ABSTRACT
Down to the time of Edward I. we may roughly say that all the fighting in which English armies had been engaged had fallen into one of two categories. The larger part of the wars had conformed to the ordinary continental type of the day, and had been waged mainly by mailed horsemen, the infantry only appearing as an auxiliary arm of no very great efficiency. Such had been all the English wars with France, and all the civil wars from Lincoln to Evesham. The other class of War had been waged against irregular enemies such as the Welsh and Irish, who lurked in hills or bogs, generally refused battle, and were only formidable when they were executing a surprise or an ambuscade. Campaigns against them had been numerous, but had affected the English art of war no more than Soudanese or Trans-Indus expeditions affect the higher military science of to-day.
