entary War, but of the earlier so-called
"Pilgrimage of Grace," or "Lincolnshire Rising," a movement intended as a
protest against certain abuses attending the Reformation, in the reign of
Henry VIII. The evidence, however, gathered from various directions,
would seem to be strongly corroborative of the old and more general
opinion. History shows that, for many years, about the period of the
Commonwealth, scythes were among the commonest, rude weapons of war. The
artist Edgar Bundy, in his painting "The morning of Edgemoor," recently
(1905) purchased for the National Gallery by the Chantry Trustees,
represents a soldier armed with a straight wooden-handled scythe. The
battle of Edgemoor was fought Oct. 23, 1642, one year before that of
Winceby. We have also contemporary testimony in the _Memoirs of the
Verney Family_ (vol. i, pp. 109-118 and 315), members of which took part
in the civil war of that period, that King Charles' forces consisted
largely of untrained peasants, "ill-fed and clothed . . . having neither
colours, nor halberts . . . many only rude pikes . . . few a musket." To
such the scythes used in their farm labour would be handy weapons in
emergency. As a parallel to these cases Sir Walter Scott, in his preface
to _Rob Roy_, states that "many of the followers of MacGregor, at the
battle of Prestonpans (Sep. 21, 1745), were armed with scythe blades, set
straight upon their handles, for want of guns and swords." It is not
without interest to note, that about 60 years ago there were exhumed, on
the farm above Langton Hill, in Horncastle, the remains of 6 bodies,
lying buried in a row, with scythe blades beside them. It is known that
skirmishes between Royalists and Roundheads took place in this locality,
and it can hardly be doubted that these also were relics of the Winceby
fight. The then tenant of the farm, Mr. Dobson (as the writer has been
informed by his granddaughter, Mrs. H. Boulton of St. Mary's Square,
Horncastle), carted these remains to the town and they were re-buried in
the south side of St. Mary's Churchyard, while the scythes were added to
those already in the church. An incident, which further confirms their
connection with the Winceby fight, is that the present writer has in his
possession a pair of spurs, which were found on the field of Winceby,
remarkable for the long spikes of their rowels; and he himself once found
the rowel of a spur, with similarly long spikes, within a few yar