Swords

     By the 17th century the heavy two handed sword of the middle-ages had all but disappeared. Just as armour had started to decline with the onset of firearms so had the use of big heavy swords used designed to crush through plate mail. In there place the lighter more nimble rapier was advancing however the common soldier during the Civil Wars only had the use of a stout short hacking sword called a Hanger or Tuck.

     The soldiers tuck as it is commonly named is a simple mass produced one edged blade. Many different designs were produced during the civil wars but some more common ones had ring or leaf guards on the hilt to protect the hands. These swords were of very poor quality and more often than not the troopers would blunt them by using them for hacking firewood up and the like, one regiment was so prevalent in this that there officer equipped them with small hand axes as well to save to save the blades from such misuse.

     The Cavalry blade was often in the basket hilt design, yet again a backsword with one edge the blade was longer and far heavier than the tuck or a rapier and used in a sweeping motion down from horseback. Later versions of this blade included the Mortuary sword so called because of its motifs on the hilt to commemorate the Martyrdom of Charles I and the Scottish so called Claymore basket hilt.

     Officers would have there own swords often a family heirloom or made especially for them, the most common of gentlemen’s weapons was the rapier blade. Long, thin and double edge the blade was quick and deadly in the right hands. Used in a more fencing style stabbing at your enemy it only took a few inches of blade to pierce a vital organ to be fatal rather than a slashing cut which could be healed or sewn up by a surgeon. There are many styles of rapier from this period including the English swept hilt design, the German pappenhiemer and the cup hilt.

     As the war ended and the Restoration period moved in Gentleman blades got shorter and simpler with the development of a light short sword somewhere between a tuck with a rapier blade attached.

     One thing more than anything bought about the decline of the use of swords (and pikes for that matter for infantrymen) and that was the invention of the plug Bayonet in the latter half of the 17th Century. From there on a poor musketeer could cheaply attach a short a blade to his musket to create a deadly hand to hand weapon. Having said these swords continued to be used by Cavalry right up to Napoleonic times and are still issued for parade duties in the modern army of today.

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