Rob Roy Sword Sequence

D

DPris

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Nov 27, 2003
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Never saw the Neeson movie, but was looking for cinematic and actual tournament footage earlier today & ran across a sequence where he fought a dandy & won.

Opinions?
Denis
 
DPris said:
Never saw the Neeson movie, but was looking for cinematic and actual tournament footage earlier today & ran across a sequence where he fought a dandy & won.

Opinions?
Denis
Click to expand...

Badly overdone, the clumsy oafish Scotsman flailing away with his monstrous heavy sword, while the polished light footed dandy dances around him with his deadly knitting needle effortlessly until he gets is brutish comeuppance.
 
Blades appeared a bit mis-matched. :)
Think the rapier woulda had that much of a cutting edge that far back from the point?
Denis
 
...it wasn't a typical rapier, more a spadroon type which had a sharpened edge. Still a question of if Rob would have actually cut his hand all that much grabbing it. What's telling is that in that fight the villain could have run Rob through a dozen times but instead inflicted rather shallow cuts with a compromise cut and thrust weapon to show off.
 
Spadroons are more specifically usually cut and thrust backswords, not 17th century English rapiers (which is what the Archie movie swords are). There are some lengthy discussions about the swords that go back quite a number of years. All three of the Cunningham swords shown in the movie are a bit out of place in history.

http://www.swordforum.com/forums/showthread.php?83352-Archibald-Cunninghams-sword

There are very good screen shots in the following discussion.

http://www.swordforum.com/forums/showthread.php?12078-Rob-Roy-fighting-scene-What-swords

Cheers

GC

I may not know rapiers as well as some but spadroons are something I could write articles about

The following a muse of mine a few years ago

OK said:
Too true on the nomenclature. Isn't it Hope that regarded the shearing swords as the flat ones ;) IN tracking down the term spadroon, it seems to have been drawn from German. My sieve of a brain is not remembering the extent of that discussion. Another of these boiled down to a thread elsewhere. Post 91 backed up some of my other reading.

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=10330
Jim McDougall said:
Looking further into the choice of the word 'spadroon' and perhaps my query on it should have been directed more toward its semantics than etymology, I found some interesting notes in Egerton Castle's book "Schools and Masters of Fence" (p.207). These would seem to somewhat support my thoughts toward the term being more of a pretentious application used with reference to gentlemans fencing weapons and techniques of the times. Coupled with neoclassic allusion and the cultured elegance obsessions of the gentry, the term seems to have been more of a colloquial term in the sense of a fad of this period referring to cut and thrust.

Castle notes on p.207, "...the Italians and Germans had, it is true, a cutting play of thier own, and from them we took our so-called 'spadroon' or cut and thrust play, but it was practiced with weapons extremely light in comparison with our English backsword".

On p.243, Castle notes further, "...a cutting sword of still narrower dimensions, and with a much simpler guard approximating that of the smallsword was called 'spadroon' in England; it was in fact similar to the German cut and thrust rapier of the 18th century, which has been called spadone or spadrone since the disuse of the regular two handed swords, in the same way as the claymore retained the old name of a very different weapon".
* the reference to claymore of course meaning basket hilt, while the actual claymore was the Scottish two hand great sword.

"...the German spadroon was a regular double edged sword, but any light back or shearing sword was so called in English.

Best regards,
Jim
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The term Spadrone had caught my eye while visiting a dealer site some years ago.

It is the blade width and fullering of the ones in this page that look a good bit like the old horseman swords. The 1796 dress quite a bit slighter in width, as is the infantry 1796 backsword. The heavy dress (my thought) a nod or tenure to the earlier line swords like the walloons and intermediary forms. Both the boat and kidney shape guards do go back in that century as well. The broader often a bit longer horseman swords somewhat de rigueur 1700-1750ish and beyond. I was looking at the castle's history a bit to see if there could be some correlation and attribution for the two swords but have found naught so far.

As to the swordsmanship of spadroons, I would always have to defer to what I read of Hope, McBane, etc. Even Silver but the mix for spadroon and smallsword kind of post dates Silver (His philosophies still often seem apt though).

Cheers

GC
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Terrible fight. Poor MacGregor can barely lift his sword. He doesn't know any guards. He attacks the sword, not the man. In the end he is defeated but wins because of the hubris of his opponent.

In reality people knew how to fight with basket hilts, even against lighter swords like spadroons. Look at Silver and look at Donald McBane.
 
This guy makes some fun youtube videos...

Here is his review of the final Rob Roy fight...

[video=youtube;KlsT9VZyehE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlsT9VZyehE[/video]
 
I didn't take the scene to be authentic but it was great fun to watch. Loved the ending.
 
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