POLITICAL HISTORY Each of the trained companies was armed thus : Men Shott Cortletts Bows Bill* 200 85 cal.' 43 60 20 2O 15 mus. The untrained company was armed in a slightly different manner : Men Shott Corsletts Bows Bills 200 80 60 20 40 The cavalry consisted of the following : Launces, 28 ; Light Horse, 50 ; Petroneles, 26. 244 The levies summoned to resist the Armada were in a very bad state of discipline ; Shrewsbury, the lord-lieutenant, complained to his deputy lieutenants that of the whole band of horsemen in Staffordshire only six were serviceable and furnished as they ought to be. 245 It was the old tale enforcing the old lesson which the English have never learnt, that false economy in peace means extra risk and extra expense in war ; as Leicester wrote to Walsingham : ' Great dilatory wants are found upon all sudden hurly burlies. If the navy had not been strong enough what peril would England now have been in.' 346 Of these inefficient troops Staffordshire furnished the commander-in- chief, Leicester, a man with no military capacity, but he fortunately had at his elbow Sir John Norreys, the one experienced captain available. 247 In the order of 27 June, 1588, to the county levies in England to be ready to go where directed at an hour's notice 248 Staffordshire is not men- tioned, but in August of that year the county was ordered through the lord-lieutenant to furnish 400 foot, and share with Derbyshire in providing thirty-four horsemen to join the Earl of Huntingdon in the north, for the Spanish fleet was said to have landed men at Moray Firth. 249 In October again Staffordshire was one often counties which with London provided 1,500 voluntary soldiers to go to the Low Countries. 250 In 1596 Staffordshire shared with the counties of Warwick, Worcester, Gloucester, and Salop in providing 800 men to go to Calles (Cadiz) in the brilliant expedition of Howard, Essex, and Raleigh, the contingent being ordered to march to Plymouth under Sir Christopher Blunt. 251 In 1599 and 1600 constant levies of men were made in the county for the wars in Ireland, a service which was evidently very unpopular, as many of the men deserted and their places were filled up with much difficulty, a task which the authorities were by no means ready to perform. 252 Under Henry VIII and his three successors a number of old electoral boroughs were revived, and others newly summoned, mainly for the purpose "* Presumably ' cal ' means calivers, which, according to Clepham (Defensive Armour of Mediaeval Times and the Renaissance, 225), means a 'harquebus or light musket, of a standard calibre, introduced into England during Elizabeth's reign, 4ft. loin, in length.' The musket was making its first appearance at this time. 144 Petronel, ' a kind of hand bombard fired by a horseman from a forked rest fixed on the saddle.' When not in use it hung suspended from the rider's neck; Clepham, op. cit. 219. 145 Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. iv, 332. 146 Cal. S.P. Dom. 1581-90, p. 513. '" Innes, England under the Tudors, 362. " 8 Acts ofP.C. 1588, p. 137. 149 Ibid. 231 ; Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xii, App. iv, 259, which says thirty-six launces instead of thirty- four horse. 150 Acts ofP.C. 1588, p. 297. '" Rep. on SaKsbury MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com.), vi, 206. M> Acts ofP.C. 1 599-1600 passim, and Hut. MSS. Com. Rep. xii, App. iv, 276, 279, 331, 333. 253
