Sordsmen The Martial Ethos in the Three Kingdoms [Hardcover]

Based upon a wide range of historical and literary sources,Swordsmenis a scholarly study of the military experiences of peers and gentlemen from the British Isles who volunteered to fight in the religious and dynastic wars of mainland Europe from the English intervention in the Dutch war of independence in 1585 to the death of the soldier-king William III in 1702. This apprenticeship in arms exposed these aristocrats to the chivalric revival, the military revolution and the values of neostoicism, and revived the martial ethos of the English aristocracy and reinvigorated the martial traditions of the Irish and Scots.

Introduction
Part I. Aristocratic Society and Martial Culture 1585-1702
1. Swordsmen, Gownsmen, and Courtiers
2. Honour and Martial Culture
3. The Regulation of Aristocratic Status
4. Gentlemen Volunteers: The Military Education of the Aristocracy
Part II. Martial Culture and the Discourse of Violence 1585-1702
5. Private Warfare and the Language of the Sword
6. Duelling and Martial Culture
7. Duelling and Authority
8. Conclusion
Bibliography
Index

Roger Manning'sSwordsmenis a thoroughly researched and richly detailed study of the remilitarization of the English aristocracy from the late Elizabethan years to the early eighteenth century. Thematically reiterative and full of interesting illustrative stories, it features the transition of the three kingdoms, England, Scotland, and Ireland, from second and third-rate European nations to a coalescing unified great power. --Renaissance Quarterly

[An] elegant and reader-friendly book...MeanwhileSwordsmenremains consistently, interesting and thought-provoking, and leads the reader to look forward to the second volume of the enterprise. --Albion

Swordsman is a valuable and worthwhile monograph that consolidates a convincing body of evidence for the re-emergence ol³6