the king in 1647 and ruled England after 1649, the Restoration Parliament feared any permanent force. And because William III needed troops for war with France, the compromise of _____ made a standing army legal only with the consent of Parliament, renewed by the _____ every year.

The mounted arm of the New Model Army

The New Model Army of 1645 had 14,400 foot, 6,600 horse and 1,000 dragoons. How many of its men were mounted, counting the horse and the dragoons together?

Question 3: similarity or difference

Question 3 reads: Explain one way in which the infantry of c1500 was different from the infantry of c1700. It is marked one point of comparison plus detail from each period. Which answer scores all four marks?

• In c1500 the infantry fought with the longbow and the bill, so that a foot soldier was an archer who trained at the butts from boyhood, whereas by c1700 every infantryman carried a flintlock musket with a socket bayonet, a weapon a recruit could be drilled to use in weeks, and the pike that had protected earlier musketeers had gone.
• In c1700 the infantry had muskets with bayonets.
• The infantry of 1700 was much more modern and better than the infantry of 1500.
• The infantry changed because gunpowder weapons improved and armies became professional.

A 12-mark paragraph, marked

Question 4: Explain why the composition of armies changed in the years c1500 to c1700. One reason the composition of armies changed was the improvement of the musket. The matchlock in use from the early sixteenth century could pierce plate armour at fifty paces but took a minute to reload, so an army needed blocks of pikemen to protect its musketeers, and around 1600 the two were present in roughly equal numbers. As the musket became lighter and more reliable, and as the flintlock spread from the 1630s, commanders needed fewer pikes, and by the Civil Wars there were two musketeers to every pikeman. This meant that once the socket bayonet of the 1690s let a musketeer defend himself against cavalry, the pike had no purpose left, and by 1700 the infantry consisted of musketeers alone. The composition of the army changed because the weapon that needed protecting had learned to protect itself. What earned the marks: a cause named in the first sentence; specific support (the reload time, the ratios, the 1630s, the 1690s); the link phrase this meant that; and a closing sentence that returns to the question. Two more paragraphs, on the replacement of the lancer by the pistol-armed trooper and the dragoon, and on the political decision of 1645 to create a paid national army with fixed regiments, and the answer reaches the top level.

Write the 12-mark answer

Explain why the composition of armies changed in the years c1500 to c1700. You may use the following in your answer: the musket; the New Model Army. You must also use information of your own.

• Support that counts: a date, a figure, a weapon or a name
• Causes of your own: the pistol and the end of the lancer, the dragoon, the trained bands, or the standing army after 1660

Question 5: how far do you agree?

Question 5 might read: "The New Model Army was the most important change in warfare in the years c1500 to c1700." How far do you agree? A student has written the case FOR. Which is the strongest point to set AGAINST it?

• The New Model Army changed how an army was organised, but it fought with the same pike and matchlock as its enemies and was disbanded in 1660, whereas the change from bow to musket, begun before 1500 and completed with the flintlock and bayonet by the 1690s, altered what every soldier in Europe did on every battlefield for the next two centuries and was never reversed; so the army was the most important change in the relationship between the state and its soldiers, and gunpowder was the most important change in warfare, and a judgement should say which the question is asking about.
• The New Model Army lost its power in 1660, so it cannot have been important.
• Cromwell was a tyrant, so his army was a bad thing.
• The New Model Army was only 22,000 men.