Note 16 — Chapter I · THE FIRST VISITATION OF THE DISEASE—1485.

Bacon, p. 7. Marsolier, p. 142. Yet in the autumn of that same year Henry established, what no prior king of England ever had, a body-guard. It consisted of only 50 “Yomen of the Crowne,” to each of whom there were appointed two men on foot—an archer and a demi-lance, and a groom to attend to his three horses. The first commander of this body-guard, which formed the most ancient stock whence sprang the English standing army, was Henry Bourchier, Earl of Essex. Herbert of Cherbury, p. 9. Grafton, and the other chroniclers, loc. cit. Baker, p. 254.