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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 December 2009
Introduction 49
Text 54
page 49 note 1 The Library acquired the manuscript in April 1964. I wish to thank the Library for kindly allowing me to prepare this edition of The Muster-Master; in addition I would like to express my appreciation to Miss Jean F. Preston, Curator of Manuscripts at the Library, for answering several questions concerning the manuscript.
page 49 note 2 An emendation on fo. 27v of The Muster-Master suggests that the first scribe read through the work copied by the second. Neither hand appears to be that of Gervase Markham; for an example of Markham's hand see plate IIA in Poynter, F. N. L., A Bibliography of Gervase Markham, 1568?–1637 (Oxford, 1962).Google Scholar
page 49 note 3 For a detailed account of Markham's career see the Introduction (pp. 1–31) to Poynter's scholarly study. Some confusion has arisen in the past about Markham by historians who have attributed to him activities of his distant kinsman and namesake, Gervase Markham of Dunham, Nottinghamshire. In 1597 the latter fought a duel with his cousin, Sir John Holies, and in 1616 he was fined £500 in Star Chamber for challenging Lord Darcy; in 1627, although an invalid living in Dunham, his home was searched for arms and he was falsely accused of aiding a recusant while his failure to pay ship money in 1636 again brought him to public attention; see Poynter, op. cit., p. 16, n. I, D.N.B., xii, p. 1053Google Scholar, and Acts of the Privy Council, 1627–28, pp. 282–3.Google Scholar
page 50 note 4 Poynter, , Bibliography, p. 4.Google Scholar
page 51 note 5 Boynton, Lindsay, The Elizabethan Militia 1558–1638 (London, 1967), pp. 105–7Google Scholar, gives a general description of the duties of the muster-master with the militia. Much of what follows is based on Dr. Boynton's valuable study. For a contemporary comment on the duties of the muster-master with the militia, see a statement by the Earl of Hertford, who served as lord-lieutenant of Wiltshire and Somerset during the reign of James I, in The Earl of Hertford's Lieutenancy Papers 1603–1612, ed. by W. P. D. Murphy (Wiltshire Rec. Soc., Devizes, 1969) p. 103.Google Scholar
page 51 note 6 See the introduction in Boynton, , The Elizabethan Militia.Google Scholar
page 51 note 7 Ibid., p. 226.
page 51 note 8 The Earl of Hertford's Lieutenancy Papers, ed. Murphy, pp. 103–4.Google Scholar
page 51 note 9 Boynton, , The Elizabethan Militia, p. 291.Google Scholar
page 52 note 10 Cruickshank, C. G., Elizabeth's Army (2nd ed., Oxford, 1966), p. 136Google Scholar. See also pp. 140–41 for an account of how captains used false musters to defraud the government during Elizabeth's Irish wars.
page 52 note 11 A Conference of a Good and Bad Muster-maister, … in Foure Paradoxes, or politique Discourses. Concerning MiKtarie Discipline, written long since by Thomas Digges, Esquire. Of the worthiness of warre and warriours, by Dudly Digges, his sonne (London, 1604).Google Scholar
page 52 note 12 Concerning payment of the muster-master with the army, Markham writes: ‘It is against the honour of this Offycers place to take the valewe of a Pennye from any Captaine or Souldier more then the Fees due unto his place, Neyther may he Receyve that privatlie and Concealed, as thoughe it brought a Benevollence with it; But publiquelie and in open shewe that the world may say, This he deservethe.’ (38r.) The comparable passage in Digges is as follows: ‘This Officer will not accept penny nor penni-worth of any Captaine, or Souldier, more, than the fee due to his Office, and that not as a benevolence secretly, but as his due openly.’ (p. 33.) Markham's use of Digges could account for the stylistic differences between chapter four and the rest of the text.
page 55 note 1 Vegetius's Four books of martial policy was a principal source of medieval and renaissance opinion on Roman military practices. Markham clearly derived much of his information on the Romans from Vegetius, although he was not an unqualified admirer of Greek and Roman practices. Dr. D. M. Loades notes that Sir Thomas Wyatt the Younger used both Polybius and Vegetius in his treatise on the militia, but that he, too, was free from excessive dependence on ancient writers; The Papers of George Wyatt Esquire, ed. Loades, D. M., Camden 4th Series, v (London, 1968), p. 163.Google Scholar
page 56 note 2 Dr. Boynton (The Elizabethan Militia, p. 180Google Scholar) suggests that the fees paid to the muster-master during the latter part of Elizabeth's reign were increasing. As an example he cites the salary of the Hampshire muster-master which had risen to £80. In the reign of James I the fee requested for the Somerset mustermaster was £115, while the Wiltshire muster-master's salary was about £60; The Earl of Hertford's Lieutenancy Papers, ed. Murphy, pp. 11–12Google Scholar. Against this trend towards higher remuneration must be set the fact that the mustermasters' fees were seldom paid.
page 57 note 3 This appears to be an enormously inflated figure. For example, there were only seven deputy lieutenants for both Somerset and Wiltshire in 1601, a figure which rose to 11 in 1610–11; Earl of Hertford's Lieutenancy Papers, p. 9Google Scholar. See also Thomson, Gladys Scott, ‘The Origin and Growth of the Office of Deputy Lieutenant’, Trans. Royal Hist. Soc., 4th series, v, p. 164.Google Scholar
page 57 note 4 Terence, Andria, Act I, sc. 1, line 99.
page 59 note 5 The last sentence of this paragraph seems out of context, although there is no break in the manuscript.
page 59 note 6 Meaning unclear.
page 59 note 7 Presumably Markham is referring to those who argued that the repeal of the statutes of 1558 regarding obligations to provide arms and attend musters destroyed the legal basis of assessments for the militia and the muster-master fee, see Hertford's comment to James I in The Earl of Hertford's Lieutenancy Papers, p. 103.Google Scholar
page 60 note 8 Inserted with a caret over conning, which is crossed out.
page 60 note 9 I have been unable to discover if this is a classical quotation.
page 61 note 10 A blank space of about half a line follows nothing.
page 61 note 11 Embarked?
page 62 note 12 Cruickshank, C. G., Elizabeth's Army (2nd ed., Oxford, 1966), pp. 184–8Google Scholar, gives a summary of legislation relating to maimed soldiers.
page 63 note 13 For additional information concerning the arms and armour of the soldiers discussed by Markham in this and subsequent paragraphs, see Hewitt, John, Ancient Armour and Weapons in Europe (Graz, 1967; reprint of 1860 edition), iii, passim.Google Scholar
page 63 note 14 The scribe has written Bricker; tricker is a form of trigger.
page 63 note 15 The scribe has written Bragoone; the dragon was a cavalry pistol used in the early 17th century, Boynton, The Elizabethan Militia, p. xvi.Google Scholar
page 66 note 16 An old soldier. See also a quotation from The Art of Archerie in Poyntcr, F. N. L., A Bibliography of Gervase Markham, 1568–1637 (Oxford, 1962), p. 186.Google Scholar
page 67 note 17 Possibly a quotation from Virgil; see Eclogue vi, 11. 3–4.Google Scholar
page 68 note 18 The Netherlands.
page 69 note 19 Excercise has been crossed out and an illegible word in the first hand has been inserted; see Introduction, p. 49, note 3.
page 69 note 20 See The Souldiers Accidence, or an Introduction Into Military Discipline … (London, 1635), pp. 1–2.Google Scholar
page 72 note 21 See Poynter, , Bibliography, p. 186.Google Scholar
page 73 note 22 Illegible word inserted over a caret.