actually "bromedgham blades" and foreign blades, and that the former "are no way serviceable or fit for his Majesty's store". John F. Hayward, an experienced historian on swords, suggests that London's snobbery towards these blades at that time "may have been due to" commercial rivalry; at that time London was the largest provider of weapons in Britain, and Birmingham was fast becoming a viable commercial threat to their trade.

The word passed into political slang in the 1680s. The Protestant supporters