[75] The ‘Morning-Star’ was a club five feet long, set thickly at its end with iron spikes. It had disappeared by the middle of the 15th century. The ‘Lucern Hammer’ was like a halberd, but had three curved prongs instead of the hatchet-blade: it inflicted a horrible jagged wound. [76] Macchiavelli, Art of War, tr. Farneworth, p. 32. [77] Macchiavelli even says that the pikemen in his day did not wear the steel-cap, which was entirely confined to the halberdiers. But this can be shown from other sources to be an exaggeration. [78] See Kirk’s Charles the Bold, book iv. chap. 2. [79] At Morat, according to Commines, they were nearly a third, 10,000 out of 35,000. At Arbedo they were a seventh: among the Confederates who joined Charles VIII in his march to Naples only a tenth of the force. [80] E.g. the Forest Cantons were bitterly opposed to the Bernese policy of engaging in war with Charles the Bold; but their troops did no worse service than the rest at Granson or Morat. [81] Rudolf von Erlach’s position as commander-in-chief at Laupen was quite exceptional. If we hear in the cases mentioned above of Swiss commanders, we must remember that they were co-ordinate authorities, among whom one man might exert more influence than another, but only by his personal ascendancy, not by legal right. It is a mistake to say that Réné of Lorraine formally commanded at Morat or Nancy. [82] Macchiavelli has a very clear account of this form of advance, see Arte de Guerra, tr. Farneworth, book iii. [83] See Elgger’s Kriegswesen der Schweizerische, etc. p. 280. [84] See Elgger as before. [85] Arte de Guerra, tr. Farneworth, p. 57. [86] Quoted at length in Elgger. [87] At Bannockburn, the Scots had made good use of their cavalry, which, though not strong, gave them an advantage wanting to the Swiss at Laupen. [88] Similarly at the battle of the Standard the English knights dismounted to meet the furious rush of the Galwegians. [89] The numbers which the Swiss Chroniclers allow to have been present at Sempach are evidently minimised. The whole force of four cantons was there, yet we are told of only 1500 men! Yet the _three_ cantons seventy-one years before put the same number in the field, and the populous state of Lucern had now joined them. [90] The Confederates were forming their column in Sempach Wood, when Leopold’s artillery opened on them-- ‘With their long lances levelled before the fight they stood, And set their cannon firing at those within the wood; Then to the good Confederates the battle was not sweet, When all around the mighty boughs dropped crashing at their feet.’ [Rough translation of Halbshuter’s contemporary ‘Sempacherlied.’]