Arquebuse

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 24 July 1857


First published in The New American Cyclopaedia, Vol. I, 1858
Reproduced from The New American Cyclopaedia
Source : Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 18
Collection(s): New American Cyclopaedia

Arquebuse, sometimes, but incorrectly, written harquebuse, from the French arquebuse, and corrupted in English, particularly on the Scottish borders, into hagbut, or hackbut—the earliest form of the musket, which became really serviceable in the field for military purposes. So long ago as the battle of Bosworth, A.D. 1485,[1] it was introduced under the name of a hand-gun, which was nothing more than a short iron cylinder closed with a quasi-breech at one end, and provided with a touch-hole, fastened to the end of a stout wooden pole, like the handle of a spear or halberd. This hand-gun or miniature cannon was loaded with slugs or small bullets upon a charge of coarse powder, and was discharged by means of a match applied to the vent, the instrument being supported on the shoulder of the front rank man, who was a pikeman or halberdier, and directed by means of the handle, and fired, though of course without any aim, by the rear rank. Even earlier than this, at the battle of Agincourt,[2] according to Hall's chronicle, the Britons were armed "with fiery hand-guns."[3]

So clumsy, however, and slow of operation were these antique firearms, that, in spite of their formidable sound and unaccustomed appearance, they produced little or no effect. In the reign of Henry VIII, although during its earlier years, the battle of Pavia[4] was won by the fire of the Spanish arquebusiers, the longbow still held its own as the superior weapon, in virtue of its accuracy of aim, its range, and penetration; and even in the reign of Elizabeth, the longbow is spoken of as "the queen of weapons," although she had musketeers in her army, and assisted Henry IV, of France, with a body of horse arquebusiers, commanded by Col. James, an ancestor of the well-known novelist.[5] During her reign, this arm was greatly improved, although it was still so long and cumbersome that it could only be fired from a forked rest planted in the earth before the marksman, that indispensable instrument being sometimes furnished with a pike or halberdhead, so as, when set obliquely in the ground, to serve as a palisade.

The barrels of these old pieces are extremely long, of very thick metal, usually small-bored, and sometimes, already, rifled; as is the case with the piece still preserved at Hamilton palace, in Scotland, with which the regent Murray was shot by Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh, in the year 1570. They were fired by means of a coil of match, or wick, of prepared hemp, passed through a hammer, like that of a modern firelock, which, being released by the pulling of the trigger, threw down the lighted match into the pan, and discharged the piece. In due time the matchlock gave way to the wheel-lock, in which the flint was fixed so as to be stationary, over the pan, and a toothed wheel, by means of a spring, was set in rapid motion against its edge, so as to project a shower of sparks into the powder below. To the wheel-lock succeeded the snaphance, as it was called. This was the first uncouth rudiment of the flint and steel lock, which was brought to such perfection by Joseph Manton, and which has only, within a few years, been entirely superseded by the percussion cap, than which it is not easy to imagine a quicker and more infallible instrument of ignition. The snaphance came into use for fine pistols, fowlingpieces, and choice musquetoons, during the English civil wars;[6] but their rarity and high price kept them out of general use, except as the arms of gentlemen and officers of rank, while the matchlock still continued the weapon of the rank and file. It is remarkable that there has been far less advancement than one would have imagined, from the first invention of the improved arquebuse until very recent days, in the mere workmanship of the barrel and the accurate flight of the ball. The difficulty of aiming truly seems to have arisen solely from the defective method of firing, the clumsiness of the piece, and the extreme slowness of the ignition; for many arquebuse barrels of great antiquity, especially those of Spanish manufacture, having been altered to the percussion principle, new-stocked, and properly balanced, are found to shoot with great accuracy and even unusual penetration, at long ranges.

  1. ↑ The battle of Bosworth (Leicestershire, England) on August 22, 1485 was fought between the soldiers of Henry Tudor, distant relative of the House of Lancaster, and the army of Richard III, of the House of York. Richard III was defeated ;ind killed and Henry Tudor was proclaimed King Henry VII. This battle ended the War of the Roses (1455-85) between the House of York, whose emblem was a white rose, and the Lancastrians with a red rose as their emblem.
  2. ↑ The battle of Agincourt (Azincourt) on October 25, 1415 was fought during the Hundred Years' War, a series of wars between England and France lasting from 1337 to 1453, and ended in a victory for the English. The cause of the war was the struggle of the two countries over the possession of the commercial and industrial towns of Flanders, the main consumer of English wool, and the English kings' claims to the French throne. In the first period of the war the English managed to seize a considerable part of Southwestern France, but during the 1360s and 1370s almost the whole of this territory was liberated. In 1415 the English feudal lords resumed hostilities and soon seized all of Northern France, including Paris. However, as a result of a popular war against the foreign invaders, the English were driven out of the whole of France with the exception of Calais.
  3. ↑ E. Halle, The Union of the Two Noble and Illustrate Families of Lancastre & Yorke.—Ed.
  4. ↑ The battle of Pavia (Northern Italy) took place on February 24, 1525 between the armies of Francis I of France, then an ally of Henry VIII of England, and of Charles V (Emperor of Germany and King of Spain). The French were defeated and Francis I himself taken prisoner. The battle was one of the major events in the Italian wars waged (with intervals) from 1494 to 1559 between France, on the one hand, and Spain and the German (Holy Roman) Empire, on the other, over the possession of Italy. As a result of these wars France was forced to give up its claims to Italy, the greater part of which fell into the hands of the Spanish Habsburgs.
  5. ↑ George Payne Rainsford James.— Ed.
  6. ↑ The English civil wars during the bourgeois revolution of the mid-seventeenth century were waged between the Royalists, who strove to restore the absolute power of Charles I, and the Parliamentarians. At the beginning of the first civil war (1642-46) the Parliamentary army, whose leaders favoured compromise with the Royalists, suffered defeats. But after the reorganisation of the armed forces by Oliver Cromwell, and thanks to the activity of the masses, there was a turn in the war and the King was defeated. In the spring of 1648 a second civil war broke out following Royalist revolts and the actions in support of Charles I by the Scottish feudal aristocracy. It ended in August 1648 with new victories by the revolutionary army. In 1649 Charles I was beheaded, and a republic was established in England.