Armour & Weapons

What weapons were used by soldiers during the British Civil Wars? How much damage could they inflict? What armour did the soldiers have to protect them? Did it work?

Find out answers to all these questions by browsing the objects, watching the video and completing the source-based activities in this section.

Activities

Object encounters

Can you identify each of these 17th century objects using the clues provided?

Object encounter 1

Object encounter 4

Object encounter 2

Object encounter 5

Object encounter 3

Object encounter 6

The cutting power of 17^th Century weapons

See the damage that could be inflicted by seventeenth weapons by watching this short film.

The film demonstrates the cutting power of Civil War weapons by using a pikeman’s sword, mortuary sword and dagger to slash through a side of meat.

Warning: Some viewers may find this film disturbing.

Source-based activities

All source-based activities are in a downloadable PDF format.

Activities

Object encounters

Object encounter 1

Object encounter 4

Object encounter 2

Object encounter 5

Object encounter 3

Object encounter 6

The cutting power of 17^th Century weapons

Source-based activities

Activity 1: The strange death of a captain

Activity 2: Colonel ‘Blowface’ Forbes

Activity 3: Pistols and armour

Activities

Object encounters

Object encounter 1

Object encounter 4

Object encounter 2

Object encounter 5

Object encounter 3

Object encounter 6

The cutting power of 17th Century weapons

Source-based activities

Activity 1: The strange death of a captain

Activity 2: Colonel ‘Blowface’ Forbes

Activity 3: Pistols and armour

The cutting power of 17^th Century weapons