THE PIKE
 
     The pike is based on one of the oldest known weapon, the spear, this goes a long way back in history. The Ancient Egyptians used spears, the Greeks developed it into the long thrusting spear (8 to 12 ft) then the pike, the Greek Pike Phalanx was unequalled in it's day. The Romans tried both spears and pikes with varying degrees of success.
 
     The Swiss thought they had re-invented it, in the 15th Cent, although the Flemish Pike was in use during the early 14th Century. Some Swiss pikes were 24ft long they needed two soldiers to operate them, on to push at the end and one to support it in the middle. The French and Germans (Landsknechts) adopted it. The Scots were the first to use them in the British Isles, they were trained by their French allies and used in the Battle of Bannockburn 1314.
 
     The English saw them in the Hundred Years War against the French, the English were almost 50 years behind the continent until the English Civil War. The English Pike Staff was made of Ash and was anything from 15ft to 18ft long. There were long metal strips placed down each side for about 2/3ft, they were the 'Cheeks' or Languet's designed to stop the dangerous bit being chopped off by cavalry. The Ash shaft was shaped, it tapered and balanced from where the pikeman held it to the ends. It was tipped at the "dangerous" end, with a metal blade with sharp points and edges and at the other with a butt plate designed to stop that end from being damaged.
 
     The pike had developed throughout it's history to counter Heavy Cavalry charges, from Knights to Cuirassiers. It was considered as the Queen of weapons, until the firearm and the bayonet superseded it. The first hint of its decline started at the end of the 16th Century, before this a body of Foote soldiers had pikes, polearms and some firepower such as Longbow, musket or caliver. Queen Elizabeth declared, in 1590, that "All her archers were to be retrained as musket or caliver men". The Polearm was relegated to a badge of rank at the start of the 17th Century. Most military advisors suggested that an ideal proportion would be 2 shotte to 1 pike. During the English Civil War the only thing the prevented this developing faster was the slow production of firearms. Towards the end of the E. C. W. some new regiments had a proportion as high as 6 musket to 1 pike.
 
     The death knell to the English pike occurred after the Restoration, King Charles II ordered 1,000 repaired bayonets at 6d each, he had seen them France during his exile there, to give to his guards regiments. By the turn of the 17/18th Century the British Square developed as a defence against Cavalry charges, muskets with bayonets down each side of the square and a handful of pikes to protect the vulnerable corners. 12 musket to 1 pike became the normal proportion, the pike was then superseded with light guns posted at the corners thus the pike disappeared from English Battlefield by about 1715.
 
     However! pikes were used in the Irish uprising of 1790 (the one where Catholics and Protestants joined together) and pikes? re-appeared when they were issued to the Home Guard in 1940.

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