2.2 What is Important about Rules of Engagement in Seventeenth Century Warfare?
Rules of warfare, laws of warfare or rules of engagement are a key theme in book 1 of La Garde Ecossaise, distinguishing between murder and defence. Indeed, it was a distinction that many early modern military theorists were familiar with. However, before I go on to discuss the historical theory and practice of the rules of engagement in early modern warfare, for those of you who have read La Garde Ecossaise I will refresh your memory about passages in the book that discuss and relate to rules of engagement in early modern warfare. For those of you currently reading the novel there may be spoilers ahead, but I will try my best to keep them to a minimum.
We are first introduced to the rules of engagement when Hamilton teaches the difference between murder and defence using passages from the bible.
As Meldrum recalls:
‘He drew my attention to the difference between the biblical passages on Cain and the killing of his brother Abel and that of David and Goliath. Hamilton used both these passages to distinguish between ‘murder’ and ‘killing’. It was pointed out to me that Cain murdered his brother Abel and it was considered murder because Cain had lost his temper with his brother Abel because Abel was receiving God’s favour. In a rage motivated by the sins of covetousness and by extension, jealousy Cain did not recognise God’s will or judgement and killed his brother Abel. This was murder because it was against God’s will and the natural order. It was not done in self-defence or for the preservation of men in general’.[1]
Meldrum continues:
‘On the other hand, the passage on David and Goliath was set in a time of war between the Israelites and the Philistines so they were in the act of war and defending their respective communities from harm. The Philistines requested that the best warriors on each side should be presented in battle which followed the conventions and rules of warfare. Likewise, so did the Israelites when they, as part of God’s plan, met with the Philistines in battle’.[2]
In these passages the basic rules of engagement are very clear, killing based on individual and personal motivations driven by anger of jealousy constitutes murder. The early modern period was an intensely religious time and murder was seen as a sin against God and against the natural order, whereas, if the actions are undertaken during war and are taken in self-defence, either for yourself or your community in the field of battle, they constitute a legitimate act of war. These are the underlying rules of engagement that the men of La Garde Ecossaise are bound by and underpin their actions and decisions by.
This is underscored in other parts of the novel where on occasion I would put the men in difficult circumstances showing how, in reality, these basic rules can be complex in different contexts.
In 1672 it is revealed that Hamilton has broken his own rules of engagement and this shakes Meldrum to the core especially after their biblical conversations. Hamilton confesses to the murder of a man in 1658 and this indeed was a private act on Hamilton’s part, done within the confines of the grounds of the hunting lodge at Versailles. Hamilton knows that he is in serious trouble as Meldrum explains:
‘However, the letter of the law is impartial and John Hamilton was a sensible fair minded man who recognised the trouble that he had caused himself in the eyes of the law’.’[3]
Meldrum continues:
‘Sat squarely in front of Le Marshal [Turenne] Hamilton had his head down, waiting for the interrogation to begin. Le Marshal had a stern look on his face and given the gravity of his crime Hamilton thought his next place would be jail, followed by a court martial and then a hanging’.[4]
Here the distinction between killing to defend your community and killing through private actions which constitute murder is very clear. This was a deliberate inclusion on my part to underscore the rules of engagement in early modern warfare, but as we will discover when examining Hamilton’s actions and the context in which they took place, things are not as clear cut as we are led to believe.
In his defence Hamilton pulls out a bundle of letters in children’s handwriting which contain evidence relating to the actions of the deceased man Hamilton has murdered. Furthermore, we also discover that the man posed a direct threat to Hamilton’s daughter, Elouise, who, at this time, was only four years old. The man was a lover of Evelyne, John Hamilton’s estranged wife. Hamilton states plainly that his actions did not stem from jealousy because of Evelyne’s extramarital affair but rather because this man posed a direct threat to children, including Hamilton’s own daughter Elouise. Given Hamilton’s past in Ireland we, as readers, are therefore unsurprised that Hamilton instinct was to act against the man. It is an action that audiences will feel empathise with, even though it is seen as murder in the eyes of the law.[5]
Throughout the novel we are confronted with these rules time and again:
Hamilton ends the life of Jan De Vries as Jan poses a credible and actionable threat to the life of Robert Meldrum, who, at the time, is on observation or reconnaissance for the Garde. This contrasts with Jan De Vries himself who is motivated to kill Meldrum based upon personal grudges and driven by private motivations for revenge.[6]
Again, the theme is apparent but within the context of the Scottish Highlands, which had its own rules of engagement and societal expectations of what is considered permissible within the context of self-defence and warfare but again Hamilton crosses the line between self-defence and murder. As Meldrum recalls:
‘Upon seeing he had been stabbed, Alasdair passed out. Unfortunately for the commander John Hamilton was a horrified onlooker. John thought the commander had killed his close friend, the man who had saved his life in the past and without thinking twice Hamilton had pulled out his dirk and slit the commander’s throat’.[7]
Meldrum continues:
‘John Hamilton was deep in his own thoughts about how he had killed a man. Hamilton replayed the scenario over and over again in his head and was racked with guilt. It was during this time that John vowed to make the distinction between self-defence and murder. To his dying day John had stated that he had killed a man in cold blood, impulsively, without much thought, driven by intense loyalty to his friend’.[8]
Here Hamilton commits murder because although the man did not pose a direct threat to him personally he was driven by what he thought the commander had done to his friend rather than what had actually happened. It was not an act of self-defence grounded firmly upon the facts at the time. Furthermore, Hamilton had allowed his emotions to cloud his judgement about the facts and this was not how professional soldiers at the time operated, quite the opposite. At this point in his life Hamilton is not a professional solider but I inserted this scenario so it would contrast with Hamilton’s conduct in French service during the Thirty Years War.
When recounting John Hamilton’s service in the Thirty Years War, Meldrum draws our attention to the fate of Marc Berger, John Hamilton’s brother in arms. Marc Berger is cut down by an opposing solider, despite Berger holding his hands up as an act of surrender and submission. Hamilton, looking on and horrified allows his emotions to get the better of him and cuts the solider down for breaching the rules of combat, yet, Hamilton declares his actions in killing the opposing solider was permissible given that they were fighting each other in a battle. I will leave it for you to judge whether Hamilton is correct in his statement.[9]
Again, the rules of engagement are followed clearly when MacDonald shoots a man dead. This man was about to detonate explosives in a church with the intent of causing injury and death.[10]
Finally, the real life murder of Antony Ascham, English ambassador to Spain for the English Republic, by a group of Royalist exiles in May 1650 is used to distinguish between the murder of an individual in the name of a community as a callous act of revenge by a group of individuals who take the law into their own hands and this contrasts with killing someone in the name of self-defence on behalf of a community for its safety.
Therefore, it is clear that La Garde Ecossaise operates under rules of engagement and Hamilton and his men cannot kill anyone based on their own will alone.
The Laws of War in Early Modern Europe
How do the above ideas, thoughts and actions compare to the rules of engagement as understood by soldiers in early modern Europe during the seventeenth century? There was not codification of the rules of war as we have today but, rather, there were unwritten rules of conduct on warfare that depended upon the context in which they were applied and how they were interpreted by soldiers and officers in given circumstances.
However, there were early modern theorists whose ideas would have impacted upon John Hamilton’s generation of soldiers such as Francesco de Vitoria who lived from 1483 to 1546 , Balthazar Ayala who lived from 1548 to 1584, Luis de Molina who lived from 1535 to 1600 and Hugo Grotius who lived from 1583 to 1645. These authors grappled with the theory behind the conduct of war. Their theories were based upon a mixture of Classical precedence of Greek and Roman scholars and Christian theorists from the Middle Ages who had drawn their ideas from Biblical scriptures. These ideas were then applied to the context within which these writers lived. It was during the early modern period that the laws of war, as we would recognise them today, began to be standardised and established.[11]
However, there are important caveats to these rules that we must understand before we proceed. Firstly, these rules of engagement or rules of war only pertained to Christians. Muslims were excluded from these rules because these rules of engagement came from the Christian tradition in the Middle Ages. The second caveat is that the rules of engagement tended to differ in terms of rank. The rules of engagement were agreed and applied by officers who mainly comprised the aristocracy. These laws of war did not necessarily extend to the actions and experiences of the lower ranks.[12]
One of the major rules of warfare that was agreed upon was that legitimate warfare could only be undertaken by a sovereign power. This could be a monarch, in the case of Louis XIV, or in the case of the United Provinces, modern day Dutch Netherlands, the assemblies of the Provinces. Anyone who went to war without the permission of the sovereign was classed as a rebel, and as such, declarations of war issued without the sovereign’s permission were seen as rebellions and therefore the sovereign had every right to supress them using armed force. This is an argument that was fully accepted and, as such, when Louis XIV supressed the Fronde, he had the law of war on his side.[13]
Theorists such as Vitoria, Ayala, Molina and Grotius were all occupied with the key question of what constitutes a ‘Just War’. The majority of these works were published when Spain was conquering the New World and Spain was the dominant military power in Europe. At this time, during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries Spain was trying to supress rebellion in the Netherlands – hence why the majority of these early modern treatises on the rules of war have Spanish connections. In Hugo Grotius’s case he was writing his works after the United Provinces had successfully manged to cede from the Spanish Empire and create an independent country. This new independent country drew its wealth primarily from overseas expansion and had to justify it assertive, and some would say overtly aggressive, mercantile policy. These are the key contexts which informed these authors opinions, and it is something to keep in mind.
So, what constituted a Just war? All theorists broadly agreed on the following:
- A war in defence of ourselves, our country, our property and goods, liberty and to defend our allies.
- To regain something from the enemy that they have unjustly taken from us and something that the enemy still unjustly retains.
- To take vengeance for some wrongdoing that someone unjustly inflicted upon us.
- When a neighbour denies us access to cross his territory peacefully.
- There is also a right to oppose pillaging, rape and killing.
- Breach of agreements and treatises.
- Dissuade a country or peoples to join your enemies.
- To repress internal heresy and rebellion.[14]
Other customs that became commonplace were the exchange of prisoners and the taking and releasing of hostages. There was also the concept of protection money – sums paid by local authorities to pay military forces in the area not to harm non-combatants. The killing of innocents is prohibited in war but some theorists like Vitoria, take account of accidental killing or what we would call today ‘collateral damage’. Grotius classed innocents as women, children, priests, husbandmen, merchants and all captives. For some theorists like William Ames, women and children should not be killed. For Grotius neutral countries should not be despoiled. Yet Grotius differs from other theorists, in believing that non-combatants in the theatre of war and their property are not immune from the effects of war. They may be taken prisoner, including women and children, and they may be killed. This diversion is particularly notable as it coincides with the Thirty Years War.[15]
However, being a very religious era for many of these writers and indeed, for many contemporary soldiers God played a key role in their decisions to go to war. This was particularly the case, but not exclusive to, Puritans in England and New England but also to other Protestant Calvinists in the United Provinces and in Swiss Confederation. In fact, Grotius had to revise his treatise on war which he wrote whilst in exile in France to appeal to his Calvinist compatriots in the United Provinces. Many Calvinists believed that God himself inspires and leads men into war and that God handpicks certain men for the task of war. A famous example of this perspective is Oliver Cromwell who was instrumental in the defeat of the Royalists during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. He believed that he was God’s instrument to fulfil God’s will on earth, which was predestined, otherwise known as God’s Providence. Other theorists and contemporaries believed that God’s role and will could be a double-edged sword. If an army was victorious, it was the sign that God was pleased and that the victors were righteous. However, if the army lost, it was a sign of God’s displeasure upon the combatants and a sign of God’s wrath upon the army This despair experienced in the wake of God’s wrath after a military defeat, can be seen amongst the Covenanters after their defeat at the Battle of Dunbar at the hands of Oliver Cromwell’s forces in September 1650. Indeed, the French theorist Francios de Sallins suggested that soldiers should mitigate and regulate their own behaviour towards civilians fearing God’s wrath for any transgression against noncombatants but it is important to note that not all theorists in the early modern period believed that victory was a sign of God’s help, such as Matthew Sutcliffe.[16]
Decoding Early Modern Rules of War: Key Examples
I will reflect upon some of the key events of our historical fiction novel La Garde Ecossaise and will explain their significance in relation to the codes of conduct in warfare in the early modern period. It will explain why contemporaries saw events in a particular light and why certain actions were taken. It will also highlight how conduct in early modern warfare is ultimately decided by the context of particular conflicts and show that these customs varied considerably.
1641 Irish Rebellion
In his excellent study of the plantation of Ulster Jonathan Bardon made the following observation about the 1641 Irish Rebellion, ‘A great many of the incidents of cruelty could be classed as acts of war, incidents which would have been considered run of the mill in the Thirty Years War still raging in Germany’.[17] I am not sure I agree with this statement but if we view the 1641 rebellion through the perspective of early modern theories of war we can see how and why many contemporaries saw the rebellion as a massacre rather than as a legitimate act of war.
First and foremost, it was clear to many Protestants after the events, that the 1641 rebellion was an act of rebellion against the sovereign. It was an internal rebellion within the realms of King Charles I that needed to be supressed. Therefore, we should not be surprised that the Scottish Covenanters, and later Oliver Cromwell, used the 1641 rebellion as justification for the invasion and occupation of Ireland in the 1650s. It is clear, even to historians today, that the rebellion was a premeditated conspiracy against the State to ensure its disruption and paralysis.[18]
However, it is clear that even in the early stages of the rebellion Sir Pheliim O’ Neil, who was a trained lawyer and therefore aware of the customs of war, attempted to justify the rebels’ actions in taking fortresses. He claimed these actions were acts of self-defence with the Irish fearing their own personal and material destruction, fearing loss of influence and property as well as the destruction of the Catholic religion in Ireland. Indeed, amongst priests, the latter argument was particularly potent. Later, it has been claimed by many historians that O’Neil justified his actions and his acts of rebellion via a false Royal commission, but John Cunningham has uncovered that this false Royal declaration was in fact a work of propaganda by English Presbyterian minister Edward Bowles in 1643. Although Cunningham admits that O’Neil and his rebels did issue declarations under the Great Seal of England within their local areas of jurisdiction, in O’Neil’s case this was County Armagh. Indeed, fellow conspirators in Dublin went as far as to declare that they were protecting the King’s prerogative by undertaking their actions against undue English parliamentary influence on Irish affairs. Furthermore, at the beginning of the rebellion O’Neil issued a declaration stating that English and Scottish civilians and their property were not intended targets of the rebellion. It is clear to me that O’Neil was aware of the legal customs of war, and he was trying to project the 1641 rebellion as a legitimate act of war. O’Neil wanted to summon the settlers in the communities to explain why they were taking action, and thus, in line with the customs of war, making his grievances publicly known. Yet, one must question the disarming of innocent civilians and the Catholics using those confiscated arms and ammunition against the settlers themselves.[19]
The rebellion very quickly spun out of O’Neil’s control and thousands of innocent civilians were indeed murdered in cold blood. We will be looking at these events in greater detail in later podcasts, but it should be noted that within the first 24 hours of the rebellion, property belonging to innocent non-combatants was destroyed. In the afternoon of 23 October 1641 the settlement of Moneymore was burnt to the ground. There was widespread looting and violence as the native Irish began turning against the English settlers. In other instances the English settlers were killed so the Irish could gain their property.[20] There were two infamous events in the 1641 rebellion which illustrate the rebellion’s ferocity, the drowning and shooting of innocent women, children, and men in the River Bann at Portadown in October 1641 and the premeditated burning alive of civilians in a cottage near Kilmore in 1642. These acts were not acts of war but a violation of customs of war and thus would have been seen as acts of murder. As Eamon Darcy has stated in his excellent study of the 1641 rebellion ‘There are numerous instances of local Irish leaders granting their followers permission to execute Protestant settlers’. [21]
The Siege of Magdeburg
The breeching of the walls of Magdeburg by Imperial forces in 1631 has been described by historians as ‘the single worst atrocity’ of the Thirty Years War. The city was burnt to the ground and 24,000 men, women and children died.[22] As the city’s walls fell and soldiers poured in property was destroyed, weapons were taken from inhabitants, money was extorted from inhabitants by individuals or units of soldiers and in return, these civilians who were extorted would live to see another day. Other civilians were taken as prisoners and marched to the Imperial camp. It may surprise you to learn that these actions were all legitimate within the context of the early modern the rules of warfare. Even the deaths of 24,000 inhabitants were accepted and justifiable under rules of warfare as the city had repeatably refused multiple summons from the Imperial forces to surrender. It is often this refusal to capitulate that resulted in these bloodbaths. The infamous siege at Drogheda in Ireland at the hands of Oliver Cromwell in 1649 is justified on these grounds too. In Geoffrey Parker’s words ‘There was nothing special about the level of brutality at Magdeburg – to sack a town that resisted was standard practice during the war’. However, what marked Magdeburg from other sieges and capitulations was the sheer ferocity of the Imperial troops and it seemed to contemporaries both Imperialists or Hapsburgs and those in the Anti-Hapsburg alliance both Protestants and Catholics, that Magdeburg broke all previous thresholds in military conduct. Peter Wilson states that only 5,000 of the 25,000 inhabitants of the city are said to have survived.[23]
In La Garde Ecossaise Hamilton makes a correlation between the Siege of Magdeburg and the 1641 Rebellion. We now know that within the rules and customs of early modern warfare that this is a false equivalency as one conforms to the rules of warfare, Magdeburg, whilst the other, the 1641 rebellion, does not. Yet, in Hamilton’s own mind they are very similar indeed.[24] This was not unusual by the standards of the time, especially for men like Hamilton who had fought against the Imperial forces during the Thirty Years War, who saw the Imperial armies at Magdeburg as bloodthirsty murderous thugs. Those who fought on the Hapsburg/Imperial side of the Thirty Years War celebrated the victory as a punishment on their enemies for disrespecting the emperor and for following the Protestant faith and siding with the Emperor’s Protestants opponents, most notably Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden. The people of Magdeburg saw the Imperial victory as punishment upon the city from God for its sins. In both cases they reference the destruction of Jerusalem from the bible to support their arguments. It was commonplace to use the Bible to show evidence of God’s displeasure and blessings after military actions.[25]
The Murder of Anthony Ascham
I would like to jump forward in the book to Spain and to the murder of Anthony Ascham, the English ambassador to Spain, and contrast this event briefly with the previous two episodes. We will look at this episode in greater depth in a future podcast. In La Garde Ecossaise, Hamilton describes the murder in detail. Essentially, a group of young Royalist exiles murder the English ambassador in Spain in an inn in May 1650 in retaliation for the execution of King Charles I and the creation of the English Republic whom this English ambassador represents. However, Hamilton, in La Garde Ecossaise makes it clear that the actions committed by these Royalist men constituted murder as it was a private act by a group of self-appointed individuals who committed the action. It is not an action supported or sanctioned by a sovereign state. The action took place in a civilian place of refuge not on a battlefield. Therefore, it cannot be classed as a legitimate act of war. Conversely, Spain charges these Royalists with high treason because, as an ambassador, Anthony Ascham had the protection of the King of Spain. This was, and still is, standard practice in diplomacy, as an ambassador is a representative of their sovereign or leader and is automatically accorded the protection of the sovereign or leader in the country they reside. [26]
That concludes today’s podcast on rules of engagement and military codes of conduct in the early modern period. Please don’t forget that you can purchase the historical fiction novel La Garde Ecossaise: the life of John Hamilton from all good online bookstores. Next week we will explore the world of the early modern sword master – until then – au revoir, a bientot.
[1] MacKenzie, La Garde Ecossaise 80
[2] MacKenzie, La Garde Ecossaise 80
[3] MacKenzie, La Garde Ecossaise 159.
[4] MacKenzie, La Garde Ecossaise 159.
[5] MacKenzie, La Garde Ecossaise 159-165.
[6] MacKenzie, La Garde Ecossaise 191-198.
[7] MacKenzie, La Garde Ecossaise 231
[8] MacKenzie, La Garde Ecossaise 231.
[9] MacKenzie, La Garde Ecossaise 308.
[10] MacKenzie, La Garde Ecossaise 344-345.
[11] John Childs, ‘The Laws of War in Seventeenth Century Europe and their application during the Jacobite War in Ireland 1688-1691’ in David Edwards, Padraig Lenihan and Clodiagh Tait eds., Age of Atrocity: Violence and Political Conflict in Early Modern Ireland (Dublin,2007) 283. Geoffrey Parker, ‘Early Modern Europe’ in Michael Howard et al eds., The Laws of War: Constraints on Warfare in the Western World (London, 1994) 42.
[12] Childs ‘The Laws of War in Seventeenth Century Europe’ in Edwards, Lenihan and Tait eds., Age of Atrocity 285.
[13] Parker ‘Early Modern Europe’ in Howard eds, The Laws of War 42; Richard Tuck, The Rights of War and Peace: Political Thought and the International Order from Grotius to Kant (London, 2001) 84.
[14] Parker, ‘Early Modern Europe’, The Laws of War 43; . James Turner Johnson, Ideology, Reason and the Limitation of War: Religious and Secular Concepts, 1200-1740 (Princeton, 1973) 108, 155, 159-162, 212-214, 218, 221-223, Tuck, The Rights of War and Peace 51-52.
[15] Parker, ‘Early Modern Europe’ The Laws of War 52-53; Turner Johnson, Ideology, Reason and the Limitation of War 196-197, 198, 223-224, 227.
[16] Turner Johnson, Ideology, Reason and the Limitation of War 89, 109, 159 , 162, 175; Tuck, The Rights of War and Peace 99.
[17] Jonathan Bardon, The Plantation of Ulster (London, 2012) 277.
[18] Nicholas Canny, Making Ireland British 1580-1650 (Oxford, 2001) 469.
[19] Canny, Making Ireland British 462, 464.469-472, 484; Eamon Darcy. The Irish Rebellion of 1641 and the Wars of the Three Kingdoms (London, 2015) 61-62; Bardon, The Plantation of Ulster 273, 275; M. Perceival-Maxwell, The Outbreak of the Irish Rebellion in 1641 (London, 1994) 214, 218; John Cunningham, ‘Who Framed King Charles I? The Forged Commission of the Irish 1641 rebellion revisited’, English Historical Review (2011) 61-70. Many thanks to Professor Tim Harris for bringing this article to my attention.
[20] Canny, Making Ireland British 473; Perceival-Maxwell, The Outbreak of the Irish Rebellion 227.
[21] Canny, Making Ireland British 484; Bardon, The Plantation of Ulster 276; Darcy. The Irish Rebellion of 1641 and the Wars of the Three Kingdoms 56.
[22] Richard Bonney, The Thirty Years War 1618-1648 (London, 2022) Loc 621 [Kindle].
[23] Peter Wilson, The Thirty Years War: A Sourcebook (London, 2010) 144-146, 149, 158, 165-166; Geoffrey Parker, The Thirty Years War (London, 1989) 88.
[24] MacKenzie, La Garde Ecossaise 283.
[25] Wilson, The Thirty Years War 144-146, 149, 152-153, 166.
[26] MacKenzie, La Garde Ecossaise 358-363.