Bowmen of England Read online

  The master bowman, passing behind, heard this last remark; he quickly answered:

  ‘Keep your eye to the string and the string to the shaft and it will find its mark!’

  The glittering enemy squadrons tossed and heaved, they surged forward, trotting, now cantering, then galloping – the whole vast array was hurtling forward, line after line, the air full of the thunder of their hooves and the ground shaking. The valley was choked with the rushing torrent of steel, topped by waving plumes, slanting lances and fluttering pennons. On they swept over the level and then up the slope, to be met with a blinding drift of English arrows that brought down whole ranks in a whirl of mad confusion; horses plunging and kicking, bewildered and stunned men rising or wallowing like upturned turtles in their heavy armour. But new lines forced their way through the fallen, crushing and riding down wounded men and horses; spurring through the gaps in the mounds of dead, new lines of horsemen urged themselves up the slope.

  On all sides could be heard the shrill, stern, short orders of the master bowmen and file-leaders; the air was filled with the keen twanging of their bowstrings and the swish, howl and patter of their shafts.

  ‘Right between the eyes, by heavens! But I meant it for his throat!’

  ‘Now … who’s next? Ah, the lord with the leopard on his surcoat!’

  ‘That’s it! To the inch!’

  ‘Good shot for you, Arnold!’

  ‘Thank ’ee. When my eye is in I’m better at rovers than at long butts or hoyles!’

  ‘Loose gently! Loose gently, lads! Don’t pluck with the drawing hand! ’Tis a trick that has marred many a good bowman!’

  Across the foot of their hill a wall of struggling men and horses had built up, which grew higher as fresh men and horses added to it. Led by a big knight on a grey destrier, a body of the enemy pushed resolutely onward until they reached the English line. As they forced their way through the pointed stakes, their leader fell within a spear-length of the English position, the feathers of arrows thrusting out from every crevice and joint of his armour.

  The battle was now a fierce, tumbling hand-to-hand conflict that surged and flowed in and around the now beaten-down stakes in front of the English position. Their arrows gone, the archers drew swords, clutched axes or fearsome five-foot maules and nimbly ran to the outskirts of the clanging, roaring, desperate mêlée. Lightly creeping under horses’ bellies, dancing around ponderous, heavily armoured men-at-arms, they slashed, stabbed, clubbed and hewed until they were as bloody as the red-mottled heap amidst which they fought. Slowly, remorselessly, the enemy were forced back down the hill; they fought fiercely, but here and there wounded and faint-hearted men lurched from the tangled mob and made their struggling way down the hill, to be chased and fallen upon by the fast-moving archers like dogs on a rabbit. Once down, the heavily armoured men were helpless and easy prey to the judiciously inserted long knife through a crevice or joint in their armour. The enemy wavered, trembled, and then turned and fled on all sides.

  ‘They run!’

  ’Tis a trick!’

  ‘Nay, you fool! They’re beaten … we’ve won!’

  ‘Thank God.’

  ‘Hooray for England, Edward and St. George!’

  Part I

  The Birth of the Bow

  Chapter 1

  The Earliest Days

  The shooting of arrows with a bow is undoubtedly one of the oldest of the arts still practised today. For thousands of years the simple bow held its own as a long-distance weapon; it was the most widely used and generally dispersed of all weapons, spreading from nations whose history is still bound in the past all over the world. Man’s constant companion from the earliest days until the sixteenth century, it was probably his first invention of a device in which energy can be accumulated slowly, stored temporarily and released suddenly with control and direction, leading to great accuracy of projection over two or three hundred yards. Claimed to rank in importance as a cultural advance with the development of speech and the discovery of the art of making fire, the bow and arrow goes back at least 30,000 years.

  It is not hard to imagine the emancipation brought about by the bow and arrow. Man had lived for thousands of years in peril of his life and livelihood, having to kill his food and his enemies with his bare hands, or, at best, with crude extensions to his hands such as stone hammers and axes. To live he had to be a fast mover, get in close and strike quickly with little time to ensure that his blow fell in a lethal place on his quick and active quarry. With the coming of the bow he had leisure to aim carefully at a safe distance from his target; his power to kill depended no longer on his physical strength alone; he was the equal of his fellows, no matter how big and strong they might be.

  Although nearly every race on earth used the bow at some time, nowhere did the art and skill of archery reach such a pitch of development as in the English longbowman of the thirteenth, fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. During those years packed ranks of English archers dominated the wars of Europe as no comparable force has ever done since. The mere sight of them was enough to strike the fear of God into an enemy who, if he did not retreat or keep his distance, was almost certainly slaughtered. Somehow the enemy never learned this. French, Irish and Scots – each of them lost thousands of their youth and nobility to the laconic English bowman. But the English longbow, when it played havoc with the Scots, was no new weapon, nor was its origin English. Bows had been known from prehistoric times and were used at the Battle of Hastings and in the Crusades, but these were not true longbows unless they were drawn to the ear and not merely to the breast. In England, as all over the Continent, the ‘short’ bow was held in little esteem, not even being mentioned in Henry IIs Assize of Arms in 1181.

  It is impossible to trace the actual origin of the longbow, but there is good evidence that it was in use in South Wales during the second half of the twelfth century. Giraldus Cambrensis speaks repeatedly of the men of Gwent and Morganwg as excelling all others in the practice of archery; he gives evidence too of the effects of their shooting. At the siege of Abergavenny in 1182 the Welsh arrows penetrated an oak door said to be at least four inches thick. They were allowed to remain there as a curiosity and Gerald himself saw them six years later, in 1188, when he passed the castle, their iron points just showing on the inner side of the door. During the same period a knight of William de Braose was hit by one which went through the skirt of his hauberk, his mail hose, his thigh and through the leather and wood of his saddle and into his horse; when he swerved round another arrow pinned him in the same way by the other leg!

  ‘What more could a bolt from a balista have done?’ asked Gerald. Describing the bows of Gwent, he says: ‘They are made neither of horn, ash nor yew but of elm; ugly, unfinished-looking weapons, but astonishingly stiff, large and strong, and equally capable of use for long or short shooting.’

  These were the bows, in the hands of the South Welsh bowmen, which were used in the Norman invasion of Ireland in 1171. The Normans had learned of the power of the Welsh shafts and dreaded them; William de Brensa, having convened a meeting of the principal chiefs of South Wales at Abergavenny Castle some years previously, made them purchase their liberty by swearing they would not in future allow any of their followers to travel armed with the bow. ‘Ne quis gladium ferret vistor vel arcum.’ In 1120 Henry II undertook an expedition into Wales, being opposed by Meredith ap Blethyn. Near the confines of Powys some young Welsh archers enfiladed the English in a woody pass, one arrow glancing off the King’s breastplate, greatly alarming him. On another occasion, whilst the English were attempting to force a bridge, the King was recognised, and a Welsh archer aimed at him. Seeing this, a Norman baron, Hubert de St. Clare, Constable of Colchester, threw himself forward and was killed when the arrow pierced his breast. The Welsh had found it necessary to hunt and fight at greater distances than usual in their mountainous country and so had increased the size and thickness of their bows to obtain more power. They then fou
nd, their only timber being wych-elm, that to be reliable they had to be at least the height of the archer if he was fully to draw an arrow suited to his stature.

  Writing of the Normans’ Irish invasion, Gerald tells how the first contingent, under Robert Fitzstephen, sailed for Ireland with ninety mailed men-at-arms and 300 foot archers ‘of the flower of the young men of Wales’. This combination of mounted men-at-arms and archers was found to be irresistible. Gerald noted its effectiveness; so, too, a century later, did Edward I in his Welsh wars. Twice the spearmen of Snowdonia went down before the archers from Gwent laced with horsemen, once at Orewin Bridge and then near Conway.

  The longbow is about the simplest piece of mechanism imaginable, consisting of only a bowstave and string; it possessed three distinct advantages in that it was cheap to produce, had a fairly extensive range and provided rapidity of discharge. Such an elementary weapon was eminently suitable for use by peasant militia, for it had no complications of mechanism and no professional skill was needed. The English archer of the fourteenth century had about as little drill – apart from practice at the butts – as the Boer farmer did in 1899, but he took as kindly to his weapon as the Boer did to his rifle.

  A landmark in the history of archery was reached in Henry III’s Assize of Arms in 1251; that document commands that: ‘… all who own more than 40 or less than 100 schillings in law come bearing a sword and bow with arrows and a dagger’. Similarly, citizens with chattels worth more than nine marks and less than twenty are to be armed with bow, arrows and sword; there is a special clause providing that even poor men with less than this should bring bows and arrows, if they had them. Initially being the natural weapon of the yeoman for hunting (also of the outlaw and poacher) and of the common soldier, the bow was the ideal weapon for the purpose. It was beneath the dignity of noblemen, who hunted with sword, spear and hounds, to stalk and kill game in silence with an arrow, from a distance. Thus, when a feudal lord summoned his knights and barons to go to war, their lowest ranks, impressed peasants, bore the only weapon they possessed – the bow, although a shorter one at first.

  But when the longbow came into its own, shooting with it was not the same pleasant pastime as using the shorter hunting bow; the longbow had a draw-weight of perhaps seventy-five pounds. With plans in mind for the Welsh longbow, Edward I confirmed Henry’s Assize of Arms by the Statute of Winchester, making practice compulsory on Sundays and Holy-days. On many a sandstone village church grooves can still be seen where archers sharpened their arrows after Mass, preparatory to doing butt practice. Other games, such as football, handball and cockfighting, were made illegal; direction of labour was introduced so that bowyers and fletchers could be compelled to reside where they were most needed, and there were many acts regulating the price of equipment. In the first half of the thirteenth century the bow appears to have been in greater vogue in the northern than in the western counties of England. The rather obvious theory that men from the woodland regions were proficient in bowmanship is substantiated by an attack made in the Weald during 1264 – 5 by De Montfort’s archers on King Henry’s marching columns. Then there is a writ issued in May 1266 ordering Roger de Leyburn to raise 500 archers in the Weald; in this writ from the Exchequer Accounts these archers are called ‘WALLENSES, WALDENSES et alii’ (Welsh foresters and others). Contemporary documents often speak of the obligation of various manors to provide the King with one or more archers … ‘when he makes an expedition against the Welsh’. It is curious to note that even as late as 1281 Richard the Lionheart’s preference for crossbowmen seems to have been maintained, the wages of its bearer being considerably more than those of the archer. In the pay-roll of the garrison of Rhuddlan Castle in 1281 it is noted that … ‘paid to Geoffrey le Chamberlin for the wages of 12 crossbowmen, and 13 archers, for 24 days, £7 8s. Each crossbowman receiving by the day 4d. and each archer 2d.’

  Oddly, when the Assize of Arms in 1181 organised English national forces, the bow did not appear in the list of national weapons, although it had been in full use for some time as such. It might well be that the authorities hesitated to recommend the keeping of a bow in every poor freeman’s cottage because of the very strong temptation to employ it for poaching! Edward I altered this in 1285 when he re-enacted the Assize of Arms, redistributing the national force into new formations armed with new weapons. Archers were re-established by statute, although restricted to bows and bolts if they lived in the forest – the bolt being less deadly to the King’s deer than their arrows. Edward I, like his grandson and great-grandson, was an able soldier, capable of devising new expedients in war. Unlike them, he also showed considerable strategical ability. This monarch, through his long experience in Welsh wars, introduced a scientific use of archery thus originating the longbow’s rise to favour. But his methods had been foreshadowed more than half a century earlier – Henry I dismounted his knights and won at Tenchbriar (Tinchebrai) in 1106, against Robert of Normandy; he again was victorious at Breuville in 1125 in the same manner. But at Beaumont he added a company of archers who moved off to their left flank when the Norman cavalry came thundering down, to be overthrown with a shower of arrows. These archers must not be confused with those of a later date, but were probably copied (like the order of battle) from a Byzantine model. They taught the English the second of two most useful lessons – Henry had already discovered that dismounted knights could hold their own against the impetuous French knights; now he learned that a cavalry attack could be weakened, almost to annihilation, by volleys of archers.

  Such knowledge, at a time when cavalry held absolute supremacy in war, was a secret of unfathomable value; a secret indeed which laid the foundations of England’s very military power. Henry was evidently alive to the secret, and encouraged the practice of archery by ordaining that if any man should by accident slay another at the butts the misadventure should not be reckoned to him as a crime.

  The year 1138 was memorable for the first of the many actions fought against the Scots – the Battle of the Standard was typical of many victories to come. The English knights fought on foot and, aided by archers, made havoc of the enemy. Dimly, through the mist of time, one can see already the germ of the later English infantry – in forthcoming centuries lances and bows gave way to pikes and muskets, but for five whole centuries the foot soldiers were compounded of two elements, offensive and defensive, until the invention of the bayonet slowly welded them into one. The French invented the mimic warfare known as the tournament which, not being a duel of man against man but essentially a contest of troop against troop, was a training for tactics, skill, discipline and leadership; victory turning mainly on skilful handling of the men and the preservation of compact order. Thus, by the blending of English foot soldiers and Norman cavalry, was laid earlier than in any other European country the foundation of an army wherein both branches took an equal share of work in the day of action.

  The period between 1300 and 1500 saw the slow transition from mediaeval to modern world; a transition affecting the art of war as well as everything else. It can easily be claimed that the most significant single factor that changed all the old traditions and concepts of mediaeval fighting techniques was the development of the longbow in the hands of English peasants directed by brilliant and far-seeing leaders. It reduced war to two simple elements, one of which or both of which have to be employed to defeat an enemy – he must be overthrown either by shock or by missile-fire or by both in combination. The shock method means that success is achieved when one side bests another, often through superior numbers, in a hand-to-hand struggle. This method is materially affected also by the superiority of arms or the greater strength and skill with which they are wielded. The missile method means that the day is won by one side keeping up such a constant and deadly rain of missiles that the enemy are destroyed or driven back before they can come to close quarters; this method enables a smaller force to defeat a larger one. Both methods are capable of combinations of various arms and tactics, wit
h countless variations and techniques.

  In their simplest and most elementary forms the English archer and the Swiss pikeman represented these two basic methods of military efficiency. The former relied on his ability to beat the enemy by highly trained, skilled shooting of great accuracy; the latter by being able to present a solid column with a formidable hedge of spear-points surmounting it, so that it was possible to drive before them superior numbers of the enemy who were unable to withstand the crashing impact and steady pressure of the pikemen. The common factor was that both methods were triumphant against, and overthrew, the heavy, mail-clad horsemen who had for so long been masters of the battlefield. Because of the marked superiority of the two methods they were copied and emulated by those who had suffered from them; but neither was easy to accomplish and no one ever succeeded in becoming better than the originators.

  And so the whole military system of the mediaeval period was torn asunder, to be profoundly modified and irrevocably altered. After the rise of the English archer the art of war took on a new and more serious complexion: it had been transformed from the rather glorious extension of the tournament that it had become into a bloody business requiring intelligence and the utmost wariness.

  Chapter 2

  The Welsh Wars – Late Thirteenth Century

  By the last quarter of the thirteenth century archery had become a recognised military arm of great importance to England. The Royal Statutes compelled every person earning less than 100 pence per year to have in his possession a bow and arrows, officers being appointed by the Crown to see that all these weapons were in good order and ready for instant use. If the owners of the weapons lived within the confines of, or near to, the Royal Forests, an early conservation measure ruled that their arrows should be blunt ones. The archer was beginning to be recognised as a person of military importance, as can be seen from an ancient military ordinance: