The ’Push of Pike’ in Seventeenth-Century English Infantry Combat

Despite their importance, the role of pikemen in battle and the mechanics of pike combat during the seventeenth century have not received proper attention. Taking English armies of the period as a case study, this article uses contemporary sources and recent research on the warfare of other periods with the goal of redressing this. It examines several seventeenth-century battles involving English armies and concludes that pikemen played a far more critical part than previously assumed. It examines the limitations of previous models used to explain how pikemen actually fought and suggests a new model, based on a close reading of the sources.