Gallowglass - did they serve in continental Europe?

[Ockius]

I'm going to have to weigh in on this:

'And the billmen convincingly beat the Scots pikes at Flodden'

After the pikes had struggled uphill with arrows jutting out from every joint of their armour, disordered and with many casualties from archery. It's not exactly a straight 'bill vs pike' comparison.

They came downhill. And I think there's an account of the bowmen having little effect except on the Highland contingent.
Primary quotes: 'the bills disappointed the Scots of their long spears, on which they relied' and "the English halberdiers decided the whole affair, so that in the battle the bows and ordnance were of little use."
Of course, the accounts suggest the boggy ground impeded the Scottish pike formations, so terrain obviously played a role, but I wasn't trying to suggest bills were better than pikes overall, but here they certainly won convincingly.

[Shahbahraz]

What accounts are you relying on here? You can't have it all ways you know, either English longbow were supermen or they had no effect? Which is it?

[Ockius]

What accounts are you relying on here? You can't have it all ways you know, either English longbow were supermen or they had no effect? Which is it?

These are accounts of Flodden. In my earlier post I said that longbows wouldn’t pierce good plate armour of the time, but would be very good against troops like landsknechts who were largely unarmoured or had only a little armour.

You are implying that I’ve said things that I haven’t. The fact is, you have no evidence to the contrary as Henry’s army never fought a big continental battle, so it’s all moot. They did, however, fight a big battle against Scotland which was a resounding victory.

But on whether longbows were any good on their day: Crecy and Agincourt?

[Shahbahraz]

No. You claimed that Flodden showed the superiority of bill over pike. And I pointed out that this was hardly a fair comparison. You then seemed to be claiming that the archery st Flodden had no effect, so it was a fair comparison.  So what is it you are trying to say.

[skirmisher]

Hi, in reference to one of the original questions, I have checked the index of this excellent Osprey book and re-scanned it contents: while they did see service with the English crown in Ireland, I did not see any reference to Gallowglass service on Continental Europe.

It could be due to geography, or the strength /weakness of regional relationships, or simply could be that Tudor armies already had heavy infantry whereas Irish Kern provided a specialised unit type that augmented Tudor army capabilities.

But in any case, I dont think it would be a huge stretch of the imagination to have Gallóglaigh present in your campaign. Have fun

[commissarmoody]

I would think at least a few made it to the continent to ply their trade. But probably not in large numbers. Or maybe all Irish Mercenary were called kern regardless of their specialty.