Thank you so much for the shout out Jonathan, and thank you for all your assistance with the upcoming video. I am lagging behind slightly but it has entered the editing phase and will be released soon! I'm very excited for people to finally be able to see it. And absolutely fascinating work with this video, as always.
You mean Jonathan Ferguson, keeper of firearms and artillery at the Royal Armouries in the UK which houses a collection of thousand of iconic weapons throughout history
Any explanation of why there is what looks like a sticker of a young boy on the label for bay 71 - bay 80 behind Jonathan’s left shoulder (from the audience’s perspective)?
@@nigeh5326 It's an 8-bit rendition of me. They sell them at the shop. I believe I point it out in the outro to the recent non-Halloween videos that we filmed at the same time.
@ thanks Jonathan I couldn’t make it out clearly enough to recognise you 😊. Love the channel btw and will be making a day out in Leeds a definite in the next few months.
In my head, I am picturing Captain Jack Sparrow pointing this downwards and the shot rolls out of the barrel down a slope, and him running hilariously after the little ball, while fighting his enemies…could be a good movie scene.
We owe a debt of gratitude to the collectors who kept these pieces safely for so many years. Look forward to seeing it after all the little darlings go back to school.
also unfortunate that families now would be considered criminals just for storing( something's that Jonathan pointing at basically like america-nation-native like OK getting short'd on sovereign+land-ect as 1920's by treaty's they didn't sine/sell-out ect but rather violent-nexus or in business/stock's world called a hostile-tackle-over ) the family's/granddads arm's and clothings-ect UK and or London missed up and not protected 2A and 1A rights ect still glad they didn't get barry'd or shredded ect and that it's available in video or limited/license-museum-visitors/aka begging+bribery authoritarian's
Thrilling! Here in Germany, there is the legend of the ‘Freischütz’, which takes place after the Thirty Years' War and in which the bullets are cursed. It was also adapted into a successful opera by Carl Maria von Weber and Johann Friedrich Kind.
It’s incredible to think about the superstitions that surrounded firearms back then. The idea of a 'cursed' musket adds such a cool layer of history to these antique weapons.
Indeed. That Dutch gun's condition was even more staggering to me, with the dark wood and silver combo. Wonder what kind of wood that is, if it's naturally that dark or if age and/or lots of oil over the years has led to its color and glow.
@@butwhataboutdragons7768 I have a Mk III* SMLE with a similarly dark stock, but I doubt the 17th-century Dutch used quite as much cosmoline as I suspect my Lee-Enfield spent much of the 20th century marinating in. :)
Thanks for a nice video! :) We have an interesting matchlock-related folklore here in Central Europe: The fext (die fexte, fekst...) It's a myth form Thirty years war, from Germany, Bohemia and Sweden (the Swedish brought the myth home from their European campaign). The fext is usually a man, he could be a witch or warlock (somebody who got his abilities by the contract with the Devil), he could be cursed person, or he could be a revenant, an undead who died violent death and then rose as a fext. The fext is usually lonely wanderer in a country torn by war. (Thirty years war was extremely destructive, whole villages disappeared, 30-50% of population died by sword, hunger and illness or left the country, truly apocalyptic times.) His main ability or trait is being impervious to firearms: In some stories bullets firad at him allways miss. In other stories, bullets fired at him deflect and hit the shooter! The fext sometimes joined the military, where he used - or abused - this power. (Daring men and officers with extreme luck who survived many a risky situation were sometimes talked about as being fext with a bit of admiration and fear.) Or he just traveled around basically aimlessly... In some stories, he is an evil person. In other stories, even the dark semi-immortal undead is better than the groups of marauding soldiers and deserters and he uses his abilities to defend the peasants from being robbed, raped and murdered. This might be also his way to salvation - if he selflessly defends others, the curse is lifted from him and he can return to the calmness of his eternal rest and, what was important to christians of 17th century - his soul is saved from Satan's clutches by the selfless good deeds and can go to Heaven. Similarly to shooting witches with silver coins, the fext can be sometimes killed by something that is not a bullet - a coin, a button, or a glass ball fired from a musket or pistol. Happy Halloween everybody! ;)
@@F1ghteR41 I'd totally play that. Maybe you invest skill points or something to become bullet"proof", like in the Witcher games you can at first deflect arrows then return them. Hell I think we could use some more dark fantasy in general from that time, the 17th century, which although technically after the "Dark Ages" seem pretty damned dark! (Was it the Renaissance people who called them the Dark Ages, pretending they're totally enlightened and above it now? Or the Victorians, which were even worse?)
@@butwhataboutdragons7768 The option I envisioned was that you're playing the fext, and as such can already withstand shots by whatever means you choose (be it dodging, deflecting or reflecting), but you can either be benevolent or haunting, as per the different interpretation in folk-tales. Seventeenth century is indeed a severely underappreciated setting for RPGs, I can only name _Greedfall_ and _With Fire and Sword_ add-on for _Mount & Blade Warband._
I feel absolutely and utterly spoiled for so many angles, close-ups, and details on this marvelous piece! I've been wanting to replicate an English 1600s matchlock for years, but good detail is scarce on the ground.
10:37 part of why that is is because the 80 years war. they worked really well for us there, and well, young lads fighting with them, becoming the old generals and lords and people of power. and their question was, why do we need anything else? this works, is reliable, why go for this new expensive equipment that we have to build our entire logistics and training around, when it is cheaper to just keep on using this.
I haven't even got to watch today forgotten weapons and then Jonathan comes out with a title like this........ill pop ian on hold while I watch broomsticks fly out of an antique hand cannon
Hi, Jonathan! 10:37 You said that the Dutch used matchlock muskets right into halfway the 18th century, but I was led to believe that the Dutch army was the first one to switch over to flintlock muskets entirely, even before France did. At the start of the War of the Spanish Succession in 1701, you would still see matchlocks in French hands, but not Dutch ones and, in extension in those days, English ones. But of course, garrison troops in the Dutch Republic might very well have been using matchlocks for a great while longer.
Very interesting thankyou, and ties in to my family history, on my Father's side we are related to some of the Gunpowder Plot conspirators and on my Mother's we have family who were charged (and in at least one case unfortunately executed) during the Witch Trials.
I suppose that the Dutch kept matchlocks because of price, and the lack of native availability of flint in the region, but flax and urine (for saltpeter production) were common enough
I think there's excellent flint not far away. Will Lord (anglian napper and acknowledged expert) was just in Denmark for some of their class rock (He has Grimes Graves on his doorstep too)
Interestingly, it was notably the Dutch Guards serving in the Williamite army along with Danish mercenaries and Huguenots at the Battle of Boyne that were noted to be using the new high-tech flintlocks against the Jacobite forces whose infantry was primarily armed with matchlocks.
@@colbunkmust Yes that is interesting. I suppose elite troops in Royal guards had the latest tech. There was a recent account of very early repeating flintlocks on Royal Armouries I think it was. Again, Palace Guards.
@@causewaykayak I don't mean high-tech flintlocks as in repeaters, I mean as at the time of the Battle of Boyne the standardization of fusil-type flintlocks had only started becoming the norm to equip normal line infantry with, so they were considered high tech in comparison with the older matchlocks used predominantly by the Irish Jacobite militias. The first snapance-style flintlocks date to the late 16th century but the "true" flintlock doesn't start to become a military standard for infantry until the late 17th century.
does the armories have a hands on section where you can handle arms? if no wouldnt it be worth doing with accurate replicas? size and weight accurate history of weapons
Very enlightening and quite entertaining, thank you! 5:10 It's interesting to see that while in some places like the kingdom of Naples cartridges seem to have been widespread among the footmen already in the late sixteenth century, they still weren't in the common use on the British Isles a century later. 7:27 What would the relative merits of these styles be? 10:28 That's an impressive dedication, given their humid, rainy climate, which is, as I've read, very unfavourable to the matches.
It's likely not that cartridges weren't common but a result of newly conscripted or volunteer forces that hadn't been properly trained in the use of arms, combined with the quantities of pre-made cartridges being strained as the demand for munitions would be considerably higher. There are plenty of English cartridge belts from the period and earlier going back well into the Tudor period.
@@colbunkmust The quote is dated from 1677, which is 2.5 decades after the end of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. The army at the time was professional. And a cartridge belt can just as well hold wooden containers for powder charges, and not paper cartridges.
@@F1ghteR41 Interesting, I didn't catch the date. So, while manuals of arms of the period such as de Gheyn's don't mention wadding or paper cartridges, and Twelve Apostles usually were loaded with loose ball and powder, that doesn't mean that the English weren't familiar with the concept during the ECW. For example, there is a very detailed set of accounts from 1643 during the siege of Glouchester of the Parlimentarian forces in the city manufacturing paper cartridges for the troops in the garrison.
@@colbunkmust I'm not saying that the British were unfamiliar with cartridge technology, I'm saying that cartridges were uncommon. Massey's force in Gloucester was a tenth of the size of its besiegers, or indeed the relief army. It also included dragoons and cavalry, precisely the set of people first to adopt paper cartridges. Given that most of Gloucester artillery was light, its limited powder supply could freely be expended on skirmishes with ill-prepared Royalists, including a cavalry charge.
@@F1ghteR41 well, the account states it was the infantry making the cartridges "on the march", and the account also states that gunpowder wasn't in short supply as there were powder mills manufacturing it as the siege occurred. Massey states in a letter to the Earl of Essex, "our necessity is not so great for ammunition, we having found a way to make a match, and also what powder we can".
I enjoyed this immensely, particularly as it covers the change rom matchlock to flintlock, but tis is the second time recently that I have heard the 17th century civil war called the 'first'. Stephen and Matilda fought a civil war between 1135 and 1153, which allowed anarchy that was described as when Christ and his Angels slept because it was so brutal.
Great video on those match lock firearms . Thanks for the laughs too . legend has it that witches Turned into bunnies 😂😂😂😂 I imagine too scenarios , fuzzy bunnies with fangs leaping at people's throats (Monty Python style) ,or hot supermodels with skimpy costumes with bowties , cuffs, rabbit ears and fuzzy tail .
I wonder if the myth was applied to deer because it was an easy way to maintain one's pride when they missed shooting at a deer. "Oh, I'm a crack shot, but I missed the doe because it had to have been a witch in disguise and she cursed me so my shot couldn't land." The difference between the preferred animal in England/Scotland/Ireland and in the Americas coming down to the prevalence of the deer in the Americas, and the increase in size making the American deer even more desirable to bag as a game animal. That's my UA-cam University PHD theory at least.
Hunting deer in Britain at the time was likely still the privelege of royals & nobles, who were supposedly beyond such superstition, whereas in America it was a common game.
15:28 so you’re telling me all you had to do to get back at a nightmare ex was to shoot your ex in the shoulder and then shoot a hare in the shoulder (or vice versa) and then report them as a witch? Wild times
It has been claimed that the Killer Rabbit is inspired by the _marginalia_ art of the medieval manuscripts, but there might be something to your idea still. After all, knights fight all manner of creatures in these miniatures, depicting all manner of vices and sins in contrivedly allegorical manner, the rabbit had to be chosen somehow.
Nice. :) I guessed wrong on FB as usual. :) Have you done a comparison video of the various mechanisms yet? Flintlock, matchlock, wheellock, doglock, snaphaunce, etc. Would like to see examples and clear definitions. All the books I've read over the decades have no images, and/or are unclear in description. :(
I might have to look into this further, but I seem to recall seeing UA-cam videos saying that soldiers didn't put the ball in their mouths (very much in the context of Sharpe) whereas here we have a (much earlier) quote suggesting that they did. (though not saying that they spat it from their mouth into the barrel) But then perhaps I don't care that much.
This weapon comes closest to being infantry proof compared to almost any firearm in history. Even if everything breaks, which infantry are known to do, it can still fire. I do not recommend it, you will burn your hand. Matchlocks are also very dangerous at both ends.
@lutzderlurch7877 75 caliber lead ball will hurt like hell if it hits any part of you. And I speak from experience that having a flash in the pan (when the priming pan ignites in your face) also hurts like hell. Fire and open containers of black powder may not kill you, but it doesn't tickle as long as they are small. If they are big? Kiss you ass goodbye if you get a stray spark. VERY unsafe weapon.
Of course the witch had to have cursed the weapon. It couldn't possibly be that these things were not very accurate or that the user could be a bad shot.
PS if you want to see a decent collection of civil war arms try popping over to Bolling Hall in Bradford. (That's Bolling as in rolling despite what many people will tell you!)
Nit-picking movies - like the infamous double gun shots in that awful movie The Revanant (2015). I have learned to internalise my thoughts when watching some movies with my partner. Excellent video, though some of the boujee more modern pieces are interesting, I do love some of the very early stuff. Probably started by my father dragging me 'round stately homes & castles as a kid. Staring at the panoplies of weapons & armour was always fascinating. 🐇🧙
So if they were holding the ball in their mouths, they were doing what we yanks called a Spit Patch, throw in a powder charge and Spit the ball out and tamp, then charge the frizen cock and fire, made for a faster volley of fire, not very accurate but when you're firing into massed troops on line you didn't need to be hit his button accurate
My long suffering wife gets to consistently hear me nitpick when there is something that a movie gets wrong (which is pretty much all of them). I'm trying to wean myself from the habit, but its hard! only do it at home anymore though, I don't want to be "that" guy. Beautiful guns, nice curves. Some of us have to work out for months and still not get a club-butt.
60 inch barrel.. can you imagine lugging that around all day, in gear, in the sun, or maybe even worse, rain. yeah, the less then 20 inches now is a lot better. literally a third the length
black powder burns rather slow compared to modern propellants and produces much less gas. So a longer barrel gives the powder time to burn and the gasses time to act on the ball. As powder got slightly better over time, it was possible to get the same ball move slightly faster out of a shorter barrel with less powder. That'S why similarly sized musket from the 18th C. tend to have shorter barrels and powder charges went down noticably, Even during the 18th C. the amount of powder per shot went down from about 1/2 the weight of the shot, to 1/3. In the mid 18th C. the Brits did experiments in how far you can cut down a muskets barrel without a meaningful loss of power and accuracy. they ended up with some 23 or 25" (would have to look the number up, to be sure) But by then the infantry used bayonets in lieu of pikes and the length was regarded vital for fending off bayonets and esp. cavalry, so they reduced the barrels from 48", but only to 42".
Jonathan, you are grey so Witcher would be a better fit for you. I'm sure a witcher would appreciate matchlock musket capabilities. These seem to do 2000 Joules, so that's nasty with pure lead.
I thought, for certain that the topic of this video would be haunted objects in the collection. Ask many collectors of arms used in conflict, used the kill, and they will report that there are moments of uneasiness around these items, from time to time. Would the Royal Armouries care to comment or even issue a video about objects in the collection that make people uneasy? Oh, by the by, great video, even if it is not the content that I wanted to see.
Why was the matchlock in use for so long parallell to the flintlock? Is the system so much more simple/cheap to produce? The flintlock must’ve been superior in every way from my understanding.
I can never figure out why the English civil War is not called the 3rd civil war, seeing as we had the anarchy with Steven and matilda and the wars of the roses?
Dangerous to go against Jonathan but from that butt I would have dated that to perhaps ten years earlier - butts by 1645 were more usually lighter and more like the 'rounded' ones elsewhere in the Littlecote Collection (now runs and hides from incoming flak).
English and Scots infantry were actually quite (in)famous for their willingness to get stuck in with clubbed muskets. Their continental counterparts found it a bit crude as proper soldiers used a sword, the musket as club was a last resort.
The correct term for female werewolf is a 'wifwolf' apparently: in old English 'were' meant an adult man, and 'wif' meant an adult woman. Presumably the same applied to wererabbits....
Hmm. I don't think anyone used that term historically. In fact the academics today no longer believe that 'werewolf' derived from the word for 'man' at all. To quote Willem de Blécourt in ‘The Differentiated Werewolf: An Introduction to Cluster Methodology’ (‘Werewolf Histories’, 2015, p. 2): “...‘werewolf’ is usually explained as a combination of ‘wolf’ and ‘wer’, the latter meaning man (from the Latin vir).[7] On closer inspection this is unsatisfactory, because historically ‘wer’ was only prefixed to wolf, but never to other animals whose shape man was known to change into; and the combination of two words from different language groups appears fabricated. ‘Wer’ is better understood as deriving from the Anglo-Saxon ‘warg’ (Old Norse vargr), which led to the French garou. If ‘wer’ was related to vir, then one would expect it to exist in a romanic language like French. Italians use lupu mannaro, the last word deriving ostensibly from the German ‘man’. Literarily meaning ‘strangler’, ‘warg’ indicated someone outside the ‘world’, a socially deviant outsider; more specifically, a criminal and an outcast.[8] In this way the werewolf is opposed to socially integrated wolves, men with names like Beowulf, Rudolf, Ulf, or Wolfgang.[9] In Christian thought and early Bible translations, the werewolf (werewulf) was associated with or synonymous with the devil.”
I noticed a SERIOUS error here: according to the YT timer on the video, it was 17 minutes and 58 seconds long. While extra content is always good, in keeping with the subject matter, it SHOULD have been trimmed to precisely 13 MINUTES...
The big brave bear did indeed care, about the mad dare of mare and hare, to shave the bear completely bare,but still not really aware why Raccoon's telling this pointless and silly fairy-tale!
Thank you so much for the shout out Jonathan, and thank you for all your assistance with the upcoming video. I am lagging behind slightly but it has entered the editing phase and will be released soon! I'm very excited for people to finally be able to see it. And absolutely fascinating work with this video, as always.
You mean Jonathan Ferguson, keeper of firearms and artillery at the Royal Armouries in the UK which houses a collection of thousand of iconic weapons throughout history
I'm glad I didn't give the game away then ;) Good working with you.
Any explanation of why there is what looks like a sticker of a young boy on the label for bay 71 - bay 80 behind Jonathan’s left shoulder (from the audience’s perspective)?
@@nigeh5326 It's an 8-bit rendition of me. They sell them at the shop. I believe I point it out in the outro to the recent non-Halloween videos that we filmed at the same time.
@ thanks Jonathan I couldn’t make it out clearly enough to recognise you 😊.
Love the channel btw and will be making a day out in Leeds a definite in the next few months.
I like the ominous red archive glow behind you. Good of you to film the episodes in a section of the building from Control
bro is filming during a breach 😭😭
I was thinking the same, is Jonathan one of their paranatural phenomena and they let him film his videos lol
In my head, I am picturing Captain Jack Sparrow pointing this downwards and the shot rolls out of the barrel down a slope, and him running hilariously after the little ball, while fighting his enemies…could be a good movie scene.
Yea😂
Where else would you picture it? 🤔
Part of me thinks Jonathan sleeps in those weapon cabinets like Dracula in his coffin.
I've never seen Jonathan outdoors in sunlight.
Especially after every April Fools episode on Gamespot...
And drinks gun oil
But does he sleep on hollowed earth!
"Gamespot are here again. Go crank open the cabinet and let Johnathan know; don't forget the fresh cup of oil for tribute."
We owe a debt of gratitude to the collectors who kept these pieces safely for so many years. Look forward to seeing it after all the little darlings go back to school.
also unfortunate that families now would be considered criminals just for storing( something's that Jonathan pointing at basically like america-nation-native like OK getting short'd on sovereign+land-ect as 1920's by treaty's they didn't sine/sell-out ect but rather violent-nexus or in business/stock's world called a hostile-tackle-over ) the family's/granddads arm's and clothings-ect
UK and or London missed up and not protected 2A and 1A rights ect
still glad they didn't get barry'd or shredded ect and that it's available in video or limited/license-museum-visitors/aka begging+bribery authoritarian's
@@richardprice5978what r u on about lad?😂 Britain didn’t ever have 2a or 1a because they’re not American
What, a load of old racist toffs?
Thrilling! Here in Germany, there is the legend of the ‘Freischütz’, which takes place after the Thirty Years' War and in which the bullets are cursed. It was also adapted into a successful opera by Carl Maria von Weber and Johann Friedrich Kind.
It’s incredible to think about the superstitions that surrounded firearms back then. The idea of a 'cursed' musket adds such a cool layer of history to these antique weapons.
That's in incredible condition for its age ..
Jonathan? Well, he's handled only when wearing gloves & kept out of direct sunlight...😊
That's because it was cursed by a witch
Indeed. That Dutch gun's condition was even more staggering to me, with the dark wood and silver combo. Wonder what kind of wood that is, if it's naturally that dark or if age and/or lots of oil over the years has led to its color and glow.
@@butwhataboutdragons7768 I have a Mk III* SMLE with a similarly dark stock, but I doubt the 17th-century Dutch used quite as much cosmoline as I suspect my Lee-Enfield spent much of the 20th century marinating in. :)
I could listen to Jonathan talk about firearms all day long. He is very engaging. Keep up the good work.
Thanks for a nice video! :)
We have an interesting matchlock-related folklore here in Central Europe: The fext (die fexte, fekst...) It's a myth form Thirty years war, from Germany, Bohemia and Sweden (the Swedish brought the myth home from their European campaign). The fext is usually a man, he could be a witch or warlock (somebody who got his abilities by the contract with the Devil), he could be cursed person, or he could be a revenant, an undead who died violent death and then rose as a fext. The fext is usually lonely wanderer in a country torn by war. (Thirty years war was extremely destructive, whole villages disappeared, 30-50% of population died by sword, hunger and illness or left the country, truly apocalyptic times.) His main ability or trait is being impervious to firearms: In some stories bullets firad at him allways miss. In other stories, bullets fired at him deflect and hit the shooter!
The fext sometimes joined the military, where he used - or abused - this power. (Daring men and officers with extreme luck who survived many a risky situation were sometimes talked about as being fext with a bit of admiration and fear.) Or he just traveled around basically aimlessly...
In some stories, he is an evil person. In other stories, even the dark semi-immortal undead is better than the groups of marauding soldiers and deserters and he uses his abilities to defend the peasants from being robbed, raped and murdered. This might be also his way to salvation - if he selflessly defends others, the curse is lifted from him and he can return to the calmness of his eternal rest and, what was important to christians of 17th century - his soul is saved from Satan's clutches by the selfless good deeds and can go to Heaven.
Similarly to shooting witches with silver coins, the fext can be sometimes killed by something that is not a bullet - a coin, a button, or a glass ball fired from a musket or pistol.
Happy Halloween everybody! ;)
A mighty plot for a fantasy action game, if you ask me!
Never heard of it, thanks for sharing
@@F1ghteR41 I'd totally play that. Maybe you invest skill points or something to become bullet"proof", like in the Witcher games you can at first deflect arrows then return them. Hell I think we could use some more dark fantasy in general from that time, the 17th century, which although technically after the "Dark Ages" seem pretty damned dark! (Was it the Renaissance people who called them the Dark Ages, pretending they're totally enlightened and above it now? Or the Victorians, which were even worse?)
@@butwhataboutdragons7768 The option I envisioned was that you're playing the fext, and as such can already withstand shots by whatever means you choose (be it dodging, deflecting or reflecting), but you can either be benevolent or haunting, as per the different interpretation in folk-tales.
Seventeenth century is indeed a severely underappreciated setting for RPGs, I can only name _Greedfall_ and _With Fire and Sword_ add-on for _Mount & Blade Warband._
Jonathan would be a perfect protagonist to one of these stories. Knowledge magic science machinery. No problem at all.
I feel absolutely and utterly spoiled for so many angles, close-ups, and details on this marvelous piece! I've been wanting to replicate an English 1600s matchlock for years, but good detail is scarce on the ground.
This is a great example of matchliock musket. Great in the rain!
12:41 this pixel animation is really great
"Debating witches and folklore". Nice touch! "Fear of the dark" by Iron Maiden!
Nice to see the Bishops Wars mentioned🏴😂🏴🦄
10:37 part of why that is is because the 80 years war. they worked really well for us there, and well, young lads fighting with them, becoming the old generals and lords and people of power.
and their question was, why do we need anything else? this works, is reliable, why go for this new expensive equipment that we have to build our entire logistics and training around, when it is cheaper to just keep on using this.
I haven't even got to watch today forgotten weapons and then Jonathan comes out with a title like this........ill pop ian on hold while I watch broomsticks fly out of an antique hand cannon
Love the backround
Curse of the wererabbit .. classic .. I always love the little pop culture clips that pop up when Jonathan is presenting
Hi, Jonathan!
10:37
You said that the Dutch used matchlock muskets right into halfway the 18th century, but I was led to believe that the Dutch army was the first one to switch over to flintlock muskets entirely, even before France did. At the start of the War of the Spanish Succession in 1701, you would still see matchlocks in French hands, but not Dutch ones and, in extension in those days, English ones.
But of course, garrison troops in the Dutch Republic might very well have been using matchlocks for a great while longer.
Real Witchhunter General vibes with that thumbnail, very cool
I enjoyed the little nod to the Wererabbit there xD
Another fascinating, aptly themed, video! Jonathan on great form, as always.
VVitch is criminally underrated.
This is the Halloween movie I needed. I love matchlocks and spooky shit
Very interesting thankyou, and ties in to my family history, on my Father's side we are related to some of the Gunpowder Plot conspirators and on my Mother's we have family who were charged (and in at least one case unfortunately executed) during the Witch Trials.
For what it is, the lines and shapes of this piece are quite pleasant and neat.
I suppose that the Dutch kept matchlocks because of price, and the lack of native availability of flint in the region, but flax and urine (for saltpeter production) were common enough
I think there's excellent flint not far away. Will Lord (anglian napper and acknowledged expert) was just in Denmark for some of their class rock (He has Grimes Graves on his doorstep too)
Interestingly, it was notably the Dutch Guards serving in the Williamite army along with Danish mercenaries and Huguenots at the Battle of Boyne that were noted to be using the new high-tech flintlocks against the Jacobite forces whose infantry was primarily armed with matchlocks.
@@colbunkmust Yes that is interesting. I suppose elite troops in Royal guards had the latest tech. There was a recent account of very early repeating flintlocks on Royal Armouries I think it was. Again, Palace Guards.
@@colbunkmust Kalkhof repeater of the 1640s was on Forgotten Weapons. RA also has a good feature on advanced flintlocks.
@@causewaykayak I don't mean high-tech flintlocks as in repeaters, I mean as at the time of the Battle of Boyne the standardization of fusil-type flintlocks had only started becoming the norm to equip normal line infantry with, so they were considered high tech in comparison with the older matchlocks used predominantly by the Irish Jacobite militias. The first snapance-style flintlocks date to the late 16th century but the "true" flintlock doesn't start to become a military standard for infantry until the late 17th century.
good fun and informative as usual
1645 - Battle of Naseby - one of the important Civil War battles. That rifle brings history to life.
Lttlecote house has the best Parliment armour from the Civil war
I remember the name Popham from a Time team episode, where they excavated the remains of their house!!!
You really needed to do this Halloween video weaking the most impressive Royalist plumed hat possible. The more plumage the better.
An entire ostrich on a piece of felt for a hat.
Was waiting for Jonathon to try read out Auld Scots :)
good one. Enjoyed this
Thank you! Interesting and informative as always!
the keeper is here
does the armories have a hands on section where you can handle arms? if no wouldnt it be worth doing with accurate replicas? size and weight accurate history of weapons
I always love a video of Johnathan Ferguson the keeper of firearms and artill okay im not gonna type the whole thing. You know the thing
Very enlightening and quite entertaining, thank you!
5:10 It's interesting to see that while in some places like the kingdom of Naples cartridges seem to have been widespread among the footmen already in the late sixteenth century, they still weren't in the common use on the British Isles a century later.
7:27 What would the relative merits of these styles be?
10:28 That's an impressive dedication, given their humid, rainy climate, which is, as I've read, very unfavourable to the matches.
It's likely not that cartridges weren't common but a result of newly conscripted or volunteer forces that hadn't been properly trained in the use of arms, combined with the quantities of pre-made cartridges being strained as the demand for munitions would be considerably higher. There are plenty of English cartridge belts from the period and earlier going back well into the Tudor period.
@@colbunkmust The quote is dated from 1677, which is 2.5 decades after the end of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. The army at the time was professional. And a cartridge belt can just as well hold wooden containers for powder charges, and not paper cartridges.
@@F1ghteR41 Interesting, I didn't catch the date. So, while manuals of arms of the period such as de Gheyn's don't mention wadding or paper cartridges, and Twelve Apostles usually were loaded with loose ball and powder, that doesn't mean that the English weren't familiar with the concept during the ECW. For example, there is a very detailed set of accounts from 1643 during the siege of Glouchester of the Parlimentarian forces in the city manufacturing paper cartridges for the troops in the garrison.
@@colbunkmust I'm not saying that the British were unfamiliar with cartridge technology, I'm saying that cartridges were uncommon. Massey's force in Gloucester was a tenth of the size of its besiegers, or indeed the relief army. It also included dragoons and cavalry, precisely the set of people first to adopt paper cartridges. Given that most of Gloucester artillery was light, its limited powder supply could freely be expended on skirmishes with ill-prepared Royalists, including a cavalry charge.
@@F1ghteR41 well, the account states it was the infantry making the cartridges "on the march", and the account also states that gunpowder wasn't in short supply as there were powder mills manufacturing it as the siege occurred. Massey states in a letter to the Earl of Essex, "our necessity is not so great for ammunition, we having found a way to make a match, and also what powder we can".
I enjoyed this immensely, particularly as it covers the change rom matchlock to flintlock, but tis is the second time recently that I have heard the 17th century civil war called the 'first'. Stephen and Matilda fought a civil war between 1135 and 1153, which allowed anarchy that was described as when Christ and his Angels slept because it was so brutal.
The 'first' in this context refers to the war of 1642-1646, whereas the second was the brief conflict in 1648.
Great video, thanks!
The room looked spoopy in this episode 😂
Great video on those match lock firearms . Thanks for the laughs too . legend has it that witches Turned into bunnies 😂😂😂😂
I imagine too scenarios , fuzzy bunnies with fangs leaping at people's throats (Monty Python style) ,or hot supermodels with skimpy costumes with bowties , cuffs, rabbit ears and fuzzy tail .
Do the supermodels have club butts?
Genuinely got startled by the bats transition effect
I wonder if the myth was applied to deer because it was an easy way to maintain one's pride when they missed shooting at a deer. "Oh, I'm a crack shot, but I missed the doe because it had to have been a witch in disguise and she cursed me so my shot couldn't land." The difference between the preferred animal in England/Scotland/Ireland and in the Americas coming down to the prevalence of the deer in the Americas, and the increase in size making the American deer even more desirable to bag as a game animal. That's my UA-cam University PHD theory at least.
Hunting deer in Britain at the time was likely still the privelege of royals & nobles, who were supposedly beyond such superstition, whereas in America it was a common game.
15:28 so you’re telling me all you had to do to get back at a nightmare ex was to shoot your ex in the shoulder and then shoot a hare in the shoulder (or vice versa) and then report them as a witch? Wild times
"I am the VVitch finder general of the colonah of Massachusetts bay"
About time you showed up sir!
And remember, thou art a wretched sinner
Really wish i could find out, which wicked witch, ate my Sandwich?!
I cannot imagine trying to use a gun of this length in heavy brush or jungle.
I wasn't aware of the connection between Witches and Hares. I wonder if that's related to the Killer Rabbit of Monty Python fame.
It has been claimed that the Killer Rabbit is inspired by the _marginalia_ art of the medieval manuscripts, but there might be something to your idea still. After all, knights fight all manner of creatures in these miniatures, depicting all manner of vices and sins in contrivedly allegorical manner, the rabbit had to be chosen somehow.
Reminds me of Abiah Fowler's gun in Blue Eyed Samurai. Just saying!
Nice video, sensei! 👏👏👏
Same type of gun and the same time period. 1600s.
Goat: This here magic stick, will relight your wick!
Pilgrim: I am very sorry, but I just bought a Bic!
Nice. :)
I guessed wrong on FB as usual. :)
Have you done a comparison video of the various mechanisms yet? Flintlock, matchlock, wheellock, doglock, snaphaunce, etc.
Would like to see examples and clear definitions. All the books I've read over the decades have no images, and/or are unclear in description. :(
I keep asking Jonathan for this for years, especially since he had done a video on the subset of this topic a great while back, now sadly deleted.
I might have to look into this further, but I seem to recall seeing UA-cam videos saying that soldiers didn't put the ball in their mouths (very much in the context of Sharpe) whereas here we have a (much earlier) quote suggesting that they did. (though not saying that they spat it from their mouth into the barrel)
But then perhaps I don't care that much.
I have to wonder how people in future will view flintlocks and other old weapons compared to current day weapons
This content cannot be matched.
Sorry, I'll show myself out.
Happy Samhain!!
You too
😂 that's a good one actually
@@beefycheesecake Than queue.
A Celtic festival not just irish as it’s being touted. I’ve fired a matchlock and I felt the musket was cursed as it was such a bad shot
So cool
but jonathan where is the HAT !
Photoshopped by a cheeky editor...
Loved this one. Are you going to do one of the guns of nautilus?
I was awaiting that he gonna sit there with that hat from the thumbnail !
I am reminded of Inkubus Sukkubus' song "Woman to Hare".
This weapon comes closest to being infantry proof compared to almost any firearm in history. Even if everything breaks, which infantry are known to do, it can still fire.
I do not recommend it, you will burn your hand. Matchlocks are also very dangerous at both ends.
how are they dangerous? They don't strike me as very dangerous.
@lutzderlurch7877 75 caliber lead ball will hurt like hell if it hits any part of you.
And I speak from experience that having a flash in the pan (when the priming pan ignites in your face) also hurts like hell.
Fire and open containers of black powder may not kill you, but it doesn't tickle as long as they are small. If they are big? Kiss you ass goodbye if you get a stray spark. VERY unsafe weapon.
I would say the Scots is better interpreted as “so much care”, but otherwise good 😊
"The Boomstick"... What-do-ya-reckon Guv? Only 5 schilling...
Of course the witch had to have cursed the weapon. It couldn't possibly be that these things were not very accurate or that the user could be a bad shot.
PS if you want to see a decent collection of civil war arms try popping over to Bolling Hall in Bradford. (That's Bolling as in rolling despite what many people will tell you!)
That butt stock would make a nice club such as the Eastern Woodland and Plains tribes used.
Nit-picking movies - like the infamous double gun shots in that awful movie The Revanant (2015). I have learned to internalise my thoughts when watching some movies with my partner.
Excellent video, though some of the boujee more modern pieces are interesting, I do love some of the very early stuff. Probably started by my father dragging me 'round stately homes & castles as a kid. Staring at the panoplies of weapons & armour was always fascinating. 🐇🧙
I have trouble not nitpicking 😂
Is 'Misfire' specifically used in context regarding your gun being cursed..? I'm reminded of the climactic shootout in 'UNFORGIVEN'.
Would be funny if his costume was just the long name tag of his title
So if they were holding the ball in their mouths, they were doing what we yanks called a Spit Patch, throw in a powder charge and Spit the ball out and tamp, then charge the frizen cock and fire, made for a faster volley of fire, not very accurate but when you're firing into massed troops on line you didn't need to be hit his button accurate
My long suffering wife gets to consistently hear me nitpick when there is something that a movie gets wrong (which is pretty much all of them).
I'm trying to wean myself from the habit, but its hard! only do it at home anymore though, I don't want to be "that" guy.
Beautiful guns, nice curves. Some of us have to work out for months and still not get a club-butt.
Have you considered opting for a fishtail instead? 😁
60 inch barrel.. can you imagine lugging that around all day, in gear, in the sun, or maybe even worse, rain.
yeah, the less then 20 inches now is a lot better. literally a third the length
Tbh the alternative was carrying a pike
black powder burns rather slow compared to modern propellants and produces much less gas. So a longer barrel gives the powder time to burn and the gasses time to act on the ball. As powder got slightly better over time, it was possible to get the same ball move slightly faster out of a shorter barrel with less powder. That'S why similarly sized musket from the 18th C. tend to have shorter barrels and powder charges went down noticably, Even during the 18th C. the amount of powder per shot went down from about 1/2 the weight of the shot, to 1/3.
In the mid 18th C. the Brits did experiments in how far you can cut down a muskets barrel without a meaningful loss of power and accuracy. they ended up with some 23 or 25" (would have to look the number up, to be sure) But by then the infantry used bayonets in lieu of pikes and the length was regarded vital for fending off bayonets and esp. cavalry, so they reduced the barrels from 48", but only to 42".
Jonathan, you are grey so Witcher would be a better fit for you. I'm sure a witcher would appreciate matchlock musket capabilities. These seem to do 2000 Joules, so that's nasty with pure lead.
I thought, for certain that the topic of this video would be haunted objects in the collection. Ask many collectors of arms used in conflict, used the kill, and they will report that there are moments of uneasiness around these items, from time to time. Would the Royal Armouries care to comment or even issue a video about objects in the collection that make people uneasy? Oh, by the by, great video, even if it is not the content that I wanted to see.
.76 calibur? Basically a 40k bolter then!
So basically that was the AK-47 of it's day!
Is that how we don’t know witches exist anymore?
Hare today, gone tomorrow….
I’ll get my cape…
Why was the matchlock in use for so long parallell to the flintlock? Is the system so much more simple/cheap to produce? The flintlock must’ve been superior in every way from my understanding.
The last witch executed legally turned her daughter into a donkey allegedly!
Any chance the decoration, what little there is, was added by the carrier in a quiet moment. Maybe to personalise and make more identifiable.
Very little chance, I think - most of the muskets in the Littlecote collection are similarly subtly decorated.
@@JonathanFergusonRoyalArmouries OK. I didn't realise all the other were the same.
😎
I can never figure out why the English civil War is not called the 3rd civil war, seeing as we had the anarchy with Steven and matilda and the wars of the roses?
Dangerous to go against Jonathan but from that butt I would have dated that to perhaps ten years earlier - butts by 1645 were more usually lighter and more like the 'rounded' ones elsewhere in the Littlecote Collection (now runs and hides from incoming flak).
What!?!?! Where is the pointed hat he had on in the thumbnail!!!!!! I've been deceived, hoodwinked, bamboozled even.
err 2:15 "..the First English Civil War...", Does Jonathan know something that we dont? Do I need to be worried?
The first here refers to the war of 1642-1646, whereas the second was the one in 1648.
Am i the only one who thinks this is the gun the Tusken raiders from Star Wars use?
Once fired, reverse it and use it as a poleaxe.
Heh, that is actually part of the manual of arms I learned when I did historical interpretation at Jamestown Settlement back in 2006-2007
English and Scots infantry were actually quite (in)famous for their willingness to get stuck in with clubbed muskets. Their continental counterparts found it a bit crude as proper soldiers used a sword, the musket as club was a last resort.
@@Vonstab if it is stupid and it works...
2:42 eyyyyy, Somerset mentioned
you need to talk to the thumbnail making person my brain took way too long to realise what was going on in it
What else floats in water?
Very small shot!
Objects can be haunted and cursed ,so antique dealers beware😮
What are these strange things to the sides of the speaker in the background, that look like mutated hatch wheels or something?
They spin and move the racks
@joshh61 cool!
What accuracy? It's a rolling ball in a smooth bore, I don't think a heavy trigger will matter much if at all.
The correct term for female werewolf is a 'wifwolf' apparently: in old English 'were' meant an adult man, and 'wif' meant an adult woman. Presumably the same applied to wererabbits....
Hmm. I don't think anyone used that term historically. In fact the academics today no longer believe that 'werewolf' derived from the word for 'man' at all. To quote Willem de Blécourt in ‘The Differentiated Werewolf: An Introduction to Cluster Methodology’ (‘Werewolf Histories’, 2015, p. 2):
“...‘werewolf’ is usually explained as a combination of ‘wolf’ and ‘wer’, the latter meaning man (from the Latin vir).[7] On closer inspection this is unsatisfactory, because historically ‘wer’ was only prefixed to wolf, but never to other animals whose shape man was known to change into; and the combination of two words from different language groups appears fabricated. ‘Wer’ is better understood as deriving from the Anglo-Saxon ‘warg’ (Old Norse vargr), which led to the French garou. If ‘wer’ was related to vir, then one would expect it to exist in a romanic language like French. Italians use lupu mannaro, the last word deriving ostensibly from the German ‘man’. Literarily meaning ‘strangler’, ‘warg’ indicated someone outside the ‘world’, a socially deviant outsider; more specifically, a criminal and an outcast.[8] In this way the werewolf is opposed to socially integrated wolves, men with names like Beowulf, Rudolf, Ulf, or Wolfgang.[9] In Christian thought and early Bible translations, the werewolf (werewulf) was associated with or synonymous with the devil.”
@@JonathanFergusonRoyalArmouries Interesting. I should know better than to rely on UA-cam etymology channels and a quick Google search.
I noticed a SERIOUS error here: according to the YT timer on the video, it was 17 minutes and 58 seconds long. While extra content is always good, in keeping with the subject matter, it SHOULD have been trimmed to precisely 13 MINUTES...
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