A historical background

In the sixteenth century, just as now, money made the world go round. Life altering decisions were made based on finances of fathers. For the daughter of an impoverished family, the best that she could hope for was to amass a decent dowry so that she would be able to marry someone of either equal or slightly greater standing than her own family. For sons of impoverished families, however, there were more paths available to them. For the first son, there would be an inheritance of whatever happened to be in his father's coffers. For a second son, if there was enough money available, there was the possibility of an apprenticeship or maybe, if he was lucky, a position within the Church. If there were more sons, things looked rather bleak, but they still had options open to them. They could either take to the country as an outlaw, work for their brother or, take up what had been seen for centuries as an honorable profession: soldiering.

As early as the fourteenth century, the Scottish and Irish peoples found themselves leaving home in order to seek their fortunes as soldiers in other countries. For centuries, the Celts had been known for their fighting prowess and so, were well respected as soldiers even into the sixteenth century. Commonly employed as soldiers throughout Europe, Scottish and Irish soldiers found themselves employed from Italy to Germany, Spain to Sweden.

There were two options open to them when selecting the occupation of a soldier. They could either join a mercenary band or join up with a trained company for hire. While both would meet their immediate needs, there was no hope for long term success within a mercenary band since they were formed only for short periods of time to partake in brutal skirmishes where their pay would consist of nothing more than a portion of the loot. Joining a trained company on the other hand, afforded the soldiers a much more stable income. Throughout history, trained bands were employed for extended periods of time to protect and assist in defending cities. With a stable income and somewhere to call home, trained companies were much more successful over the long term than were those that elected to join mercenary bands.

We are a predominantly Scottish and Irish trained company and as such, we train, fight and live together as one cohesive unit. Taking into consideration that Torc Dubh makes their money though soldiery, it is not difficult to understand that some aspects of the military life-style permeate all aspects of life in the trained company. From the men too old to fight to the wives and young children of the soldiers, everyone has responsibilities that enable to company to be as successful as it is. While it is indeed the able-bodied men that are responsible for the income, it cannot be said that they alone make the success possible, for without the women, children and elders each pulling their own weight, our successes would not have been achievable.

While many of us left home, serving with other professional companies with the intention of making money, we all came to the same conclusion at one point or another; that in order to make a profit, one must go to where one's services are actively sought. With the tensions between the Protestants and Catholics continually threatening to boil over into a nation-wide war, it was clear that France was a place where cities would be desperately searching for trained companies that could be bought with some coin in order to reinforce their own soldiers as well as serve as an added line of defense. Continually growing in numbers, Torc Dubh has found that by being in the right place at the right time, one does not need to search for work. Instead, work finds you.