GARRARD, William

Unsophisticated copy of this first edition treatise on war, which has been called ‘the fullest contemporary account of the organization and equipment of 16th century artillery units’ (Webb, 1955, 197). It advertises itself as ‘the onely rare booke of myllitarie profession: drawne out of all our late and forraine services’. The book promises to cover ‘the true steppes of warre, the perfect path of knowledge, and the playne plot of warlike exercises’, and to ‘shew and teach the order of the Fielde, the duety of Officers, the charge of Generals, the arte of Warre, & the whole discipline belonging to the exercises of Armes, and marshalling of a Campe and Armie’. The work chiefly contains ‘descriptions of the establishing, manning, and equipping of virtually every possible battle formation and troop encampment’ (Acheson, 2011, 152). Garrard combines classical military theory with personal experience, and reflects on contemporary developments in the technology of warfare. He coined the phrase “loop-hole” in this work, in relation to the building of a fortification. His writing is clearly influenced by contemporaries, particularly Digges and Thomas Styward.

The 7 folding woodcut plates depict elaborate encampments and formations, and include representations of soldiers, cannons, fortifications, and geographical features. This text features 72 woodcut illustrations as well as the 7 foldouts of varying sizes. Some 25 of the illustrations are diagrams formed with type characters used for the rest of the text, while others are formed from woodcut characters massed into formations. The remaining illustrations are diagrammatic woodcuts. The woodcuts are simple, but the images are crisp and clear. Particularly notable is the first of two folding plates on p. 189, ‘The battell called a crosse, verie excellent for both night and daie’: it unusually conveys three-dimensional space depicting the rows of soldiers in battle formation. It also depicts naturalistic figures, as a contrast to the typographical illustrations found elsewhere. The plate on p. 253, showing ‘A Waie to March’, also depicts naturalistic figures, both cavalry and infantry in battle formation, but in two-dimensional space. Hichcock’s preface describes the illustrations as both an aid to memory and a selling point of the book.

Garrard was a businessman, banker, and slave trader, but also had personal experience in military affairs: he served ‘the King of Spayne in his warres fourteene yeeres’, as he claims on the titlepage, and was a veteran of the Dutch wars. This copy includes a dedicatory letter by Garrard addressed to Robert Devorax, Earle of Essex, who was executed for treason in 1601 after a failed coup d’état against the government. This text was published posthumously, after Garrard’s death in 1587, by Hitchcock, who added an appendix on logistics.