CHAPTER IX 



Bows — Ancient use — Long-bow — Battle of Hastings — Its value in 

 English wars — English supremacy — Various Statutes — Forest 

 laws — Edward ll. — Edward in. — Edward iv. — French archers 

 — Statute of Henry viil. — Elizabeth — ' Act of Bowyers' — Prices 

 — Importation of foreign bows — Act of Philip and Mary — Com- 

 panies of archers — Commission of Charles I. — Bow-making — 

 Cross-bows made of yew — Its inferiority to the long-bow. 



Bows have, from the earhest times, been made of 

 various kinds of hard and elastic wood, and we 

 have the testimony of Homer and Virgil that the 

 yew was one of the principal of these. There is 

 little doubt that it was used by the Saxons for this 

 purpose, though Meyrick says they only used it for 

 killing birds, and in all probability the ancient 

 Britons made their bows of it. Certainly they used 

 it for making spears, for I have in my possession a 

 spear of this wood, dug up from beneath the peat 

 in the fens of Cambridgeshire, and therefore most 

 likely 2000 or 3000 years old. 



'It is supposed that war was anciently proclaimed 

 in Britain by sending messengers in different direc- 

 tions through the land, each bearing a bended bow ; 

 and that peace was in like manner announced by a 

 bow unstruno- and therefore straiofht.'^ 



^ Cambrian Antiquities. 



