The Last Abbot of Glastonbury: A Tale of the Dissolution of the Monasteries

by A. D. Crake

It was a fine evening in May, and all the lads of Glastonbury School were in the archery ground. A silver arrow had to be contended for as a prize—the prize of the year—and there were many competitors.

All Glastonbury looked on at the sport; many were there who had been great archers themselves in their youth, and who, like Nestor of old, were never tired of talking of the great things that had been done when they were young.

For full two hundred years had gunpowder been in common use, yet all that time the bow held its own; an arrow would fly much farther than the bullets of that day, nay of much later days, for it was actually ordered by Act of Parliament, in the directions to the villages, for the maintenance of “buttes,” that no person of full age should shoot with the light-flight arrow at a less distance than two hundred and twenty yards, that is a whole furlong: under that distance the heavy war arrow had to be used in all trials of skill.[8]

And now four lads of fourteen stand forth to contend for the prize; the target is a furlong off, the arrows, light ones, in regard to the age of the competitors.

We will introduce them to our readers in proper order.

There stands Gregory Bell, son of the squire of a neighbouring village, tall and slim, but tough in muscle, and very sound in wind and limb; his round face and laughing black eyes will be remembered many a day. His long-bow is long indeed,—three fingers thick, and six feet long, well got up, polished, and without knots; few English boys could bend it now, it came of practice.

He draws the bow—the light arrow cleaves the air—he has struck the first circle of blue, not the bull’s-eye itself—a cheer from his schoolfellows.

“Well done, Gregory, well done, old fellow.”

“The lad will do well enough,” said an old bowman, “yet not like his father; but where be the bowmen of Crecy now? At the last bout we had with them, the French turned their backs upon us at long range, and bid us shoot, whereas had we been the men our sires were, they would have paid dearly for their fool-hardy challenge.”