The English Longbow – Guest Post by Veronica-Mae

Recently, a reader came across a post I had done about Tudor archery and reached out to me. While she reassured me that I had encapsulated the subject nicely, she noted that there was SO much more to be said – and she was just the expert to say it: she is not only the Clerk to the Craft Guild of Traditional Bowyers and Fletchers but also Freeman Archer of the Worshipful Company of Fletchers, the Ancient London Guild.  She has written numerous articles on the subject and I am delighted that she has written one for me to post. Without further ado, I turn you over to Veronica-Mae’s capable hands…

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Ah, The renowned English Longbow, who has not heard of this, and of its devastating use in many battles?  But who knows why we call it the longbow? Easy you say – because it is long.  Well yes – many of them were;  the war bows were slightly taller than the man using them, the main reason being that when you bend a piece of wood it is in danger of breaking, but the longer it is the safer it is. However, a child’s bow of Tudor times, discovered in what was once the moat of a Tudor mansion in Gloucestershire, was a suitable size for a young person, around 4ft.   And believe me when I tell you that this also is a longbow.  However, it would not have been so called in its day.  Bows of this simple type were, in the past, called the hand bow, the English bow, the Turquie bow (if it was for hunting) or just simply a ‘bowe.’

Those massive war bows found on the sunken Tudor ship Mary Rose were listed on its manifest as “bowes of yeugh.”  In fact, until recently, the earliest known written use of the word ‘longbow’ appeared in one of the Paston letters, written in 1449 to her husband by Margaret, left to defend their home in Norfolk while he was away in London during the Wars of the Roses. She asked him to send her some crossbows as “the houses here are so low we cannot shoot out of them with a longbow however much we might wish to”

It has also been found that in historic ordinance listings, ‘bowes’ was used to describe them unless there were crossbows present as well.  So here we have two instances where ’longbow’ was used to make sure it was understood as not being a crossbow.

But then one might say also that the longbow was clearly longer than the crossbow.  That is until we come across the fact that not all hand bows – even those in war – were long.  

There are images of handheld war bows which are comparatively short – witness those shown on the Bayeux tapestry.  Shorter bows have also been found by archaeologists.  Now we are faced with a conundrum. Do we call these short longbows? Or perhaps more sensibly short war bows.

Maybe the thing to do is return to calling them the English bow – but once again we find a problem, because one of the short ones recently found was Welsh.  Enthusiasts for archery history suggest that since the Welsh tended to engage in guerilla tactics, a shorter bow would be more convenient for creeping though the bushes.

Much has been said and written about how the longbow came from Wales, and that Welsh archers constituted a large portion of the bowmen in the English armies. 

But bows very similar to those we today call the longbow were around much earlier than the 100 years’ war. And the number of Welsh archers at Agincourt were not as many as some believe. The number has been debated but was around 500 of the estimated 5,000 bowmen.

The name given to this extraordinary weapon is not going to change any time soon, it will remain the longbow in everyone’s minds. However, there are some of us who would like to see the battle weapon called the war bow, since the hand bow was used for other purposes – and this tends to be overlooked. Both it and the crossbow featured in hunting, both by the large, organised groups associated with royalty and – in the case of the hand bow – as a way for peasants to procure a nice fat rabbit for the pot.  Recreational archery also probably goes back a long way, not just starting when the use of the bow for war finally ended; and we certainly know that as the bow’s use as a war weapon declined its use for competitive enjoyment was increasing.

During the times when the bow was much used in warfare, there would have been places set up for the obligatory practice – the village butts – which the locals were also obliged to keep in good repair.  These were basically earth mounds, usually covered with turf.  The name still survives in some areas; and butts were still being used for recreational shooting well into the Regency period. Although we have to be careful not to think that every Butt street, or Butty fields was a shooting area, since the name was also given to the butt end of the fields.

A question recently raised was why succeeding English Monarchs chose to favour the hand bow over the crossbow for their armies, since the former required regular training and practice from an early age, the latter could be easily learnt and required little strength or practice.   

One obvious downside of the crossbow was that it was a complicated item to create and took quite a long time just to make one; whereas bowyers could turn out hand bows fairly rapidly. When you consider that there were regular orders, when war loomed, for the English counties to each provide something like 500 bows for the royal arsenal, or – as in 1341- a massive series of orders placed on multiple English cities to supply 9,100 longbows and 380,000 arrows, this was achievable for the hand bow, questionable for the same number of crossbows.  However, the latter were used when hunting – often by the ladies, seated on their palfreys.

There is a strange difference here between England and other countries, such as France, which – we are told – did not like the idea of peasants with bows who might rise up and revolt.  There they tended to use mercenary crossbowmen – mostly Genoese.

Yet we also find it recorded that at Agincourt the French did in fact have both archers and crossbowmen in large numbers, but chose not to employ them. It is said that the French knights were out for personal glory – and some ransom money – and the archers would get in the way.

In England there did not seem to be the same concern with peasants having bows; although those allowed to keep crossbows were limited to certain classes. Many of the big houses had their shooting areas, where ladies might disport themselves with the crossbow. What is left of one such remains in Wiltshire, the only surviving one in the country, as far as the writer is aware.

Crossbows were much used in many countries, across the world; and as we can see from examples still with us, they were often most highly decorated, and clearly meant for noblemen or women.    

One downside of the crossbow in battle was the time taken to load and shoot it. Less powerful ones were capable of being ‘spanned’ by hand. One foot, or two feet in a metal hoop, called a stirrup, attached to the front, and two hands pulling the string up into the notch which held it until it was released by the trigger.  Thus, you find ‘one foot’ and ‘two foot’ crossbows. With a really powerful crossbow, however, this is not possible, so a rather complicated arrangement of ropes, called a windlass, had to be attached and then two handles revolved until the string came to its position. This naturally took time; and while a crossbowman was doing all this and getting one shot away, the longbowman could release a dozen or so.  In battle a strong consideration.  Crossbowmen in many armies also had someone with them carrying a protective pavise, behind which they could shelter while preparing each shot.

Our English/Welsh bowmen were also handy with other weapons. Once the enemy was too close, they discarded their bows and set to with a maul or a ballock knife.  There is no evidence that crossbowmen in battle did the same, although they may have.  Those employed by the French were also at risk from their own side, as it was not unknown for the knights, keen to show off and to capture hostages, to ride them down in their eagerness to press forward.

Military use of archery continued through the 15^th century and into the 16^th century.

Henry VIII was also an avid promoter and exponent of archery as a gentlemanly sport, showing off his own skills at the Field of the Cloth of Gold [1520] and also creating special Societies for archery, such as Prince Arthur’s Knights.

By 1595 the bow no longer appeared in the assize of arms, although King Charles still supported its use in a few minor skirmishes and was himself an avid archer.    

By the 17th century, the bow was consigned to competition shooting as a pastime, particularly in the north of England and Scotland. Most notable was London’s Society of Finsbury Archers, which was founded in 1652 by Sir William Wood.

Perhaps the most well-known – the Company of Archers (later Royal) was formed in Scotland in 1673 and may be said to mark the transition from military to competitive.

Moving forward, we find that contests, with rich prizes, became popular in England and Scotland, and at first the bows used would have varied little from the war weapons, with the prizes going to those shooting the farthest. 

When one of perhaps the best recorded meetings took place on Blackheath towards the end of the 1790’s the number of clubs sending a steward for the event was seventeen.

Over the years more groups of gentlemen began to meet together and form Societies, and their bows were not quite so strong, and had velvet covers on the hand section. 

As the years went by such groups became more social, with dinners and breakfasts part of the activities; and inevitably women were invited to grace some occasions.  It is not certain how the change came about, but soon women were being allowed to shoot as well, with bows made suitably light and attractive, and they took to it with fervour.

By the 19^th Century recreational archery was becoming de rigueur, with clubs and societies springing up all over the country. Archery became THE thing for the upper classes to while away an afternoon, meet and socialise, and – for the young ladies – to be on the look-out for a suitable swain. It was one of the acceptable places for young gentlemen and ladies to meet.

Some clubs were much more competitive than others, and before long there were regional and then national competitions. Archery was reported in the press and in magazines. It first appeared in the Olympics in 1900, then in 1904 and 1908.  The longbow was still very much alive, even if a shadow of its warlike image.

As archery flourished, not surprisingly technology stepped in and began to produce different types of bows. Amazingly, a bow of steel appeared, and was eagerly taken up by the more competitive archers.

But some were less attracted to this, and feared that the longbow they loved would vanish. So it was that the British Long-Bow Society was formed, its first shooting meeting being in 1951, to preserve the simple wooden bow and wooden arrows. Still operating today, this Society was the reason that the ancient crafts of traditional bow and arrow making were revived and are now flourishing, thanks to the Craft Guild of Traditional Bowyers and Fletchers.  And things have come – almost – full circle, as the war bow is also once again being made and shot by enthusiasts. 

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If you loved the post and want to dive deeper into the subject, you can check out the Craft Guild of Traditional Bowyers and Fletchers,  the Worshipful Company of Fletchers – and also the Society of Archer-Antiquaries (Veronica-Mae is also Editor of the twice-annual Arrowhead supplement to their monthly journal).

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(And of course, feel free to show my books some love as well! My Seymour Saga trilogy tells the gripping story of the short-lived dynasty that shaped the Tudor Era. Jane the Quene skews romantic, The Path to Somerset is pure Game of Thrones (without the dragons), and The Boy King is a noir coming-of-age. Get them now through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and Apple, or even your local independent bookstore!)