THE DEFENCE OF THE REALME.
The Defence of the Realms. By Sir Henry Knyvett, 1596. With Introduction by Charles Hughes. (Clarendon Press. 5s. net.)— Sir Henry Knyvett, of Charlton, near Malmesbury, drew up his scheme for the organisation of the Militia with an especial reference to his own county of Wiltshire. As Mr. Hughes puts it, "the general idea of Knyvett's pamphlet is that if the man- hood of England were properly organised the country might be made safe against invasion." The bearing of the case on present- day problems is direct. Sir Henry, from whom the families of Lord Suffolk—still in the same place—and the Bakes of New- castle and Rutland are descended, shows himself very zealous in the matter. It is curious to see that his weapon is the longbow. His numbers are somewhat strange. He gives the figures for three Wiltshire hundreds, and makes them to be 8,676 of men between eighteen and fifty, while the lads (ten to eighteen) are 3,698, and the old (fifty to seventy-five) are 1,316. The lads' number is nearly three times too large, and the old men's half as large again as it should be. But then he tells us that Richard II. in the " Eighth years of his Reigns did joye in the appearance and muster before him of three hundred thousand horsemen" ! The book as a whole is exceedingly interesting as well as curious, and Mr. Hughes deserves the gratitude of students, not only of history but of military science, for his discovery of Sir Henry Knyvett's pamphlet.
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