by Smith, Skye
Matchlocks were the earliest pistols, so named because the trigger lever moves a pre-lit match-cord-fuse to ignite the gunpowder in a priming pan beside a small vent in the side of the breach of the barrel. The priming flash goes through the vent and sets off the gunpowder in the breach, which launches the load. Advantages: Cheap to make.
Disadvantages: Had to keep the match-cord glowing. Priming pan was open so the powder could blow away or get wet.
Hammer pistols replaced the matchlocks because they replaced the glowing match-cord with a sprung lever called a 'cock' which held a flint in a 'dog' jaw and thus looked like a hammer. When the trigger was pulled the cock was released and the spring drove the flint down onto a steel plate above the priming pan which showered sparks down to light the powder. During the first half of the 1600's there were many designs and innovations until the need for simplicity and utility evolved what became known as the Flintlock.
These are locks in the evolution of the flintlock (whether for pistols or muskets).
Snap-lock - had a sprung cock and a flint dog and a cover over the priming pan, but there was no safety and the cover had to be opened manually before pulling the trigger.
Doglock - a Snap-lock with a separate 'dog' lever as a safety to hold the cock while loading or waiting to fire.
Snaphaunce - a Doglock with a separate (complicated) mechanism that opened the pan cover when the trigger was pulled.
Flintlock - a Snap-lock with a frizzen, which combined pan cover with sparking steel so the cover would be pushed open at exactly the right instant by the force of the flint dog hitting the steel. It could be half-cocked against a notch or a lever for safer loading. Although there were many different styles the underlying design lasted for over two hundred years.
Wheellocks first appeared about the same time as the earliest 'hammer' locks, and were a technical breakthrough, courtesy of clockmakers. Rather than having a flint on a moving lever hitting a fixed steel, they had a fixed flint ground by a rotating steel wheel. Although they solved the 'bad weather' deficiencies of the matchlocks, they were complex and expensive to make. Despite this and the continuous evolution of the 'hammer' locks, they were slow to die out because they were prized by gentlemen.
Due to the internal clockworks, wheel lock pistols could be made small and were easily concealed in clothing. They were the first choice of assassins because they could be made without jagged edges that could snag threads when drawn quickly out of a pocket. In 1580, the protestant leader of Holland, William the Silent, became the first politician to be assassinated using a pistol ... a wheellock pistol loaded with three balls.
In a wheellock, the simplistic trigger lever of the matchlock was replaced by a complex mechanism of levers, wheels, shafts, cams, springs, pivots, and fool's gold. The priming pan had a protective cover to keep the powder intact and dry. Iron Pyrite (not flint, which was too hard) was held in the jaw of a 'dog' which was pushed against a notched steel striking wheel by a spring. When the wheel was spun, the pan cover opened, the pyrite sparked against the wheel, and the powder in the priming pan was lit.
In the simplest of wheellocks, the wheel was spun directly by the pulling the trigger ... so the faster the better. The trigger had a simple safety catch which stopped it from moving. In a complex wheellock, the wheel is spun by a clock-style mainspring so must first be cocked. Because of the strength of the mainspring, the trigger release mechanism was complicated, and an extra lever was needed to cock the spring, and a complicated safety was needed to prevent the spring from being released accidentally. With so many small internal moving parts, it was difficult to clean and too unreliable for battlefield conditions.
8. What was aqua vitae?
When Henry VIII disbanded the English monasteries, the fleeing monks spread the secrets of how to distill liquor (aka "water of life", "aqua vitae", "aquavit", or "uisce beatha" in Gaelic). The Dutch brewed malt wine and distilled it into Genever (Gin). Unlike modern clear Gins, early Gin was more like a tawny-colored moonshine with a bit of juniper berry juice added to mask the murky taste of the malt.
The Irish eventually copied the Dutch method and created "uisce" pronounced whiskey. Instead of using juniper juice to make it more palatable, they used the taste of peat, and stored it in used barrels with other tastes. Early whiskeys were just as raw as early Genever. The Irish then taught the Scots how to make it. The Scots immediately declared that they invented whisky, which is true only of their penny pinching way of abbreviating the word by leaving out the 'e'.
9. What was the 'Good Old Cause'?
The Good Old Cause was an ideal that became wishfully popular in hindsight after the corrupt Stuart regime regained power under Charles Two. It was a longing by the British folk for the original revolutionary purity that had been intrinsically republican and good ... the Cause of common right and freedom.
It is not to be confused with the 'Grand Old Party' which is the longing of American Republican Party members for the old days when the party was first formed by anti-slavery activists and had a cause that was pure and good.
10. Why is a novel about the Civil War set in the Fens?
The Fens of today bear little resemblance to the wild forest marshlands of pre-drainage times. Originally they were a vast, safe natural nursery for sea creatures and birds. They were also a safe place for peasant rebels to hide because horsemen were at the disadvantage in the marshes. This explains why Ely was used by Hereward the Wake in his rebellion against Norman knights.
Since the marshlands were unsuitable for the farming methods of noble estates, the villages of cottagers and commoners survived countless royal regimes and with them survived the Nordic Teutonic traditions, including the tradition of (in-)common land and its communal use. The villagers of the Fens were not just farmers and herdsmen, but foresters, hunters, fishermen, fowlers and peat miners ... depending on the season and their apportioned right to the common land. That is until the Stuart regime needed to raise money but could not create a new tax without Parliament's permission.
Supposedly by ancient tradition, a villager could 'enclose' and claim a parcel of common land for his house and garden by building a house, a hearth, and a wall around the kitchen garden all between sunrise and sunset ... and therefore a very small house and garden. This was balanced by another oral tradition where if that plot of land was left vacant and unworked for a period of time, then someone else with a good use for it could squat on it, and improve it to claim it.
A form of this ancient oral tradition was written into statutes by the Stuart regime and used to claim large parcels of common by enclosing them by long fences and walls, or in marshlands with dykes and drainage canals. This was privatization of public assets for the profit of the ruling class. Not only did they steal traditional land from the poor, and increase its sale value by drying it out, but they separated the poor from their livelihoods which created a new source of cheap labour to do more enclosures. No thought at all was given to the effect of the drainage on the vast nesting areas of wild fish and fowl.
When the villages and cotters rebelled and rioted against drainage enclosures, they were read the riot act and imprisoned or put under bonds of good behaviour. Some of the religious sects, such as the digger communists and the levelers, argued that if the tradition of enclosure could be expanded, then so could the tradition of squatting, and claimed unused farmland of great estates by working it themselves.
Just as Hereward the Wake became the spokesman for the Fen's folk who rebelled against the Norman regime, they found a spokesmen when they rebelled against the Stuart regime. His name was Oliver Cromwell, an educated Fens gentleman who had aspirations in politics and therefore stepped forward to state the cotter's case in the king's courts.
The Stuart regime was most displeased when Cromwell made trouble, so they financially ruined him and threatened him with prison if he said anything more against the enclosures, which crushed him to the point of suicide. He became a poor farmer himself, an
d learned first hand the importance of communal land to a cotter village. Ten years later, while working as a titheman in Ely, God's light led him back into politics, and he was elected as the Member of Parliament from Cambridge.
The Stuart regime's privatization of public land in the Fens had a major effect on the British Civil War. A war that began as a religious arguement, and became a civil war between the wealthy aristocrats and wealthy merchants, then became a popular rebellion seeking land reform. The cotters and levelers swelled the ranks of the Model Army, which under Cromwell's command defeated the Royalists and became the political power which demanded land reform, a republic, and the execution of the Charles.
11. How widespread was the practice of enclosure (privatization for profit) of public land?
If you want to search out the history of enclosure and the privatization of commons, then use 'clearances' as the search key. A clearance is when the original stakeholders of the communal land are starved, sickened, wounded, killed, transported, enslaved, or otherwise exterminated so that the land can be privatized. These stakeholders tend to be clanfolk or tribal folk because it is those traditional oral cultures that hold the bulk of their productive land in-common.
Clearances, enclosure, privatization, and theft are euphemisms for what conquerors have always done. Roman Caesars, especially Julius, Augustus, and Claudius, 'privatized' communal land and gave it to their soldiers as a reward for clearing the tribal cultures.
William the Conqueror brought feudal privatization schemes to England when he enacted his Forest Law. Under this law he claimed a third of England as his own estate, and then starved the clans into accepting serfdom. It was the largest real estate swindle in British history, a swindle that has yet to be reversed.
The first European settlers in the New World did the same thing, only their task was made easier when nine in ten tribal people died of the diseases they introduced, especially measles. Another example is the westward expansion of the USA into native territories, as is the Highland Clearances in Scotland. The pattern was the same. Steal the land by 'deeds' of legal trickery and 'clear' the locals.
It is still going on today in the tropical rainforests, and in the great boreal forests of Russia and Canada. It thrives in any nation where banking fraud has created a public debt crisis, or where corrupt bankers are being rescued by the privatization of public land and mineral assets by politicians whose careers were funded by bankers, mining cartels, and oil cartels.
12. Who are the Frisians of the Fens?
From Pre-Roman times, the Frisians have been the seafaring folk who live on the islands and in the marshlands of the Wadden Sea which runs along the North Sea coast of the Netherlands, Germany, and western Denmark. Their ships traded all around the North Sea including the east coast of the Britain. Their language became the lingua franca of North Sea trade, and thus influenced many other languages, especially Old English.
The Frisians are mostly ignored by British historians because in the eighth century there was a general acceptance of the label Anglo-Saxon. This, despite the earlier Greco-Roman historian Procopius stating that Britain was settled by three races: the Angiloi, Frisones, and Britons; and despite the English language being firmly rooted in Frisian.
We'll never know why Anglo-Saxon was chosen over the more correct Anglo-Frisian, but one explanation is that Anglo-Saxon distinguished the Germanic tribes living in Britain from those living in the Germanies. Another explanation is that Frisian's rarely built in stone, for their silty, marshy lands had no quarries. History tends to remember stone monuments better than wooden ships.
The Frisians settled in their homeland along the Wadden Sea because of the rich biodiversity (which modern drainage has destroyed in the Fens), and because the marshy islands secured them from attack from drylander raiders and armies until the Napoleonic diaspora. The (now drained) marshland islands of the Fens of eastern Britain would be a logical choice for Frisian settlers.
While the Norse were known for their fast warships (Dragonships), the Frisian's were known for their efficient trading ships. It was the Frisian Cog design that made the Norse longships redundant. Not only were Frisian ships lauded for their shape, quality, and functionality, but so were their horses, cattle, and women.
They were (are) a stubborn and fiercely independent people. While the other Germanic peoples were being conquered and forced into serfdom by feudal lords, kings, and emperors, the Frisians continued the good old cause of individual rights and freedoms in which everyone had a say. A freedom they kept due to the seaworthiness of their ships and the safety of their marsh islands.
13. What did religion have to do with Stuart politics?
Well ... everything.
King Charles wanted to be an absolute ruler, which meant without the help of Parliament, and with the help of his appointed Bishops. By not calling a parliament into session for a dozen years and by controlling religion centrally through his bishops, he was looking very much like an old style Catholic King. The result was that outspoken Presbyterians and Puritans organized themselves politically, and when parliament was eventually called into session, they were sent as the members.
14. What were the main religious groups of Britain?
Henry VIII replaced the Pope as the head of the Church of England, but the church still had bishops and liturgies, and was known as High Anglican rather than Catholic. By the end of the Tudor regime many of the parishioners considered themselves Protestant Calvinist.
A Presbyterian was a politically aware Calvinist who did not want the church centrally ruled by bishops appointed by the state. Church rule by bishops is called episcopy, as in Episcopalian. By the 1630's, the Church of Scotland was controlled by Presbyterians, and the Church of England was heavily influenced by them.
Politically extreme Presbyterians wanted each church to be run communally by the local congregation. They were known as Dissenters or Independents and included what would become the Congregationalists, Baptists, Anabaptists, Brownists as well as non-'ists' like the Quakers, Mennonites, and Diggers.
Religiously extreme Presbyterians wanted to get rid of Catholic style Liturgies (traditional High Church sermons and ceremonies) and were know as Puritans. Puritans who did not attend the Church of England because of the Liturgies were known as Nonconformists or Separatists.
15. So who were the Pilgrims who settled Massachusetts?
The settlers on the two ships Mayflower and Speedwell contained Puritan Nonconformists and Brownist Independents. Pilgrim was not the name of their church, but of their quest.
16. Without a sitting parliament, how did the Presbyterians control politics?
Through the printing press and increased literacy. Presbyterian politicians of the day gained votes, gained power, and brought down their opponents by spreading their views via mass leaflet campaigns. Presbyterians were great believers in public education, because they wanted the public to be able to read the bible for themselves, as well as all of the leaflets and pamphlets.
17. What was the First Bishop's War?
King Charles decided that the Church of Scotland should be modeled after the Church of England, including the central control of Bishops, the same prayer book and the same liturgies. The anti-bishop Presbyterians in the Scottish Parliament went bananas and started a massive leaflet campaign against the Bishops. After the leaflets came the signing of petitions. The most forceful petition was called the Covenant so the Scots who signed it were called Covenanters. The bishops were rejected.
The Stuart regime raised an army of militia to send to Scotland to punish the Covenanters. When the amateurish English army reached the border, who did they find staring at them over the River Tweed?
Hundreds of battle-hardened Scottish soldiers who had rushed home from fighting as mercenaries in the Thirty Years War, who were generalled by Alex Leslie, a seasoned Field Marshall. To his credit, Leslie allowed the English army to safely retreat, therefore even though it was called the First Bishop's W
ar, there were almost no casualties of battle.
18. Why was the Battle of the Downs fought in English waters?
In 1635 the Dutch and the French signed a mutual defense treaty against the Spanish and Austrian Hapsburg Empires. This was bad news for the Imperial army in Flanders because it cut them off from being supplied by road across France, and it gave them enemies on all borders. The port of Dunkirk became their supply line, and the role of the Dunkirker privateer fleet switched from one of hounding Dutch merchant ships, to one of protecting Spanish merchant ships.
In 1639, a huge Spanish and Portuguese armada was formed to carry badly needed supplies and reinforcements to Flanders. This armada was very different from the one dispersed by Drake and the lads in 1588. In 1588 the ships were rigged for escorting a convoy of landing barges that had already been assembled in Flanders to invade England, and were therefore battle ready. In 1639, the armada ships were weighed down with troops and supplies and were not battle ready.
When the armada was spotted by a squadron of Dutch warships off the coast of Calais, the Spanish did not want to engage them because their mission was to deliver an army, not fight warships. Instead they turned and fled to the Downs on the South coast of England near Deal, for the Stuart regime was officially neutral and had peace treaties with everyone, including the Spanish. In truth, a dozen of the troop carriers had been leased from the English.
The armada claimed the protection of the gun forts around Deal, and of the English navy which, despite the sorry state of the English army, was still formidable (although it spent most of its time chasing pirates and smugglers). The armada was granted safe haven, and anchored in the Downs while waiting for the arrival of an escort of Dunkirker ships to protect them from the Dutch navy. The Dutch navy found them and blockaded them in the Downs.