Military treatise on drill and tactics, manuscript in English, 1620s-30s, calf gilt

MILITARY DRILL AND TACTICS

A manuscript treatise in six chapters, comprising:

"Of the Ordering of a File of a body of men or company. Chapter 1", "Of Distances. Chapter 2", "Of the severall Motions which the Troopes by Exercise are to be made perfect in. Chapter 3", "Of Marching. Chapter 4", "Of the ranging many devisions together, and the sundry waies of Embattailing an Army with other things pertaining to a Field Fight. Chapter 5", "Of Castrametation. Chapter 6", the final chapter seemingly incomplete, in several scribal hands with secretary features, numerous blank spaces left for illustrations, some scattered contemporary marginal notes, 228 pages, folio, c.1620s-1640s, gilt panelled calf, spine gilt in compartments, some wear to binding, soiling to first page of text

This anonymous manuscript forms part of a genre of analytical treatises, comprehensive studies of the art of war, that flourished in England in the first decades of the seventeenth century (see Lawrence, The Complete Soldier (2009), pp.195-259). During this period military innovations tended to reach England from the Low Countries, with most authors of military books having been amongst the many English soldiers who had volunteered for service during the Eighty Years' War. This work covers subjects ranging from drill to encampment, and has particularly extensive coverage of tactical formations. It is certainly the work of an experienced soldier as, unlike some such works, it is a pragmatic guide that gives information ranging from the proper construction of a pit for the disposal of offal by camp butchers to practical tactical advice ("...it shall not be amisse as you march in sight of your Enemy to change your forme often, and sometimes to seeme to waver, and be afrayd, as it were to turne your back to see if thereby you can disorder and confound your Enemy..."). Another manuscript copy of this treatise is found at the British Library (Harleian MS 7364).