George Silver

George Silver (ca. 1550s–1620s) was a gentleman of England during the late 16th and early 17th centuries, who is known for his writings on swordplay. He is thought to have been the eldest of four brothers (one of whom, Toby, was also a swordsman who accompanied his brother in at least one challenge), and eleventh in descent from Sir Bartholomew Silver, who was knighted by Edward II. He married a woman named Mary Haydon in London, in 1580 (1579 in the old calendar then in use in England). Silver's activities after the publication of his book are unclear. The fencing historian Aylward claims that he was alive in 1622, when he was visited (a kind of audit of people claiming noble or gentlemanly status) by Cooke, Clarenceux King-of-Arms. However, Robert Cooke died in 1593. The Clarenceux King-of Arms in 1622 was William Camden, but as he became paralyzed in 1622 and died in 1623 it is doubtful whether he visited Silver either.

Although not a professional fencing teacher (a role mostly played by the working-class London-based Corporation of Maisters of the Noble Science of Defence), Silver was familiar with the fencing schools of the time, and the systems of defence that they taught, and claimed to have achieved a perfect understanding of the use of all weapons. Silver championed the native English martial arts while objecting on ethical and technical grounds to the fashionable continental rapier systems being taught at the time. He particularly disliked the immigrant Italian fencing masters Rocco Bonetti and Vincentio Saviolo, going so far as to challenge the latter to a public fencing match with various weapons atop a scaffold. Silver and his brother Toby had handbills posted all around Saviolo's fencing school and had one hand delivered to him on the day but Saviolo failed to appear.

His major objections to the rapier itself and to its pedagogy were expressed in his 1599 work, Paradoxes of Defence. Silver saw the rapier as an incredibly dangerous weapon, which did not offer the user sufficient protection during a fight. Silver also bemoans other weapons that do not offer sufficient protection to the user (such as daggers); the rapier, however bears the brunt of his attention, as it was seemingly quite common in the day. Despite his dislike of the weapon, Silver did claim some familiarity with the rapier, listing it first in the weapons he proposed to use in his challenge to Saviolo.

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