Bow-making 1 3 1 



all children of six years old and upwards shall, on 

 week-days, be set to school, or some virtuous labour, 

 whereby they may hereafter get an honest living ; 

 and on Sundays and holidays they shall resort to 

 their parish churches, and there abide during the 

 time of divine service, and in the afternoon all the 

 said male children shall be exercised in shooting 

 with bows and arrows, for pins and points only ; 

 and that their parents furnish.' 



The best bows appear to have been made of 

 Spanish yew. Thus Drayton says : l ' All made of 

 Spanish yew, their bows were wondrous strong.' 



Roger Ascham, 2 in his curious and amusing- 

 treatise, published in 1545, tells us that 'every 

 bowe is made of the boughe ; the plante or the 

 boole of the tree. The boughe commonly is verye 

 knotty, and full of prinnes weak of small pithe ; . . . 

 the plante is quick enough of caste, it will plye and 

 bow far afore it breakes, and the boole is best.' 

 He previously gives the following directions how 

 to select a bow: 'If you come into a shoppe and 

 fynde a bowe that is small, long, heavie and 

 stronge, lying streighte, not wyndynge nor marred 

 with knottes, gaule, wyndeshake, wen, freat or 

 pynch, bye that bowe on my warrant.' And he 

 continues : * As for brasell, elme, wyche, and ashe, 

 experience doth prove them to be mean for bowes ; 

 and so to conclude, ewe of all other things is that 



1 Polyolbion, Song 26. 2 Toxophilus, p. 113. 



