NEADE, William

by William Neade

£6,750 · Offered by Sokol Books

A very good copy, with the rare folding sheet Obiections against the vse of the bovv vvith the pike: and the answers thereunto , of this beautifully illustrated and most interesting work. Neade's double-armed man carried a hybrid pike-cum-bow which he proposed would be a more efficient weapon than the pike on its own. A year before the publication of this work, Neade presented the manuscript to Charles I, who commanded that the author should exhibit his new weapon in St James's Park, in his presence; which was done. Neade petitioned the king to make the use of his new invention compulsory, and he and his son were shortly after authorised by proclamation to instruct all those who are fit to exercise arms in the use of the weapon: especially the chiefe officers and all others of our Trayned-bands. The author commences with a short history of the occasions on which the bow has been successfully employed in battle, and attempts to refute the objections which had been made against it. His opinion of gunpowder, may be gathered from the following passage: Amongst all which, Bartholdus Swart, the Franciscan Fryer, with his most devillish Invention of Gunpowder, is the most damnable, and from hell itself invented. He gives the range of an arrow at from 18 to 20 score yards, and says that six of them could be discharged in the time it took to load and fire one musket. The chief advantage of his combination of bow and Pike was that pikemen, by using their bows, would be able to take par

• Binding: Hardcover

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