it's been welcome to the Royal Armouries
my name is David and part of the
education team and today I'm taking you
along to our civil war gallery where
I'll be inducting a tour looking at some
of the soldiers we find on the English
Civil War battlefield we're going to
start off by looking at our cavalry men
the men have charged in on horseback now
we're going to start off by looking at
the heavy cavalry which is over here
medieval knights and you'd be right in
thinking that it's very very similar in
armor styles however there are some big
differences the biggest difference being
this armor here is if that musket ball
proof unlike that of the medieval knight
how do we know it's musket ball proof
well they write it down for us it's very
helpless all their books and letters but
if you need to see the evidence yourself
you can even see the dent upon the armor
now on this one over here there are two
deaths from the breastplate but
interestingly enough there's one on here
as well a dent on the breastplate and
one either tacet now true this could be
the result of some remarkable
marksmanship by some savvy musketeer on
the battlefield
however we think is from a process known
as proofing what is proofing well
proofing is when your armor is put to
his test you see this stuff here comes
to a great deal of money a huge
investment and well he wouldn't work if
we hand over your cash so you ask the
armor to prove it to do this he'll bring
it arm out in front of you you'll draw
his pistol you're pointed point-blank at
the armor he's just made you and but
you'll shoot that arm now the bounces
are fantastic hand over the cash march
after battle knowing that you're well
protected if it goes through ask for a
discount I suppose I mean if you're
loving this stuff around and it's not
protecting you it's really a lot of dead
weight
most of these armors will weigh anywhere
between 5 to 7 stone an incredible way
to
around the battlefield now there's a
fantastic story about how unstoppable at
Karachi air could be on the battlefield
this comes from a man known as Richard
activist now Richard Adkins is a
Royalist cavalier and he's charging
towards the parliamentarian gracias he
spots the enemy general of cavalry so as
he charges towards the covering him the
general
draws his first pistol shoots at Richard
and misses so the general draws his
second pistol shoots at Richard again he
misses again
now Richard being clever waits the very
last moment he charges into the general
placed the pistol against the chest and
fires point-blank into it he then
brought the pistol away and rides off
thinking that he's got his man however
when he turns around
oh he fires the general is completely
unharmed so of course he takes his
second pistol he draws it the musket
ball bounces clean off so this arm
ourselves why it's two reasons really
far to make a few men could afford it
faster you think of where it's
incredibly heavy is incredibly expensive
and it just falls out of favor really
now this leads to the making changes to
their armor helmet and we end up with
light cavalry otherwise known as the
heart Kabul see a hardcover Sierra has a
breastplate still musket ball proof just
a lot less of it there's a new type of
how we know it's a three-bar part
because of the one two three bars on the
face and it's also introducing what is
known as a buff coat now the buff Pro is
a very thick leather jacket is superb
against sword you cannot cut
but it is not very good against a
musket-ball in fact you get hit by a
musket ball will go into you how to
being dragged off the cloak through you
it's really unpleasant however you are
cheaper you are lighter you are more
maneuverable and this became the far
more popular type of armor that you
would find in this Civil War battlefield
so we spoke about a lot of the armor
here but two of my favorite pieces of
armor in this cabinet are these two
things down here we've got down there
there and you'll be forgiven too of all
past those without even looking at them
they're very boring of you however
they're very interesting they are both
known as secrets and their job is for
one thing and one thing alone and that
is to look good you see if you want to
look your best on the English Civil War
battlefield you must take your largest
and feather rheostat however birds you
can imagine not very good against the
sword even worse against the musket so
what you do is you take your secret made
out iron or steel you place it upon your
head and place your hat upon the secret
and voila
good ride into battle looking absolutely
gorgeous but knowing that you got a
little bit ahead protection as well and
it is strictly a fashion item not
three-bar pi is going to protect you far
better than that secret you only look
half as good in the portrait now we've
spoken about the armor what about the
weapons well the cavalry moon were
riding in using pistols and carbines and
blunderbusses these were the new lance
for the cavalry one of the English Civil
War
now the pistol they were using is quite
simple but quite long-winded when it
comes to explaining how it works so the
first thing to do with a flintlock
pistol of the time period is to load it
and to load it you need to first pull
back the hammer to half which is
where the saying comes from going off
half-cocked and that enables you to load
the pistol without the trooper being
sensitive it means they will never ever
fire it in this position now that
exposes your pan which is this bit here
now the pan you'll fill with your
priming powder once you've done that you
close your pan cover and now the
potential priming powder from getting
blown away by the wind stops again wet
in the rain stops it falling out when
you do this you got to do this to carry
on reloading your weapon now once you've
done that you're going to take more come
no charge place it down the barrel take
a musket ball which is about the size of
malteaser made out of lead put that down
the barrel and then last but not least
take me to wadding or a bit of cloth and
you place that down the barrel to now
you remove the scouring stick spin it
around pop it in the barrel and Ram the
charge home to put the thumb and the
finger not with the fists you do it the
fist and thing goes off you end up with
the stick through your hand so remove it
as well that's a very important part the
whole process because you can fire the
pistol with the scouring stick in there
you will skewer a guy spectacularly
however you won't be able to reload your
weapon and quite frankly if this didn't
belong to you which more often than not
it didn't you might be after gonna get a
scouring stick back and there's not a
job you want so put it back where you
found it underneath the barrel and now
the weapon is pretty much ready to fire
there's only one last thing you to do
and those pull the hammer back to full
back there we go now of course
there's no gunpowder
there's no explosive so hopefully we
won't get anything more than a spark if
we do sorry there we go so that spark
was caused by the Finch strike and the
prison wishes that talk which is still
there and it's the spark that will
ignite your priming powder it burns
through a tiny hole known as a touch
hole and then it will ignite your charge
and but you shot your man hopefully now
if I have to take this pistol
I'd almost certainly miss that's
Moctezuma bad shot ignore the
front-of-house staff they spread nasty
rumors okay it's because this thing here
is only affected to ten yards at best
that's why in our story of Richard
places against the man's chest it's the
only way to guarantee a hit now once
they're shot they're shot you might have
a couple of them stored on your saddle
maybe one tucked in your boot but
there's only one thing left to do once
you run out of pistols and that is to
draw your sword now we have two types of
sword during the English Civil War we
have rapier which is a tall slender
sword at the top there and we have our
back sources the chunkier sore at the
bottom now by my side I've got a back
sword now the back sword is a hacking
slashing weapon
it's very weighted in the Blaine it has
a very thick spine or back to it
enabling you to get a great deal of
weight and inertia when you come
crashing down upon your opponent's on
the back of a horse it's got a basket
held upon it which enables your hand to
be very well protected but it does stop
you from using the blade in any other
direction which is another reason why
we've only got that single blade to it
rather than the earlier mariupol sword
had two edges to them now this sword
like I said is designed for slicing
through your opponent and that is very
good it's got a large surface area means
you're more likely to hit your mom
problem is you're dealing with buff
coats you're dealing with armor just
decide to stop cutting weapons now you
might be able to cut into that buck oh
we won't cut through it you might break
the man's bones underneath it but he's
still gonna be attached and that free
bar pop well those three bars of desire
to stop blades coming across the face
and while quite frankly
we love for you there's no way you're
chopping your way through then and
that's what the rapier comes in now the
rapier is much more slender more
delicate of a sword however with the
correct training you can use it very
accurately and is designed not for the
cut but for the thrust that means you
can easily get into the free bar pot you
can even with enough skill bypass the
advisor of a grassy air may be going for
the elbow or in between legs not very
chivalrous but it works now downside of
the rapier is that it's quite a slender
delicate sword and if you are firing
with the back sword you will struggle to
parry the blows the back sword is a
little bit heavier but we're right
amount of skill you should be able to
get past all that another another thing
to note is that the rapier is far more
fashionable so if you want to look your
best
that beautiful portrait that you've had
commissioned where your secret where
your hat
take your rapier and you will look
fabulous for years to come