French ArcJie7's 123 



having experienced the great superiority of the 

 EngHsh archers, Charles vii. began Hkewise to 

 encourage this exercise, and ordered the yew to be 

 planted in all the churchyards of Normandy. * In 

 a short time,' says Juvenal des Ursins, a French 

 historian, who wrote a little later than the battle of 

 Poitiers, 'the French archers became so expert in 

 the use of the bow, that they were able to discharge 

 their arrows with a more sure aim than the English; 

 and, indeed, if these archers had formed a close 

 confederacy amongst themselves, they might have 

 become a more powerful body than the princes and 

 nobles of France ; and, accordingly, it was the 

 apprehension of such a result as this which caused 

 the French king to suppress the archer army.'^ 

 Barrington - remarks that ' it seems very singular 

 that all the laws for the encouragement of archery 

 should be after the invention of gunpowder and 

 fire-arms.' Lord Herbert of Cherbury, who wrote 

 so late as the reign of James i., asserts that good 

 archers would do more execution, even at that 

 time, than infantry armed with musketry. 



' Long after the introduction of fire-arms, in the 

 fourteenth century, the bow continued to be the 

 principal weapon of defence, being used both at 

 Agincourt and Flodden Field.' ^ 



^ Lacombe, Botitell, p. 133. 



- Barrington, Observations, 424 ; 22 Edward iv., a.d. 1482. 



■' Ablett, p. 152. 



