Sir John Smythe wrote; "Many times French Captains attribute all former victories of the English against themselves.... more to the effect of our archers than to any extraordinary valiancy of our nation... they did think the English archers did use to poison their arrowheads: because that of great numbers of the French.. wounded or hurt with arrows, very few had escaped with their lives, by reason that their wounds did so imposthumations, that they could not be cured.

In truth those imposthumations proceeded of nothing else but the very rust of the arrowheads great, but also the small wound of our arrow have been always found to be more dangerous and hard to be cured than the fire of any shot."

"Besides all which it is to be noted, that horsed in the field being wounded, or but lightly hurt with arrows, they through the great pain that upon every motion they do feel in their flesh, veins and sinews by the shaking of the arrows with their barbed head hanging in them, do presently fall a jerking, flinging and leaping as if they were mad, in such sort, as be it in squadron, or in troop, they do disorder one another, and never leave until they have thrown and cast their master."

Doomed Weapon?

Wow! So why as so lethal a weapon doomed? Because armour for vital parts was now being made thick enough to withstand the longbows arrows. Because it was harder to train archers than gunners, and harder to keep then trainee to use bows of sufficient strength to be really effective in battle. But the final nail was hammered into the coffin by a flea.

The biggest reason was England's dramatically reduced population, due to wide spread bubonic plague in the 1540's and 1550's. The plague killed over 25% of the population, reducing the need for yeoman farmers and their products. It was their robust work that built up the physical strength needed to pull a longbow.

After the passing of the plagues, workers were needed back in the cities. Wages then were increased to attract farm workers. Thus a mix of natural and economic factors combined to bring about the last days of the longbow.

In the final twilight hours, many a romantic argued for the return of the longbow. Henry VIII, was an avid supporter and user of the longbow. He was so moved by Roger Ascham's treatise Toxophilas, that he gave Ascham 10 pounds a year for life, when the author presented him the book.

But sadly, in 1588, of the 6,000 trained men mustered against the threatened Spanish invasion there no longbowmen. Only among the 4,000 untrained levy could 800 men be found armed with what was now called "the country weapon."

At the beginning of the Civil War in 1643, The Civil Mercury reported of the King's troops at Oxford, "They have set up a new magazine outside Norgate, only for bows and arrows, which they intent to make use of against our horse, which they hear does much increase: and that all the bowyers, fletchers and arrowhead makers that they can possibly get them employed... Also that the King hath two regiments of bows and arrows." It goes on to say that therefore no arrowheads must reach the Cavaliers from London and advocates archery for Parliament men as well. Cromwell must have missed that issue.

[I always thought that the end of the Longbow came from a relative lull in the constant warfare causing a drop in the popularity of the shooting tournaments (ala Robin Hood) which were the training grounds for the Longbowmen. When the attendance at these tournaments further decreased due to the beginnings of the industrial age and the attending population shift from the country to the town, when the need for the longbowman to again arise, there simply were not the men trained. I also remember someone telling me that Robert E. Lee at one time considered training units as pikemen and Longbowmen but gave the idea up because the pikemen's vulnerability to missile fire. He figured the longbowmen could have a rate of fire sufficient to suppress enemy fire but simply did not have the time to train them.-Jamie]