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The Hundred Years' War with France
The English Archer; Part 1

The English Archer; Part 1

Everyone knows his characteristics. He carried the longbow, a large and stiff weapon. He drew the cord to his ear instead of to the breast, as the shortbowman did. The shaft, thus driven, flew with amazing force; and so long as the archer was supplied with arrows, he could keep up a very rapid and accurate fire (The archer usually carried twenty-four arrows in his quiver. On going into action he emptied his quiver, and thrust the arrows, point downwards, into the ground before him. The longbow was effective to about 180 yards, and arrows would carry to over 300 yards as an extreme range: in rapidity of fire it exceeded any musket before the days of breech-loading. The difficulty with archers was to keep them supplied with arrows. It was common for them to be reduced to picking up the enemy's missiles, or even tearing them out of the dead and returning them.).

Curiously enough, with all these merits, it was some time before the longbow was valued as it deserved; it is, further, probable that it was not even English in origin. Such captains as Richard I and Simon de Montfort placed more faith in their "arbalestiers " or crossbowmen, and most of the archers who did such execution at Falkirk were Welshmen. Giraldus Cambrensis, who was familiar with Wales in Henry II's reign, records the extraordinary powers of the South Wales archers. He himself saw at Abergavenny the iron points of arrows piercing the massive oak door four inches thick, while one of the Norman knights received a shaft that struck through his mail shirt, his mail breeches, his leg, the wood of his saddle, and sunk deep into the horse's flank.

Whether the English copied the longbow from the Welsh or not, it is further clear that longbowmen could not of themselves win battles. They shook the Scots at Falkirk, but, as we have seen, the cavalry took the credit of the victory; thirty thousand archers were said to have been with Edward II at Bannockburn, yet the battle was completely lost. Moreover, even granting that archers were effective against the Scots, they might not be equally good against the French. The Scots fought on foot, mostly armed with spears or pikes, but the French main strength lay in their mounted men-at-arms, and since the battle of Hastings it had been a universal belief in Europe that no infantry could stand before a charge of this heavy-armed feudal chivalry. It was not enough to have archers; the thing was to use them properly.

The prelude to the Hundred Years' War was played in Scotland. There the tactics which made the archer irresistible were developed; there, too, arose the first pretext for the Hundred Years' War, for the Scots had as usual sought help in a French alliance; there had been a fierce sea fight in the harbour of St. Mahe in Brittany between English and Gascon sailors on one side and Normans and French on the other, in which the French had the worst of it; and while Edward III was invading Scotland, Philip VI of France had poured an army into Edward's dukedom in Gascony.

The English Archer; Part 1

Chronology