What is "halberdier"

Usage examples of "halberdier".

In a matter of minutes, four of the halberdiers were down, and the other two were running off.

But a few prearranged signals brought the guards to me, and twoscore of my pikemen and halberdiers proved quite sufficient to halt the ill-armed folk there congregated.

The duke was carried out of the gate of the Vatican: he lay on a bed covered with a scarlet canopy, supported by twelve halberdiers, leaning forward on his cushions so that no one might see his face with its purple lips and bloodshot eyes: beside him was his naked sword, to show that, feeble as he was, he could use it at need: his finest charger, caparisoned in black velvet embroidered with his arms, walked beside the bed, led by a page, so that Caesar could mount in case of surprise or attack: before him and behind, both right and left, marched his army, their arms in rest, but without beating of drums or blowing of trumpets: this gave a sombre, funereal air to the whole procession, which at the gate of the city met Prospero Colonna awaiting it with a considerable band of men.

Like the argumentative eloquence of the Eighth Harry, they are never effectual until the halberdiers clinch their rivets forcibly.

The constable and his attendants were lighted home by half an hundred halberdiers with torches, and, after the fatigues of the day, supped in private.

It was a desperate attempt of a band of soldiers of the rebel army to carry off the little Queen and her sister, which was frustrated only by the gallant resistance of the halberdiers in the palace.

But a few prearranged signals brought the guards to me, and two-score of my pikemen and halberdiers proved quite sufficient to halt the ill-armed folk there congregated.

With even the few western Crusaders in understandable confusion amid the turmoil of their fleeing countrymen, the opposing ranks of English foot suddenly turned to left and right and trotted aside to reveal the grinning mouths of two dozen minions and sakersfour-pounder and six-pounder cannonand the grapeshot, caseshot, and shovelfuls of coarse gravel that they spewed into the close-packed ranks of gunmen and pikemen and halberdiers and swordsmen turned a partial rout into a general one.

After passing through doors guarded on both sides by halberdiers, he was escorted into a smaller anteroom in which sat a cassocked priest and two armored men who looked like officers and were each armed with sword, dirk, and a brace of two-foot-long dags of between ten and eight bore.

Ahead of them at the end of an avenue of halberdiers were two chairs of state backed by a semicircle of uniforms and court gowns, with Their Excellencies sitting awaiting them.

She rose, however, at the order of the halberdiers, and, preceded by Charmolue and the officers of the officiality, walked with tolerably firm step, between two files of partisans, toward a low door, which suddenly opened, and closed after her.

Even the solemnity of the occasion did not prevent many quarrels and scuffles, which the halberdiers and mounted pursuivants of arms strove in vain to check.