Archery is the art or exercise of shooting with a bow and arrow.
In this island, archery was greatly encouraged in former times, and many statutes were made for the regulation thereof; whence the English archers became the best in Europe, and obtained many signal victories. The Artillery Company of London, though they have long disused the weapon, are the remains of the ancient bowmen or archers. Artillery (artillerie) is a French term, signifying archery; as the king’s bowyer was in that language styled artillier du roy. And from that nation the English seem to have learnt at least the use of the cross-bow. William the Conqueror had a considerable number of bowmen in his army, when no mention is made of such troops on the side of Harold. And it is supposed that these Norman archers shot with the arbalist, or cross-bow, in which formerly the arrow was placed in a groove, termed in French, a quarrel, and in English, a bolt. Of the time when shooting with the long-bow first began among the English, there appears no certain accounts. Their chronicles do not mention the use of archery till the death of Richard I.; who, in 1199, was killed by an arrow at the siege of Limoges, in Guienne, which Hemingford mentions to have issued from a cross-bow. After this, there appears no notice of archery for nearly one hundred and fifty years; when an order was issued by Edward III., in the fifteenth year of his reign, to the sheriffs of most of the English counties, for providing five hundred white bows, and five hundred bundles of arrows, for the then intended war against France. Similar orders were repeated in the following years, with this difference only, that the sheriff of Gloucestershire is directed to furnish five hundred painted bows, as well as the same number of white.
Philip de Comines acknowledges what our own writers assert, that the English archers excelled those of every other nation; and Sir John Fortescue says “the safety of the realme of England standyth upon archers.” And hence the superior dexterity of their archers gave the English a great advantage over their capital enemies, the French and Scots.
The Normans used the bow as a military weapon; and, under their government, the practice of archery was not only much improved, but generally diffused throughout the kingdom.
In the ages of chivalry, the usage of the bow was considered as an essential part of the education of a young man who wished to make a figure in life.
The ladies also were fond of this amusement; and by a curious representation from an original drawing in a manuscript of the fourteenth century, we see it practised by one who has shot at a deer, and wounded it with great adroitness; and in another previous engraving, the hunting equipments of the female archers, about the middle of the fifteenth century, are represented.
It was usual, when the ladies exercised the bow, for the beasts to be confined by large inclosures, surrounded by the hunters, and driven in succession from the covers to the stands, where the fair sportswomen were placed; so that they might readily shoot at them, without the trouble and fatigue of rousing and pursuing them. It is said of Margaret, the daughter of Henry VII., that when she was on her way towards Scotland, a hunting party was made for her amusement in Alnwick Park, where she killed a buck with an arrow. It is not specified whether the long-bow or the cross-bow was used by the princess upon this occasion: we are certain that the ladies occasionally shot with both; for when Queen Elizabeth visited Lord Montacute, at Cowdrey, in Sussex, on Monday, August 17th, 1591, “Her highness tooke horse, and rode into the park, at eight o’clock in the morning, where was a delicate bowre prepared, under the which were her highness’ musicians placed; and a cross-bow, by a nymph, with a sweet song, was delivered into her hands, to shoote at the deere; about some thirty in number were put into a paddock, of which number she killed three or four, and the countess of Kildare one.”
Roger Ascham, in his instructions to the archer, first of all recommends a graceful attitude. He should stand, says this writer, fairly, and upright with his body, his left foot at a convenient distance before his right; holding the bow by the middle, with his left arm stretched out, and with the three first fingers and the thumb of the right hand upon the lower part of the arrow affixed to the string of the bow. In the second place, a proper attention was to be paid to the nocking, that is, the application of the notch at the bottom of the arrow to the bow-string: we are told that the notch of the arrow should rest between the fore-finger and the middle finger of the right hand. Thirdly, our attention is directed to the proper manner of drawing the bow-string: in ancient times, says Ascham, the right hand was brought to the right pap; but at present it is elevated to the right ear, and the latter method he prefers to the former. The shaft of the arrow, below the feathers, ought to be rested upon the knuckle of the fore-finger of the left hand; the arrow was to be drawn to the head, and not held too long in that situation, but neatly and smartly discharged, without any hanging upon the string. Among the requisites necessary to constitute a good archer, are a clear sight, steadily directed to the mark, and proper judgment to determine the distance of the ground; he ought also to know how to take the advantage of a side-wind, and to be well acquainted with what compass his arrows would require in their flight: courage is also an indispensable requisite, for whoever, says our author, shoots with the least trepidation, he is sure to shoot badly. One great fault in particular he complains of, which young archers generally fall into, and that is, the direction of the eye to the end of the arrow, rather than to the mark; to obviate this evil habit, he advises such as were so accustomed, to shoot in the dark, by night, at lights set up at a proper distance for that purpose. He then concludes with observing, that “bad tutorage” was rarely amended in grown-up persons; and therefore he held it essentially necessary that great attention should be paid to the teaching of an archer properly, while he was young; “for children,” says he, “if sufficient pains are taken with them at the onset, may much more easily be taught to shoot well, than men,” because the latter have frequently more trouble to unlearn their bad habits, than was primitively requisite to learn them good ones.
Kings and princes have been celebrated for their skill in archery, and among those of our own country may be placed King Henry VII., who in his youth was partial to this exercise, and therefore it is said of him in an old poem, written in praise of the Princess Elizabeth, afterwards Queen to Henry VII.