#THE EXPERT SWORDMANS COMPANION PDF CODE#

At his next school, McBane fell out with his master about his sister, and the usual duel ensued, which he won. McBane became an assiduous student at a French school (in Dublin) where sword and foil often clashed until blood was drawn, and then a drink or two re-sealed friendship. Opening schools for swordsmanship Īt Glasgow he enlisted in the Royal Regiment of Scotland, then stationed at Dublin.

#THE EXPERT SWORDMANS COMPANION PDF CODE#

But such was the code of honour at the time that his captain, and the dying corporal himself, aided his escape with money for a journey to Glasgow. During the fight he gave the corporal a mortal wound, and because duelling was illegal, he had to flee for his life. With his honour as a soldier at stake, McBane challenged the corporal to a duel. Shortly afterwards his corporal accused him of absence off guard, and punished him with a beating. He got no further than Perth before he enlisted in the Earl of Angus's Regiment to serve as a pikeman. McBane still did not want to carry on with his apprenticeship, and so with his mother's blessing, twenty shillings and a new suit of clothes, he set out to seek his fortune.

In 1697 at the Peace of Ryswick his company was disbanded again so he went home to Inverness. Next year, at Rotterdam, he was discovered by his former Captain, who exchanged McBane for two other men and took him back to Fort William.

In 1695 as a Royal Scot he stormed Namur with the other British regiments and recovered from his wounds at Brussels. In Brussels, McBane attached himself to Lord Orkney's Royal Regiment, and he fought with that regiment at the Battle of Steenkerque in August 1692 in the Low Countries during the Nine Years' War. Despite this setback, he marched from there to Maestricht and then to Brussels, where the British Army was camped. Then, on a mission to escort a draft of soldiers bound for Flanders in Belgium, he got carried off from Leith (at Edinburgh) to Haveluy by mischance. īy 1692 McBane owned his own sword and practised at the fencing schools, publicly beating the other fencing scholars. His autobiography mentions that he 'then became master of his own pay'. This did not discourage him, however, and McBane took more lessons in small sword versus broad sword, and a second bout (rematch) ended in McBane's victory, and his first sword was returned to him. McBane thereupon paid a sergeant for private instruction in swordsmanship, borrowed a sword, and then fought his 'govenor', who beat him, took his sword and pawned it. When he complained to an officer he was told to fight out the dispute, as was the custom at that time. In 1691, Grant's unit was disbanded, and McBane joined Colonel James Forbes's Regiment, where an old soldier was ordered to take care of Donald and 'manage his pay' for him, with the result that Donald saw little of it. When his company was disbanded in 1688, McBane took service in Colonel Alexander Grant's Regiment in the pay of King William III of England, who had to oppose the Highland clans fighting for King James II of England at the Pass of Killiecrankie in what became known as the Battle of Killiecrankie (1689).

He indulged in some fighting between the clans of Macdonald and Macintosh, who used sword and target, Lochaber axes, and wooden-handled bayonets in the muzzle of the guns. In 1687 McBane ran away from his apprenticeship as a tobacco spinner to enlisting in the British army under the Duke of Marlborough. Portrait of Donald McBane, a Scottish fencing master, from Donald McBane's The Expert Swordsman's Companion (1728).ĭonald McBane (1664 - 12 April 1732) was a noted Scottish swordsman, career soldier, and fencing master, who is widely regarded as one of the most prolific duelists of all time.ĭonald McBane was born in the Highland town of Inverness during the late seventeenth century.

The expert swordmans companion pdf