ARCHERY.
Archery was a popular pastime in those days with young and old. The bow and arrow continued to be used in warfare long after the discovery of gunpowder. As late as 1572 Queen Elizabeth promised to furnish six thousand men for Charles IX. of France, half of whom were to be archers. Ralph Smithe, a writer on Martial Discipline in the reign of the same queen, says: "Captains and officers should be skilful of that most noble weapon the long bow; and to see that their soldiers, according to their draught and strength, have good bows," etc. In the reign of Henry VIII. several laws were made for promoting the use of the long bow. One of these required every male subject to exercise himself in archery, and also to keep a long bow with arrows continually in his house. Men sixty years old, ecclesiastics, and certain justices were exempted from this obligation. Fathers and guardians were commanded to teach the male children the use of the long bow, and to have bows provided for them as soon as they were seven years old; and masters were ordered to furnish bows for their apprentices, and to compel them to learn to shoot therewith upon holidays and at every other convenient time.
In 1545 Roger Ascham published his Toxophilus, or the Schole of Shooting, in which he advocated the practice of archery among scholars as among the people at large, and gave full directions for making and using bows and arrows. He dedicated the book to Henry VIII., who rewarded the patriotic service with a pension of ten pounds a year.
Ascham urged that attention should be paid to training the young in archery; "for children," he said, "if sufficient pains are taken with them at the outset, may much more easily be taught to shoot well than men," because the latter have frequently more trouble to unlearn their bad habits than would suffice to teach them good ones.
One of the statutes of Henry VIII. forbade any person who had reached the age of twenty-four years from shooting at a mark less than 220 yards distant; and a writer of 1602 tells of Cornish archers who could send an arrow to a distance of 480 yards. Matches of archery were held under the patronage of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, to encourage skill in the art. At one of these, held in London in 1583, there was a procession of three thousand archers, each of whom had a long bow and four arrows. Nine hundred and forty-two of the men had chains of gold about their necks. The company was guarded by four thousand whifflers (heralds or ushers) and billmen, besides pages and footmen. They went through the city to Smithfield, where, after performing various evolutions, they "shot at a target for honor."
There are many allusions to archery in Shakespeare's works, only one or two of which can be mentioned here. In 2 Henry IV. (iii. 2. 49) Shallow, referring to "old Double," who is dead, says of him: "Jesu, Jesu, dead! a' drew a good bow; and dead! a' shot a fine shoot: John O' Gaunt loved him well, and betted much money on his head. Dead! a' would have clapped i' the clout at twelve score; and carried you a forehand shaft at fourteen and fourteen and a half, that it would have done a man's heart good to see."
To "clap in the clout" was to hit the clout, or the white mark in the centre of the target. "Twelve score" means twelve score or two hundred and forty yards; and the "fourteen" and "fourteen and a half" also refer to scores of yards. The "forehand shaft" is among the kinds of arrow mentioned by Ascham, who says: "the forehand must have a big breast, to bear the great might of the bow"; that is, the great strain in shooting at long range.
In Much Ado About Nothing (i. 1. 39) Beatrice, making fun of Benedick, says: "He set up his bills here in Messina and challenged Cupid at the flight; and my uncle's fool, reading the challenge, subscribed for Cupid, and challenged him at the bird-bolt"; that is, he posted a challenge, inviting Cupid to compete with him in shooting with the flight, a kind of light-feathered arrow used for great distances. The fool subscribed (wrote underneath) a challenge to Benedick to try his skill with the cross-bow and bird-bolt, a short, thick, blunt-headed arrow used by children and fools, who could not be trusted with pointed arrows. The point of the joke is that Benedick, though he has the vanity to think he can compete in feats of archery with an expert bowman like Cupid, is only fit to contend with beginners and blunderers.
In Loves Labour's Lost (iv. 3. 23) Cupid's own arrow is jocosely called a bird-bolt. Biron, finding that the King has fallen in love with the French Princess, exclaims, "Shot, by heaven! Proceed, sweet Cupid; thou hast thumped him with thy bird-bolt."