A dictionary of sports; or, companion to the field, the forest, and the river side. Containing explanations of every term applicable to racing, shooting, hunting, fishing, hawking, archery, etc. ... With essays upon all national amusements / By Harry Harewood.
- Harewood, Harry, pseud.?
- Date:
- 1835
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A dictionary of sports; or, companion to the field, the forest, and the river side. Containing explanations of every term applicable to racing, shooting, hunting, fishing, hawking, archery, etc. ... With essays upon all national amusements / By Harry Harewood. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![victories.” The bow, however, was not con- fined to martial purposes alone; it was also used in sporting —for bird- ing there was a particular kind of arrow called a bird-bolt. We read that Godfrey of Boulogne broached three swallows upon his arrow at one shot when he commanded in the Holy Land, which being a thing very remarkable, he took the three birds for his coat of arms. William the Conqueror (who had a consider- able number of bowmen in his army at the battle of Hastings) was an admirable archer, and was so strong that none but himself could bend the bow he used. In the ages of chivalry, the use of the bow was considered as an essen- tial part of the education of a young man who wished to make a figure in life. The heroes of romance are, therefore usually praised for their skill in archery ; and Chaucer, with propriety, says of Sir Thopas, “‘ He was a good archere.” The fatal accident by which Wil- liam II. lost his life by an arrow while hunting in the New Forest, is too familiar to the reader to require recital. Richard Strongbow, Earl of Pem- broke, was, as his name implies, a mighty ‘archer: it is said his arms were so long that he could touch his knees without stooping. This no- bleman rendered himself famous by his exploits in Ireland; after re- ducing that country for Henry II. he died in 1177. Richard I., when besieging the castle of Chaluze, approached too near the walls, and was killed by an arrow from a cross-bow, on the 8th of March, 1199. It is during the reign of this monarch that we first find mention made of Robert Fitz ooth, Earl of Huntingdon, vulgarly called Robin Hood, who, as tradi- tion goes, was the best marksman and stoutest archer of his time. Edward III. in the fifteenth year of his reign, issued an order to the 19 ties for providing five hundred white bows and five hundred bundles of arrows for the then intended war against France in 1341. Similar orders were repeated in the follow- ing years with this difference only, that the sheriff of Gloucester was directed to furnish five hundred painted bows in addition to the same number of white. At the famous battle of Cressy, in August, 1346, the English are said to have had four thousand archers, who were op- posed to fifteen thousand Genoese cross-bowmen. Previously to the engagement there fell a very heavy ~ rain, which is said to have damaged the bows of the enemy, or perhaps rather the strings of them. Now, the long-bow, when unstrung, may be most conveniently covered, so as to prevent the rain from injuring it; whereas the arbalist or cross-bow is of a most inconvenient form to be sheltered from the weather. Here the English obtained a complete victory. The battle of Poictiers, in which the French King, John, was taken prisoner, in 1356, was gained also by the superiority of the Eng- lish archers. From the numerous testimonies, with which the ancient English chronicles and histories are filled, we select the following as highly illustrative of the destructive power of the old English bow: the passage is taken from a description of the battle of Halidown Hill, near Ber- wick, written by a contemporary his- torian :—‘‘ In this battle,” says he, *‘ the Lord Percie’s archers did witha] deliver their deadlie arrows so lively, so courageous, so griev- ously, that they ranne through the men at armes, bored their helmets, pierced their very swords, beat their lances to the earth, and easily shot those who were more slightly armed, through and through.”’ Philip de Comines, even, in his “ Memoirs of his Own Times,” ac- knowledges, what our own writers assert, that the English archers ex-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b33290635_0029.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
