Memoirs of a Cavalier<br />A Military Journal of the Wars in Germany, and the Wars in England.<br /> by Daniel Defoe (best romantic books to read TXT) 📕

for the date, which should be 17th of September, and the numbers on both sides which he exaggerates, the Cavalier's account of the battle of Leipsic is fairly accurate.

p. 61, l. 39. Cuirassiers were heavy cavalry wearing helmet and cuirass (two plates fastened together for the protection of the breast and back).

p. 65, l. 10. Crabats is an old form of Croats the name of the inhabitants of Croatia.

p. 66, l. 38. Rix dollar is the English form of Reichsthaler or imperial dollar.

p. 67, l. 6. "Husband" is here used in the sense of "thrifty person."

p. 69, l. 18. A ducat was a gold coin generally worth about nine shillings.

p. 70, l. 29. This passage describes the conquest of the string of ecclesiastical territories known as the "Priest's Lane."

p. 71, l. 23. A partisan was a military weapon used by footmen in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and not unlike the halberd in form.

p. 73, l. 10. "Bastion" is the name given to certain projecting portions of a fortified building.

p. 78, l. 23. The Palatinate (divided into Upper and Lower) was a Protestant state whose elector, the son-in-law of James I, had been driven out by the Emperor in 1620.

p. 79, l. 11. Reformado: A military term borrowed from the Spanish, signifying an officer who, for some disgrace is deprived of his command but retains his rank. Defoe uses it to describe an officer not having a regular command.

p. 81, l. 15. Frederick, Elector Palatine, had been elected King by the Protestants of Bohemia in opposition to the Emperor Ferdinand. It was his acceptance of this position which led to the confiscation of his Palatinate together with his new kingdom.

p. 81, l. 24. James I had, after much hesitation, sent in 1625 an expedition to the aid of the Elector, but it had miscarried. Charles I was too much occupied at home to prosecute an active foreign policy.

p. 81, l. 35. The Elector died in the same year as Gustavus Adolphus. His son Charles Lewis was restored to the Lower Palatinate only, which was confirmed to him at the end of the war in 1648.

p. 82, l. 3. The battle of Nieuport, one of the great battles between Holland and Spain, was fought in 1600 near the Flemish town of that name. Prince Maurice won a brilliant victory under very difficult conditions.

p. 82, l. 30. A ravelin is an outwork of a fortified building.

p. 86, l. 16. It was the attempt in 1607 to force Catholicism on the Protestants of the free city of Donauwörth which led to the formation of the Protestant Union in 1608.

p. 87, l. 9. The Duringer Wald.—Thuringia Wald.

p. 97, l. 29. Camisado (fr. Latin Camisia=a shirt) is generally used to denote a night attack.

p. 98, l. 4. Note the inconsistency between this statement of the Cavaliers interest in the curiosities at Munich and his indifference in Italy where he had "no gust to antiquities."

p. 99, l. 7. Gustavus Adolphus had entered Nuremberg March 1631. Wallenstein was now bent on re-taking it.

p. 100, l. 29. The Cavalier's enthusiasm for Gustavus Adolphus leads to misrepresentation. The Swedish king has sometimes been blamed for failing to succour Magdeburg.

p. 101, l. 23. Redoubts are the most strongly fortified points in the temporary fortification of a large space.

p. 107, l. 13. The Cavalier glosses over the fact that Gustavus Adolphus really retreated from his camp at Nuremberg, being practically starved out, as Wallenstein refused to come to an engagement.

p. 110, l. 38. Though the honours of war in the battle of Lützen went to the Swedes it is probable that they lost more men than did the Imperialists.

p. 113, l. 37. The battle of Nördlingen was one of the decisive battles of the war. It restored to the Catholics the bishoprics of the South which Gustavus Adolphus had taken.

p. 114, l. 39. The title "Infant" or "Infante" belongs to all princes of the royal house in Spain. The Cardinal Infant really brought 15000 men to the help of the Emperor.

p. 116, l. 37. The King of Hungary had succeeded to the command of the imperial army after the murder of Wallenstein in 1634.

p. 119, l. 34. The treaty of Westphalia in 1648 ended the Thirty Years' War by a compromise. The Emperor recognised that he could have no real authority in matters of religion over the states governed by Protestant princes, North Germany remained Protestant, the South, Catholic.

p. 120, l. 11. This statement is an anachronism. Prince Maurice of Nassau the famous son of William the Silent died in 1625.

p. 120, l. 39. The Netherlands belonged to Spain in the seventeenth century but revolted. The Northern provinces which were Protestant won their independence, the Southern provinces which were Catholic (modern Belgium) submitted to Spain on conditions.

p. 121, l. 19. The siege of Ostend, then in the hands of the Dutch, was begun in July 1601 and came to an end in September 1604, when the garrison surrendered with the honours of war.

p. 122, l. 31. In 1637 Laud had tried to force a new liturgy on Scotland but this had been forcibly resisted. In 1638 the National Covenant against "papistry" was signed by all classes in Scotland. In the same year episcopacy was abolished there and Charles thereupon resolved to subdue the Scots by arms. This led to the first "Bishops' War" of 1639 which the Cavalier proceeds to describe.

p. 126, l. 4. Mercenaries (soldiers who fought in any army for the mere pay) were chiefly drawn from Switzerland in the seventeenth century.

p. 127, l. 38. By the Treaty of Berwick signed in June 1638 Charles consented to allow the Scotch to settle their own ecclesiastical affairs. When they again resolved to abolish episcopacy he broke his word and in 1640 the Second "Bishops' War" took place. It was the expenses of these wars which forced Charles to call parliament again.

p. 135, l. 34. It was the English Prayer Book with some slight changes that Laud had attempted to impose on the Scotch.

p. 137, l. 31. Charles had in fact called the "Short Parliament" to meet between these two expeditions but had quarrelled with it and dissolved it.

p. 138, l. 7. The Scotch had no real part in the death of the King. The Presbyterians indeed upheld monarchy though not as Charles understood it.

p. 140, l. 26. The Long Parliament of 1640 passed an act by which it could not be dissolved without its own consent.

p. 143, l. 4. The Treaty of Ripon (October 1640) left Northumberland and Durham in the hands of the Scotch until the King should be able to pay the £850 a day during their stay in England which he promised them.

p. 143, l. 9. The permanent treaty signed in 1641 gave consent to all the demands of the Scotch, including their freedom to abolish episcopacy.

p. 143, l. 29. The Earl of Stafford had been the chief supporter of Charles' method of government without parliament. He was executed in 1641 and Laud suffered the same fate in 1645.

p. 144, l. 21. By the "Grand Remonstrance" the parliament tried to seize on the royal power.

p. 146, l. 13. The "gentry" of England were not, of course, all on the Royalist side. Many of them, and some of the nobility, fought for the parliament, though it is true that the majority were for the King.

p. 151, l. 27. In 1643 by the Solemn League and Covenant the Scotch consented to help parliament against the King on condition that Presbyterianism should be adopted as the English state religion.

p. 159, l. 33. The left wing was under the command of Lord Wilmot.

p. 170, l. 36. Leicester was taken by the King in 1645.

p. 180, l. 28. The Cavalier ascribes to himself the part taken by Prince Maurice (the brother of Prince Rupert) and Lord Wilmot in bringing aid to Hopton.

p. 187, l. 29. It was the King rather than the parliamentarians who was anxious to give battle. The Royalists barred the way to London.

p. 189, l. 32. See note to p. 61, l. 39.

p. 192, l. 29. The parliamentarians certainly won a victory at the second battle of Newbury.

p. 194, l. 2. The Scotch nobles, alarmed at the violence of the parliamentarians, supported Charles in the second civil war (1648), and after his death Scotland recognised Charles II as King. Cromwell however conquered their country.

p. 194, l. 27. In 1641 a great Irish rebellion had followed the recall of Strafford who had been Lord Lieutenant of that country.

p. 195, l. 12. It was not until 1645, when his cause was declining in England, that Charles determined to seek direct help from the Irish. This he did in the Glamorgan Treaty of that year by which he agreed to the legal restoration of Catholicism in Ireland. But the Treaty was discovered by the Parliament and Charles denied any knowledge of it.

p. 196, l. 11. The "Grand Seignior" was the name generally given to the Sultan of Turkey.

p. 197, l. 5. William Prynne was the famous Puritan lawyer whose imprisonment by the Star Chamber had made him one of the heroes of Puritanism. George Buchanan was the famous Scotch scholar from whom James I had derived much of his learning.

p. 197, l. 28. The dates are given both according to our present mode of reckoning and according to the old system by which the year commenced on 25th March.

p. 198, l. 6. The Scots besieged Newcastle for nine months, not merely a few days as the Cavalier relates.

p. 202, l. 39. The great Spanish general, the Duke of Parma, went to the relief of Paris which was in the hands of the Catholics and was being besieged by the then Protestant Henry of Navarre in 1590.

p. 204, l. 9. As pointed out in the introduction the Cavalier's account of the disposition of forces in this battle is inaccurate.

p. 205, l. 27. It was really Rupert's hitherto unconquered cavalry which was thus borne down by Cromwell's horse.

p. 216, l. 4. A posset was a drink of milk curdled with an acid liquid.

p. 219, l. 40. The Grisons are the people of one of the Swiss Cantons.

p. 222, l. 36. Newcastle was not retaken by Rupert.

p. 230, l. 8. By the Self-Denying Ordinance of 1645 all members of Parliament were compelled to resign their commands. This rid the parliamentarians of some of their most incapable commanders. Exception was made in favour of Cromwell who was soon appointed Lieutenant General.

p. 230, l. 17. On the "New Model" the armies of the parliamentary side were reorganized as a whole, made permanent, and given a uniform and regular pay.

p. 231, l. 15. It was not only the ecclesiastical conditions laid down by the parliamentarians at the Treaty of Uxbridge which determined the King's refusal. He was asked besides taking the Covenant to surrender the militia.

p. 243, l. 26. The estates of many of the Cavalier gentlemen were forfeited. Some were allowed to "compound," i.e. to keep part of their estates on payment of a sum of money.

p. 253, l. 32. Montrose had created a Royalist party in Scotland and was fighting there for the King.

p. 258, l. 1. The "forlorn" was a body of men sent in advance of an expedition.

p. 272, l. 21. After the defeat of the Royalists dissension arose between the parliament and the army and naturally the army was able to coerce the parliament.

p. 274, l. 2. Cornet Joyce secured the person of the King by the order of Cromwell, the idol of the army.

p. 274, l. 26. The Cavalier exaggerates the likelihood of an understanding between the King and the parliament. In reality Charles was merely playing off one party against the other.

p. 275, l. 7. In January 1648 parliament had passed a vote of "No Addresses," renouncing any further negotiation with the King, but after the second civil war of that year (in which the Presbyterians joined the King) they resumed them again in the Treaty of Newport. The army however became more violent, and the result was the forcible exclusion of all moderate members of parliament in "Pride's Purge," December 1648. The trial and execution of the King followed.

p. 275, l. 35. The Cavalier refers to the acts of retaliation which followed the Restoration of Charles II.

p. 276, l. 27. There were many republicans among the "Independents" or "Sectaries"