PLATE no. X
Collection of D. J. Hile, Esq.

No. 49. Military Jack boot, with spur. Period of William III. Weight about ten pounds the pair. Part of the heel, which was very high and clumsy, is lost. The tops are rudely stabbed, and the legs have an outer casing of leather doubled. The boot is covered with an instep guard; and at the back of the boot, rising from the seat to the height of the Counter, is appended an iron rest for the spur. The toes are round. Two pairs of these boots can be seen in the Tower of London.

With William III. came in the clumsy military boot. Sir Samuel Meyrick possessed one of these boots in his collection of armour at Goodrich Court, and it has been engraved in his work on “Ancient Arms and Armour.” It is as straight and stiff a boot as the most inveterate Dutchman could wish, and quite in keeping with the starched formality of taste and dress rendered fashionable by the rigidity of William and his Court. Such were the boots of our cavalry, and in such cumbrous articles did they fight in the Low Countries, following the example of Charles XII. of Sweden, whose figure has become so identified with them that the imagination cannot easily separate the sovereign from the boots in which he is so constantly portrayed, and of which a specimen may be seen in his full- length portrait preserved in the British Museum.

The Author’s Collection.

No. 50. Jack boot, with spur. Seventeenth century.

The heel is very high, and made with stout wooden pegs through the top piece; the leg is closed with outside seams back and front; the sole is welted, and has a bevelled edge. The toe, which is blocked, is square, but not broad. The boot is made throughout of stout calf-skin, and covered with a neat instep guard. It is a fine specimen of the Jack boot of the period, being more elegantly finished than the other specimens illustrated.