Elizabeth's Army

by Charles Greig Cruickshank

RARE. Ex-lib. HCDJ copy. Strong binding w/usual library markings. DJ VG+ w/tags but restoreable.

Genres: History

328 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1946

Reviews

[Skallagrimsen]

A scholarly examination of the Elizabethan military industrial complex. My main takeaway was that Queen Elizabeth's armed forces were marred by corruption, chronic shortages of basic necessities, inconsistent morale, sectarian conflict within the ranks, desertion and mutiny, rampant drunkenness, and the ever present threats of dysentery and the plague--in short, that it was a damn near miracle the Elizabethan army didn't collapse under the weight of its own inefficiency, still less in the face of a determined enemy. The saving grace for the English, it seems, was that opposing armies of the time suffered comparable disadvantages. Victory in Elizabethan era warfare, it can be said, went less to the best army than to the least worst.

Elizabeth's Army isn't what I think anyone would call a page turner, but it is worth reading to the degree you're interested in a microscopic look at this niche subject. I appreciated it mainly for helping to demystify an era that we in the Anglosphere are still all too prone to romanticize.