The record-union., 1895-01-05
only weighs about 1,5Oo pounds. New
York World
OLD DAYS OF ARCHERY.
Battles Won With the Bow, Which
Guns We're Slow In Sunnlantfnr.

DatttOS w Oh Will Ihe bO"s w ulCh
Guns Were Slow In Supplantfng.
The history of the great English VIC
tories on French soil is the history of a
successful resistance of Well-posted arch
ers to gallant but laundering charge of
teudal cavalry over bad ground. AS the
arquebus and culverin came in, as French
gunners improved In their art, the Eng
Hsh supremacy dwindled. At Falkirk
(l29o) Edwards cavalry cut up the Scotch
archers, while his archers destroyed the
dark, impenetrable wood" of Scotch
spearman. AT Bannockburn Bruce's
cavalry scattered the English archers,
while the English cavalry sank in his
prepared pits and were famed by his cal
throps. But in later fights the Scotch
seldom, If ever, executed the necessary
maneuvres of dispensing the English
archers by cavalry charge. They did
not attempt it, or failed, baffied by the
palisades, or the nature of the ground, or.
as at Halidon Hill, the cavalry We're too
few, and the English bowmen's shafts
penetrated armor. Meanwhile, the arba-
lest men, having to wind up their cross
bows, a tedious process, could only send
one shalt to six from the longboW.
The bow was thus the mistress of war,
and the strong, well-trained English
yeoman and peasants carried the lives or
armies at their girdles. But by l4Z9 light
artillery, culverIns which could be rap
idly wheeled about, came in. A gunner
like John of Lorraine or Noirouiie, the
Cordelier, could apparently kin more
surely through armor at longer dis
tance than Locksley himself. The ancient
English pre-eminence in the bow and a
certain intellectual tardiness made Eng
land cling to the old weapon, while the
Continent discarded it for the harquebus
and hagbut. At Morat, in 1876 there
were 10000 hagbut men engaged. But
Henry VIII, while enforcing universal
practice with the bow. forbade the use OF
oSs-boWS and hand-guns.
II Lord Herbert OF CherDury is right in
his Life and Rayne of Henry WILL"
written, of course, century later, the
scientific party III English military coun-
ellis was all for "villainous saltpetre." At
Pinkie Cleugh, in l547, the Old English
bow maSsacred the Scotch, and the Nene-
tian envoy warmly praised English arch
cry. In 1911 the badness or expense OF
the bows is alleged as cause OF the de-
cay of archery. By 1850 the comparative
merits of bow and harquebus are the SUBJ
lect OF a literary controversy. Sir John
Smyihe $500 is all for the bow, Ii
shoots straighter; there is no powder to
foul or TO become Wet, no trouble with
matches, the shooting is faster, men can
shoot with the bow in much deeper
ranks; arrows frighten horses. Barwick,
bad for bowstrings as for powder.
In one of Napoleon's battles whole
regiment had 10 surrender because the
rain dampened the powder III the pans OF
the flint locks. Probably archers, with
two strings to their bows would have
been In better case. BarWick adds that
II is easier to aim with gun than bow,
and that good archers are scarce. Physi-
cal fatigue, too, incapacitateS an archer
more than musketeer. Sir John replies
that if a musketeer shoots oitener than
ten times in an hour he will seldom or
never hit his mark. On the whole, the
lack OF strong shooting with the bow, the
prevalence of hasty, timid looSing at halt
strength, was the great defect OF the old
arm. Men II not horses were more de-
moralized by the bullet than by the az
row. By 1910 the Lord Deputy in Ire
land prOnounces against bows. Charles
l. raised a corps of Highland boWmen,
and in 1873 William Meade proposed a
new model for combining bow and pix g.
1t did not take. In the civil war we meet
bowmen but rarely. The Oxford under
graduates on the royal side used the old
arm; but Dugald Dalgetty, az we know,
could not restrain his mirth at the sight
of Highland archers. He had seen no
such force under lilly, the great Gust
avus, and other Continental men of the
sword. In 1910 Sir James Turner, that
genial ruttian and prisoner of the Cove
nauters, was for reviving the bow. So
was Benjamin Franklin, century later:
but the bow as a weapon was obsolete
London Daily News.