Behind every medieval army stood an enormous need for trained warhorses. Edward I’s sweeping policies reveal how seriously medieval monarchs took the challenge of keeping their cavalry mounted.
By David Bachrach
Shakespeare famously depicted King Richard III calling out on Bosworth Field: “A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!” Richard found himself in difficulties because his destrier had been killed in the battle. But the same plaintive cry could be heard in the next generation from Henry VIII, the son of Henry VII, the victor at Bosworth Field. Henry VIII’s officials had to scrounge the entire countryside of the kingdom during the spring of 1512 to obtain horses for his first campaign to France. By the end of Henry’s reign, the stock of horses in the realm was running dangerously low, as animals taken for mounted combatants and for carrying supplies were lost in considerable numbers on campaign. By the 1540s, Henry was relying mostly on his continental allies to provide horses for his army in campaigns against France.
But for his operations against Scotland, the wastage in horses had led to a catastrophic situation much earlier. Henry VIII banned the export of horses in 1531. In the middle years of this decade, the king issued routine exhortations to the great landowners to begin horse-breeding programs. In 1541 and 1542, the government issued requirements that landowners maintain horses in proportion to the size of their estates. The renewal of Henry VIII’s campaigns in 1547 led to a reissuing of the royal commands for landowners to maintain horses. Two decades later, Queen Elizabeth again renewed her father’s legislation on the keeping of horses, and, in face of the prospect of an invasion by Spain, established in 1580 “A Special Commission for the Increase and Breeding of Horses.”
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Ms. Ludwig XV 1, fol. 19
The vast loss of horses in combat and from disease while on campaign, and the corresponding extraordinary efforts by Henry VIII and Elizabeth to initiate breeding programs within England, once were thought to have been a particularly early modern phenomenon, which was only possible following the development of the bureaucratic “nation state.” However, the rather chaotic and piecemeal response by the Tudor rulers to the lack of adequate numbers of horses can be understood, instead, as a failure to learn from history. The Plantagenet king Edward I (1272–1307) faced precisely the same challenges as Henry VIII and Elizabeth, and developed a multi-pronged approach to deal with the shortage of horses, particularly warhorses, for service in France, the Low Countries, Wales, and in Scotland.
Edward I and the Medieval Horse Shortage
The first major element of the royal plan to increase the stock of horses in England was to ban their export. Concerns about the pool of warhorses available in England actually dated back to the reign of Edward I’s father Henry III (1216–1272). Already in 1259, this ruler prohibited taking any horses, particularly warhorses (dextrarii), out of the kingdom either to the Continent or to Scotland. Prohibitions on the sale of warhorses overseas were reiterated periodically over the remainder of Henry III’s reign, but became a standard aspect of royal horse policy under
Edward I. Anyone seeking to go overseas with horses, including horses that were the personal property of the traveler, was required to obtain a royal license. This document then had to be presented to the master of the harbor from which the traveler was departing. The failure to obtain such a license could lead to charges of treason, particularly in periods of hostility with France.
Importing Warhorses from Abroad
British Library MS Royal 20 C VI fol. 3
In addition to banning the sale of horses overseas, Edward I actively sought to increase the supply of horses within the kingdom by importing them directly. Merchants were granted special commissions and orders of safe conduct to import horses from Spain and from France, when possible. This kind of commission was particularly common during times of increased military activity.
A letter of safe conduct issued in November 1276 for Master Donelinus records that this merchant of Florence and his men had been dispatched to France by Roger Mortimer, Edward’s military commander on the Welsh frontier, to obtain twelve warhorses (destriers in the French text) for service in the ongoing conflict in Wales.
The next year, the royal yeoman Matthew de Columbariis received a safe conduct to travel to France, where King Philip III (1270–1285) had given permission for him to purchase and transport back to England 40 warhorses.
Just after the beginning of the Second Welsh War (1282–1283), Edward I issued orders to the constable of Bordeaux to provide his clerks with 1000 pounds of the money of Tours to purchase horses in Aragon and Castile for the king’s use.
Expanding Royal Studs and Mobilising Landowners
BnF MS Français 123 fol.58
From Edward’s perspective, however, the importation of horses from abroad was intended largely as a supplement to the development of substantial production capacity at home. To this end, the king vastly expanded the royal stud and established numerous farms throughout the realm for raising new stock. This project was very successful, and the number of horses being produced at royal stud farms had grown to such an extent that by the late 1290s Edward was able to raise additional revenues for his wars in Scotland by selling mounts. A writ issued in December 1298 records the king’s appointment of William Persone of Florence to survey the royal stud farms in both England and Wales, and to make an inventory of the colts to be sold.
In addition to increasing production on royal estates, Edward also mandated that landowners engage in this effort. In May 1282, as English forces were operating in Wales, the king issued a writ to every sheriff in the kingdom stating that there was a grave shortage of warhorses in the realm. Every landowner whose property was valued at £30 or more was commanded to obtain a horse that was suitable for service on campaign. Given the shortage of mounts within England, this royal edict likely was intended to stimulate the additional purchase of mounts from abroad. Certainly, the king issued numerous letters of safe conduct for wealthy landowners in this same timeframe to import warhorses from France. Such was the case for William de Beauchamp, the earl of Warwick, and his brother Walter, who were given permission to acquire 36 destriers from France, tax free.
By contrast, when Edward I assigned Thomas of Furnivall responsibility for mobilizing military forces in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire in November 1298 for operations in Scotland, the expectation was that the landowners already had warhorses in their possession. Thomas’s writ of commission stated that he was to command every landowner possessing property worth £30 to appear for duty on campaign with a warhorse. Those with estates valued at multiples of £30 were to provide an armed man and warhorse in proportion to their total wealth. In addition, Thomas was required to write a report in which he listed all the men and the horses that the landowners had on their lands within each wapentake, which was the Midlands equivalent of the hundreds found in the southern shires.
The underlying assumption in the royal court was that a quarter century after the Second Welsh War, the gentry and knights in England routinely maintained warhorses on their lands. Indeed, a letter patent issued on 22 April 1299 makes clear the assumption by royal officials that even the wealthier citizens of London, who were summoned to serve in the coastal watch in Kent, possessed horses suitable for military service.
Starting from a clear deficit in the 1270s and early 1280s, Edward I put into place a multi-pronged policy to ensure that a sufficient number of warhorses would be available for royal military campaigns. Edward’s armies in Wales and particularly Scotland routinely numbered between 25,000–30,000 men, and included as many as 4,000 mounted troops. Even as many thousands of animals were lost due to wounds and sickness, there were no comparable complaints during Edward’s conquest of Scotland about “grave shortages” that had appeared in royal writs in 1282. However, it is clear that the lessons of Edward I’s reign were forgotten and had to be relearned three centuries later by the Tudors.
David Bachrach is a Professor at the University of New Hampshire, where he researches medieval military history, particularly in England and Germany.
Behind every medieval army stood an enormous need for trained warhorses. Edward I’s sweeping policies reveal how seriously medieval monarchs took the challenge of keeping their cavalry mounted.
By David Bachrach
Shakespeare famously depicted King Richard III calling out on Bosworth Field: “A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!” Richard found himself in difficulties because his destrier had been killed in the battle. But the same plaintive cry could be heard in the next generation from Henry VIII, the son of Henry VII, the victor at Bosworth Field. Henry VIII’s officials had to scrounge the entire countryside of the kingdom during the spring of 1512 to obtain horses for his first campaign to France. By the end of Henry’s reign, the stock of horses in the realm was running dangerously low, as animals taken for mounted combatants and for carrying supplies were lost in considerable numbers on campaign. By the 1540s, Henry was relying mostly on his continental allies to provide horses for his army in campaigns against France.
But for his operations against Scotland, the wastage in horses had led to a catastrophic situation much earlier. Henry VIII banned the export of horses in 1531. In the middle years of this decade, the king issued routine exhortations to the great landowners to begin horse-breeding programs. In 1541 and 1542, the government issued requirements that landowners maintain horses in proportion to the size of their estates. The renewal of Henry VIII’s campaigns in 1547 led to a reissuing of the royal commands for landowners to maintain horses. Two decades later, Queen Elizabeth again renewed her father’s legislation on the keeping of horses, and, in face of the prospect of an invasion by Spain, established in 1580 “A Special Commission for the Increase and Breeding of Horses.”
The vast loss of horses in combat and from disease while on campaign, and the corresponding extraordinary efforts by Henry VIII and Elizabeth to initiate breeding programs within England, once were thought to have been a particularly early modern phenomenon, which was only possible following the development of the bureaucratic “nation state.” However, the rather chaotic and piecemeal response by the Tudor rulers to the lack of adequate numbers of horses can be understood, instead, as a failure to learn from history. The Plantagenet king Edward I (1272–1307) faced precisely the same challenges as Henry VIII and Elizabeth, and developed a multi-pronged approach to deal with the shortage of horses, particularly warhorses, for service in France, the Low Countries, Wales, and in Scotland.
Edward I and the Medieval Horse Shortage
The first major element of the royal plan to increase the stock of horses in England was to ban their export. Concerns about the pool of warhorses available in England actually dated back to the reign of Edward I’s father Henry III (1216–1272). Already in 1259, this ruler prohibited taking any horses, particularly warhorses (dextrarii), out of the kingdom either to the Continent or to Scotland. Prohibitions on the sale of warhorses overseas were reiterated periodically over the remainder of Henry III’s reign, but became a standard aspect of royal horse policy under
Edward I. Anyone seeking to go overseas with horses, including horses that were the personal property of the traveler, was required to obtain a royal license. This document then had to be presented to the master of the harbor from which the traveler was departing. The failure to obtain such a license could lead to charges of treason, particularly in periods of hostility with France.
Importing Warhorses from Abroad
In addition to banning the sale of horses overseas, Edward I actively sought to increase the supply of horses within the kingdom by importing them directly. Merchants were granted special commissions and orders of safe conduct to import horses from Spain and from France, when possible. This kind of commission was particularly common during times of increased military activity.
A letter of safe conduct issued in November 1276 for Master Donelinus records that this merchant of Florence and his men had been dispatched to France by Roger Mortimer, Edward’s military commander on the Welsh frontier, to obtain twelve warhorses (destriers in the French text) for service in the ongoing conflict in Wales.
The next year, the royal yeoman Matthew de Columbariis received a safe conduct to travel to France, where King Philip III (1270–1285) had given permission for him to purchase and transport back to England 40 warhorses.
Just after the beginning of the Second Welsh War (1282–1283), Edward I issued orders to the constable of Bordeaux to provide his clerks with 1000 pounds of the money of Tours to purchase horses in Aragon and Castile for the king’s use.
Expanding Royal Studs and Mobilising Landowners
From Edward’s perspective, however, the importation of horses from abroad was intended largely as a supplement to the development of substantial production capacity at home. To this end, the king vastly expanded the royal stud and established numerous farms throughout the realm for raising new stock. This project was very successful, and the number of horses being produced at royal stud farms had grown to such an extent that by the late 1290s Edward was able to raise additional revenues for his wars in Scotland by selling mounts. A writ issued in December 1298 records the king’s appointment of William Persone of Florence to survey the royal stud farms in both England and Wales, and to make an inventory of the colts to be sold.
In addition to increasing production on royal estates, Edward also mandated that landowners engage in this effort. In May 1282, as English forces were operating in Wales, the king issued a writ to every sheriff in the kingdom stating that there was a grave shortage of warhorses in the realm. Every landowner whose property was valued at £30 or more was commanded to obtain a horse that was suitable for service on campaign. Given the shortage of mounts within England, this royal edict likely was intended to stimulate the additional purchase of mounts from abroad. Certainly, the king issued numerous letters of safe conduct for wealthy landowners in this same timeframe to import warhorses from France. Such was the case for William de Beauchamp, the earl of Warwick, and his brother Walter, who were given permission to acquire 36 destriers from France, tax free.
By contrast, when Edward I assigned Thomas of Furnivall responsibility for mobilizing military forces in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire in November 1298 for operations in Scotland, the expectation was that the landowners already had warhorses in their possession. Thomas’s writ of commission stated that he was to command every landowner possessing property worth £30 to appear for duty on campaign with a warhorse. Those with estates valued at multiples of £30 were to provide an armed man and warhorse in proportion to their total wealth. In addition, Thomas was required to write a report in which he listed all the men and the horses that the landowners had on their lands within each wapentake, which was the Midlands equivalent of the hundreds found in the southern shires.
The underlying assumption in the royal court was that a quarter century after the Second Welsh War, the gentry and knights in England routinely maintained warhorses on their lands. Indeed, a letter patent issued on 22 April 1299 makes clear the assumption by royal officials that even the wealthier citizens of London, who were summoned to serve in the coastal watch in Kent, possessed horses suitable for military service.
Starting from a clear deficit in the 1270s and early 1280s, Edward I put into place a multi-pronged policy to ensure that a sufficient number of warhorses would be available for royal military campaigns. Edward’s armies in Wales and particularly Scotland routinely numbered between 25,000–30,000 men, and included as many as 4,000 mounted troops. Even as many thousands of animals were lost due to wounds and sickness, there were no comparable complaints during Edward’s conquest of Scotland about “grave shortages” that had appeared in royal writs in 1282. However, it is clear that the lessons of Edward I’s reign were forgotten and had to be relearned three centuries later by the Tudors.
David Bachrach is a Professor at the University of New Hampshire, where he researches medieval military history, particularly in England and Germany.
Click here to read more from David Bachrach
Further Reading:
David S. Bachrach, “Warhorse Markets and Social Status of Combatants under Edward I of England, 1296–1307,” in Haskins Society Journal 32 (2020, appeared 2022), 227–247, with Daniel Bachrach and Lu Zuo.
Joan Thirsk, Horses in Early Modern England: For Service, For Pleasure, For Power: The Stenton Lecture 1977 (Reading, 1978), 5–28.
Top Image: BNF Français 24364 fol. 58r
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