X.—ORDINANCES IN FAVOUR OF ARCHERY.—CROSS-BOWS, &c.
In the reign of Henry VIII. three several acts were made for promoting the practice of shooting with the long-bow; one, as we have already seen, prohibited the use of cross-bows and hand-guns: another was occasioned by a complaint from the bowyers, the fletchers, or arrow-makers, the stringers, and the arrow-head-makers, stating that many unlawful games were practised in the open fields, to the detriment of the public morals and great decay of archery. Those games were therefore strictly prohibited by parliament; and a third act followed, which obliged every man, being the king's subject, to exercise himself in shooting with the long-bow; and also to keep a bow with arrows continually in his house. From this obligation were excepted such as were sixty years old, or by lameness or any other reasonable impediment claimed an exemption; and also all ecclesiastics, the justices of the two benches, or of the assizes, and the barons of the exchequer. Fathers and guardians were also commanded to teach the male children the use of the long-bow, and to have at all times bows provided for them as soon as they arrived at the age of seven years; and masters were ordered to find bows for their apprentices, and to compel them to learn to shoot with them upon holidays, and at every other convenient time. By virtue of the same act, every man who kept a cross-bow in his house was liable to a penalty of ten pounds.
Soon afterwards, that is, in the twenty-ninth year of the same king's reign, the use of cross-bows under certain restrictions was permitted, a patent being then granted by him to sir Christopher Morris, master of his ordinance, Anthony Knevyt and Peter Mewtas, gentlemen of his privy chamber, for them to be overseers of the science of artillery, by which was meant long-bows, cross-bows, and hand-guns. Others were appointed to be masters and rulers of the same science, with power to them and their successors, to establish a perpetual corporation, called the Fraternity of Saint George, and to admit such persons as they found to be eligible. The members of this society were also permitted, for pastime sake, to practise shooting at all sorts of marks and butts, and at the game of the popinjay, and other games, as at fowls and the like, in the city and suburbs of London, as well as in any other convenient places. There is the following remarkable proviso in this charter; "In case any person should be wounded, or slain in these sports, with an arrow shot by one or other of the archers, he that shot the arrow was not to be sued or molested, if he had, immediately before the discharge of the weapon, cried out, 'fast,' the signal usually given upon such occasions." [294]
I may just add, that in addition to the hand-guns, I meet with other instruments of like kind mentioned in the reign of Elizabeth, namely, demy hags, or hag butts. They shot with these engines not only at butts and other dead marks, but also at birds and beasts, using sometimes bullets and sometimes half shot; [295] but in the beginning of the seventeenth century the word artillery was used in a much more extensive sense, and comprehended long-bows, cross-bows, slur-bows, and stone-bows; also scorpions, rams, and catapults, which, the writer tells us, were formerly used; he then names the fire-arms as follows, cannons, basilisks, culverins, jakers, faulcons, minions, fowlers, chambers, harguebusses, calivers, petronils, pistols, and dags. "This," says he, "is the artillerië which is nowe in the most estimation, and they are divided into great ordinance, and into shot or guns," which proves that the use of fire-arms had then in great measure superseded the practice of archery.
XI.—PRICES ORDAINED FOR BOWS.
In the reign of Edward IV. an ordinance was established, which compelled the bowyers of London to sell the best bow-staves at three shillings and fourpence each; which was confirmed in the third year of Henry VII., and in the thirty-third year of his son Henry VIII.; but these acts were repealed in the third year of queen Mary, and the following prices were settled by the parliament: for a bow made of the best foreign yew, six shillings and eightpence; for an inferior sort, three shillings and fourpence; and for one made of English yew, two shillings. [296]
Notwithstanding the interference of the legislature in favour of archery, it gradually declined, and at the conclusion of the seventeenth century was nearly, if not altogether, discontinued. Yet, if we may credit a dull poem, written in the reign of Charles II. [297] some attempts were then made by the nobility to revive this manly pastime. I shall only quote the four following lines:—
Forsake your lov'd Olympian games awhile, [298]
With which the tedious minutes you beguile
Wave quoits and nine-pins, those bear-garden sports,