Despite the major role played by the Horse in the Civil Wars little detail of the appearance of contemporary cavalrymen has emerged. Because sources are so few, where they are employed the wrong conclusions may sometimes be drawn.
Former home of armor at Littlecote, now at Royal Armouries at Leeds.
An example is that of the oft quoted letter written by John Turberville in 1640, during the Second Bishop's War: [1]
"For your buff-coat I have looked after. and the price: they are exceedingly dear, not a good one to be gotten under M. a very poor one for five or six pounds."
For many years this was held to be firm evidence of the very high cost of buff coats as compared with other equipment (£ 2 for a harquebusier armour comprising gauntlet, pot helmet, back and breast). This gave rise to the view that buff coats must have been rare items and effectively reserved for soldiers with private income. More recent research has been able to show that buff coats for cavalrymen could be obtained for as little as 30s each, making their use by ordinary troopers a practical option.
This article considers a source which has also been used as evidence to support the case against the general use of buff coats [2] and comes from "Horse and Armes listed under several] Captains of the Citty of London chiefly for the defence of the said cittye". [3]
The entry states:
-9th November 1642 - Capt. Harvey - Abraham Chamberlaine of St Mary Axe, Grocer, listed two bay horses with starts Armed with Carabines pistolls with one buff coate the other with Back breast headpiece and Gauntlet. with two swords and poleaxes valued at 25 the piece in all fifty pounds."
The entry follows a standard format. First the date of the donation, followed by the Captain of the troop to which it is to be allocated. Then the name, address and occupation of the donor. Next a description of the horse or horses followed by details of the equipment provided and lastly the value of the donation in total.
The interpretation which has been placed upon this entry is that two horses were donated with two sets of equipment for their riders, including a buff coat for one and back, breast, headpiece and gauntlet for the other.
There are other entries which show various levels of equipment:
"31st October 1642 - Capt. Mainwaring - Ann Sachiverrill of Aldersgate streete widdowe listed one black horse with a start, and two bay horses, furnished with carabines, pistolles, buffe coates & swords, the black horse val. att £ 30 the other att £ 22 apeece in all £ 74
"9th November 1642 - Captaine Harvey and his friends in Cornhill. listed one bright bay horse with a starr. his Rider Armed Compleate valued att £ 25-00-00."
"25th November 1642 - Capt. Harvey - John Steed of Lambeth gente. listed a Carabine. a Case of pistolls. a buffe Coate and Sword. the said Arms val. at £ 10-00-00."
"28th October 1642 - Capt. Mainwaring - John Greate Brewer listed one piebald gelding and one brown and bay gelding, furnished with carabines. pistolls, buffe coates, swords, the bay and his arms valued at £ 24 and the piebald and his armes valued att £ 20." When I wrote my Osprey book 'Soldiers of the English Civil War: Cavalry', I did not have time to make a full analysis of these donations. Having made notes of all the donations and examined the source as a whole rather than extracts, a different picture emerged. The 402 entries record donations made between 11 October 1642 and 4 July 1643.
Details of the arms and equipment provided are as follows:
Horses 440 Carbines 173 Cases of pistols 188 Buff coats 184 Swords 173 Sets of Back and Breast armour 7 Gauntlets 3 Pollaxes 2 Headpieces 2 Armed complete 63 Furnished complete 20.
It is obvious that there is not enough equipment to send the riders of 440 horses off to war. Gauntlets and poleaxes are, not surprisingly, rare given that they were considered non essential weapons for cavalry of the time (a gauntlet was armour for the bridle arm, not gloves). The numbers of carbines, buff coats and swords are similar. The surprise is that there are only two headpieces and only seven sets of back and breast armour. The six donations which are listed as including back and breast sets are made up as follows:
2/11/1642 John Marshall - 2 horses, 2 carbines, 2 pairs of pistols, 2 buff coats, 2 swords, 2 sets of back and breast.
In this sample of donations involving equipment relating to eight horses, five receive back and breast but no buff coat, one has a buff coat but no back and breast and two have both. If the donations make up the only arms provided, two unfortunate cavalrymen had to ride into battle lacking swords. Matters become more puzzling when it is noted that in 161 entries, horses are donated with no weapons and in two cases weapons were given with no horse. I suggest that these records of donations are merely that. They do not reflect how individual cavalrymen were equipped but are simply what individuals chose to give.
In sixty three cases the donation is recorded as "armed complete" and in 20 instances that it was "furnished complete". No indication is given of what equipment either term represented and it is possible that both meant the same as in no case is a donation described as both armed and furnished complete. Alternatively it may be that a donation which was furnished complete was by definition already armed complete and then received more equipment to make it fully "furnished". The contemporary use of the term 'armed' applied to both weapons (arms offensive) and protective clothing and armour (arms defensive). As these donations are principally of horse it is curious that more attention is not paid to saddles or other horse furniture. It might be that it was the inclusion of such articles which made a donation furnished complete.
The recent publication of "A Cambridgeshire Lieutenancy Letterbook 1595 - 1606" [4] although covering a period thirty five years earlier, gives some indication of the way these terms were used amongst the militia. Unfortunately the term 'furnished' appears very frequently and is used in a number of different ways. Horses, horsemen, foot soldiers, pioneers and even warning beacons are to be 'furnished with...', used in the sense of provided with.
For example:
"... you are required to cause somme number of able horsemen which must be furnished with good horses and must carrie a horseman armed with a curacce and a heddpecce and sleeves of maile..." Another usage is that a horseman or footman must be well or fully 'furnished'. Here the meaning is 'well equipped with: "... to commaunde two able horsmen for service well furnished with horse and armour..." Of more interest are the instances which make a clear distinction between arming and furnishing, as in:
"...upon arminge furnishinge and setting forthe of the said eleven soldiers".
"An account of the men and horses viewed and mustered in Lord North's lieutenancy, 10 - 16 November 1596."
"Men armed, furnished and viewed at Comberyon greene Horses prepared and made ready and viewed." The term 'furniture' which encompasses equipment other than armour, weapons and clothing, also appears, lending support to the idea that 'furnished complete' includes items of equipment over and above armour and weapons. A further source of confusion can be that a soldier can be described as 'well furnished' with 'furniture':
"The deputy lieutenants to the chief constables for ordering horsemusters at Newmarket and preparation of beacons for the expected Spanish invasion, 5 November 1596."
"... all such horses and geldings with their riders, their armour, weapon and other furniture to their several] kinde of service belonging And that they do bringe or send the said horses men and furniture in all pointes perfect and well furnished as no fault may be found therewith..." Examples have been found in period documents where officers and clerks have made marginal notes or aide memoires which record exactly what they understood a given term to mean. Any evidence from other sources of alternative meanings of these terms or of clarification of what constituted furnished complete would be gratefully received by the author via ECW Times.
We can perhaps gain some information from the negative decisions made, i.e. what was lacking from the equipment of those listed as other than armed or furnished 'complete'. In the case of 154 donations a carbine, case of pistols, a buff coat and a sword are provided. With the donation of John Marshall quoted above all these items were provided to two horsemen with sets of back and breast in addition, only helmets were missing. I would suggest
hat a set of back and breast and a helmet was considered as standard harquebusier armour. All of those donations described as armed or furnished complete would include them and this is why so few entries mention back and breast armour and headpieces.
Turning to buff coats the situation is very different. Although 440 horses were donated, 161 were not accompanied by equipment of any kind. Of the remaining 281 donations of equipment (two donations were of equipment but no horse) 184 mention buff coats. If those donations listed as armed and furnished complete also included buff coats, then only 18 instances remain where a donation did not include a buff coat. In these cases all had pistols, 10 had carbines, 4 back and breast, 2 gauntlets and 4 swords.
The incidence of buff coats is much greater than random donation would allow. There is clear evidence that donations were in response to a specific request for types of arms. Of 281 donations involving equipment, 154 were of carbine, case of pistols, buff coat and sword. In addition to the 83 armed or furnished complete this means that only 44 donations of equipment were variant to this standard contribution. The set donation theory gains weight when the pattern of donation is examined.
Elizabeth Fant, widow:
Both:
7/11 - Mainwaring - 4 horses, armed complete £ 108
The contributions made by the two widows (amounting to perhaps £ 46,000 at 1998 values) far exceed those of any other donors. It is difficult to believe that both had such extensive armouries or that if this was the case they would not have donated the whole on one day rather than sending it in stages. The fact that the final contribution was made jointly suggests that they were buying the horses and equipment specifically for the purpose of donation.
The pattern of donations reflects the events of the war (see chart) the first being made on 11 October, the day before the King's army marched out of Shrewsbury and increasing in frequency and number (Sundays excepted) as the Earl of Essex was out manoeuvred at Edgehill and the King began his march on London. The Battle of Brentford and the facing down of the Royal Army at Turnham Green on 12 and 13 November saw an end to the direct threat to the City and a noticeable decline in the flow of donations which tailed off towards the end of November.
Only one significant donation followed on 24 March, mainly of horses with no equipment, which was sent to Captain Peter Willett's troop. Willet had joined the Society of the Artillery Garden on 12 April 1642 and is first mentioned as raising the sixth independent troop of City Horse in March 1643. By June of that year the City Horse troops had been formed into a regiment under Colonel Edmund Harvey and Willett was killed at Aldbourne Chase on 18 September 1643. [6]
The evidence suggests that a call was made for donations of horses and if possible equipment to help raise troops of harquebusiers. The desired equipment was either specified, or the 'standard' equipment of a harquebusier was well enough known to make this unnecessary. Some people donated what they already had, possibly left over from militia obligation. Others purchased horses and or equipment and delivered it as it was ready.
Horses were allocated to troop captains with their riders (where volunteers had accompanied the horse) and equipment. Missing items must have been provided from store, or other sources, so that only properly equipped horsemen were sent to war. It is known that Col. Harvey was involved during 1643 in seizing "money, plate, arms, ammunition supposed to belong to papists" [5] . Where no volunteer rider accompanied the horse some pooling or exchange of items would have been necessary, if only to ensure that items fitted the horseman they were given to.
These arguments were put forward in a short talk at the 1997 Partizan Press conference at the Royal Armouries in Leeds. During the resulting discussions the point was made that buff costs of even ordinary workmanship, take perhaps twenty two hours to manufacture and stitch. This view was supported by Mark Beabey, the museum's resident leather worker and appeared to prove that buff coats must have been expensive to produce.
Having spent the last year vainly seeking for evidence of rates of pay for leather workers and finding none, I chanced upon the following entry [6]
The total cost is £ 2 .19s. 06d for what was obviously an elaborately decorated suit of clothes how was it that such items could be produced so inexpensively? The answer may lie in the nature of craft employment in the seventeenth century. Supposing the making up of the Verney suit took 70 hours work (three times as long as the estimate for producing an ordinary military buff coat) the cost of £ 1. 1 5s.0d works out at 6d per hour. At a time when 8d a day was a realistic, if miserly, daily wage this is a hefty charge. Taking Mark Beabey's estimate that it would take 22 hours to make up an ordinary buff coat, the cost at 6d per hour
works out at 11 shillings, leaving almost Lt for materials and profit if the price was the 30 shillings found in the State papers. [7]
Musing on these matters I returned to my books on contemporary working life and realised that the true cost to the master leather worker may have been even less. An ever present feature in Civil War London was the apprentice, usually unhappy with his situation and causing mayhem. Apprentices were taken on to learn the trade over perhaps seven years. They were given little or no wages other than bed and board, their parents had to pay the master to take them on. The idea was that they traded their labour for being taught the trade so that they could become a paid journeymen or a master in their turn. The number of apprentices was large as is attested by the trouble they caused whenever pre war political unrest allowed. This was the work force of unpaid or poorly paid labour which produced the munition quality equipment for Parliament's armies.
John Turberville was looking to buy a buff coat for £ 10 at the time of a short lived and unexpected emergency when purveyors of military items seem to have made a killing in response to a sudden demand which a peace time economy could not meet. His letter is evidence of the extortionate prices, not of the costs of producing a buff coat.
The donations made to the City troops of Horse are a valuable source for the arming of Civil War cavalry, but they must be used with caution and individual donations must not be examined out of context. This article seeks to argue that this particular source supports the idea of harquebusiers 'armed' with buff coat, back and breast, head piece, sword, pistols and carbine. However, it is evidence which relates only to the City Horse at one point during the war -other circumstances at other times and places may have produced other results.
[1] Trevelyan Papers, iii, 194.
This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web."7th November 1642 - Capt. Browne - Sr James Harrington Knight, listed one bright bay gelding his rider Armed with a Carabine. a Case of pistols. a backe breast, headpeece and Gauntlett all valued at £ 26."
7/11/1642 Sir James Harrington - 1 horse, 1 carbine, 1 pair of pistols, 1 set of back and breast, 1 gauntlet.
9/11/1642 Abraham Chamberlaine - 2 horses, 2 carbines, 2 pair of pistols, 1 buff coat, 2 swords, 1 set of back and breast, 1 headpiece, 1 gauntlet, 2 poleaxes.
22/11/1642 Thomas Arnold - 1 horse, 1 carbine, 1 pair of pistols, one set of back and breast.
30/l/1643 Heriott Washborne - 1 horse, 1 carbine, 1 pair of pistols, 1 sword, 1 back and breast.
21/2/1643 Robt. Stone - 1 horse, 1 pair of pistols, 1 sword, 1 back and breast, 1 gauntlet.
"The Council to Lord North to levy 40 foot soldiers and two horsemen for the present service in Ireland, 14 June 1595."
"Contributions from country gentlemen towards the costs of raising the two light horses 18 June 1595"
"The deputies' order to JPs in the Isle of Ely to raise 11 soldiers for the service in Ireland 18 June 1595"
"The deputy lieutenants to Lady Hinde Mr Giles Alington and Mrs Hutton. that they provide horsemen for the musters, 5 November 1596."
"...require you in her Majesties name presentlie to prepare one launce one lighthorse and one petronell well appointed and furnished as well in your horses and their riders as also in their armours. weapons and furnitures meete for these severall kinde of service".
Ann Sacheuirivall, widow:
22/10 - Mainwaring 2 horses. 2 carbines, 2 case of pistols, 2 buff
coats, 2 swords £ 60
28/10 - Mainwaring 2 horses, furnished complete £ 50
31/10 - Mainwaring 3 horses. 3 carbines, 3 case of pistols, 3
buff coats, 3 swords £ 74
3/11 - Mainwaring 2 horses, furnished complete £ 60
Total £ 244
25/10 - Mainwaring 1 horse. 1 carbine, 1 case of pistols, 1 buff
coat, 1 sword £ 25
25/10 - Mainwaring 2 horses. 2 carbines, 1 case of pistols, 1 buff
coat. 1 sword £ 65
28/10 - Mainwaring - 2 horses, 2 carbines, 2 case of pistols, 2 buff
coats, 2 swords £ 60
4/11 - Washbourne- 1 horse, armed complete £ 25
8/11 - Mainwaring - 2 horses, armed complete £ 48
Total £ 223
Total cost £ 575
One of the Littlecote buff cotes now in the Royal armouries, in the style often used by re-enactors is a Post Civil War (possibly even post restoration) buff coat.
"BILL FROM THE VERNEY PAPERS 16 Mar. 1638 For Collr & belypeeces & hookes & eyes to a buffe coate
00:02:06
For lyneings to yr hose 00:05:00
For makeing ye buff coate with 2 paire of sleeues 6 hose last all over 01:15:00
More for 2 shambo skins to make a par sleeues 00:12:00
For buckrum to ym 00:02:00
For gould & silluer Butts to yr 2 paire sleeue hands & ye hoase befor 00:03:00
Buff coat traditionally that worn by Colonel Alexandra Popham.
NOTES
[2] To quote from "Arms and Armour of the English Civil Wars" by David Blackmore [London 19901, "From the very beginning harquebusiers appear to have worn either armour or a buff coat, not both."
[3] SP 28 / 131 part 5.
[4] 'A Cambridgeshire Lieutenancy Letterbook 1595 - 1606' (ed EJ Bourgeois, Cambridgeshire Records Society, Country Records Office, Shire Hall, Cambridge CB3 OAP, 1997, ISBN 0 904323 12 9)
[5] My thanks to Keith Roberts for information of Willett and the City Horse (CSPD 1641 - 1643 p.466).
[6] 'The Cut of Men's Clothes 1600 - 1900' by Norah Waugh p.44.
[7] In 1647 troops Tracey, Speering and Hort of Lt. Col. Thorpe's troop received buff coats costing 30 shillings each (SP135/640).
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