Archery does not appear to have been especially significant in pre
Norman Conquest Anglo-Saxon warfare and the first great English archery victory was the
Battle of the Standard in 1138. During the
Anglo-Norman invasions of
Wales, Welsh bowmen took a heavy toll on the invaders, using short, rough elm bows technically distinct from classic English yew longbows. As soon as the Welsh campaign was successfully over, Welsh conscripts began to be incorporated into English armies. The lessons the English learned in Wales were later used with deadly effect by Welsh mercenaries on the battlefields of France and
Scotland. Their skill was exercised under King
Edward I of England (r. 1272–1307), who banned all sports but archery at the
butts on Sundays, to make sure Englishmen practised with the longbow. As a result, the English during this period as a whole became very effective with the longbow
The longbow decided many medieval battles fought by the English, the most significant of which were the
Battle of Crécy (1346) and the
Battle of Agincourt (1415), during the
Hundred Years' War and followed earlier successes, notably at the
Battle of Halidon Hill (1333) during the
Scottish wars. The longbow corps saw particularly heavy casualties at the
Battle of Patay and this loss contributed to England's eventual defeat in that war. Longbows remained in use until around the 16th century, when advances in
firearms made gunpowder weapons a significant factor in warfare and such units as
arquebusiers and
grenadiers began appearing. Before the English Civil War, a pamphlet by
William Neade entitled
The Double-Armed Man advocated that soldiers be trained in both the longbow and
pike; this advice was not followed in anything but a few town militias. The last recorded use of bows, in an English battle, seems to have been a skirmish at
Bridgnorth, in October 1642, during the
English Civil War.
[14][
dead link] Longbowmen remained a feature of the
Royalist Army, but were not used by the
Roundheads. By the 19th Century skilled longbow men had all but vanished. The
Duke of Wellington even asked for a corps of longbows to provide a force producing more rapid fire than guns could. It would have been particularly devastating against the then unarmoured targets in his
Napoleonic campaigns, but he was told that no such skilled men existed in England any more.[
citation needed].
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