See also the old song, printed in the Appendix, No. 3. Drayton, who wrote before archery had fallen into complete disuse, says—
“At marks full forty score they us’d to prick and rove.”
That Mr. Barrington, indeed, was very ill informed on the subject is evident from a most scarce book in the editor’s possession, intitled “Aime for the archers of St. George’s fields, containing the names of all the marks in the same fields, with their true distances according to the dimensuration of the line. Formerly gathered by Richard Hannis, and now corrected by Thomas Bick and others. London, Printed by N. Howell for Robert Minehard and Benjamin Brownsmith, and are to be sold at the sign of the man in the moon in Blackman street, 1664,” 16mo, where the distance from Alpha to Bick’s memorial is 18 score 16 yards; and 11 score 7 yards (though there are inferior numbers, the lowest being 9, 12) appears to be a very moderate shot indeed. Two of these marks are Robin Hood and Little John. See also Shakespeare’s Second Part of K. Henry IV., act iii. scene 2, where it is said that Old Double “would have clapp’d i’ the clout at twelve score; and carry’d you a forehand shaft a fourteen and fourteen and a half;” and the notes upon the passage in Steevens’s edition, 1793. It is probable, after all, that the word forty in Drayton is an error, of the transcriber or pressman, for fourteen.
Whatever Robin Hood’s father might do, there can be no question that the author of the old ballad in which he is mentioned (part ii. song 1) has “shot in a lusty strong bow” when he speaks of
“Two north-country miles and an inch at a shot.”
[27] Warner’s Albion’s England, 1602, p. 132. It is part of the hermit’s speech to the Earl of Lancaster.
[28] Sir Roger Williams, in his Briefe discourse of warre, 1590, has a chapter “To prooue bow-men the worst shot vsed in these daies.” Sir John Smythe, however, was of a different opinion. See his “Discourses concerning the formes and effects of divers sorts of weapons, &c. As also, of the great sufficiencie, excellencie, and wonderful effects of archers,” 1590, 4to. See also a different treatise by him upon the same subject in Num. 132 of the Harleian MSS.
[29] “A prince who fills the throne with a disputed title dares not arm his subjects, the only method of securing a people fully both against domestic oppression and foreign conquest” (Hume’s Essays, “Of the Protestant Succession”).
[30] Flemings.
[31] Breeches.