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Updated: September 23, 2025
"About three hundred years ago, Captain John Hawkins, a stout skipper of Devon, and one of those old sea-dogs who helped to conquer the great Spanish Armada, had these arrows, which he called 'sprights, to distinguish them from those still used with the English longbow, made in large quantities, to be used in the muskets of his men.
Besides all this, he dearly loved the longbow, and a sly jaunt in the forest when the moon was full and the dun deer in season; so that the King's rangers kept a shrewd eye upon him and his doings, for Arthur a Bland's house was apt to have aplenty of meat in it that was more like venison than the law allowed.
And many more famous men of the longbow were there, whose names have been handed down to us in goodly ballads of the olden time. But now all the benches were filled with guests, lord and lady, burgher and dame, when at last the Sheriff himself came with his lady, he riding with stately mien upon his milk-white horse and she upon her brown filly.
At such times archery was always the main sport of the day, for the Nottinghamshire yeomen were the best hand at the longbow in all merry England, but this year the Sheriff hesitated a long time before he issued proclamation of the Fair, fearing lest Robin Hood and his band might come to it.
Whereat, it was noticed that many ladies in the Queen's booths boldly flaunted Allan's colors, much to the honest pride which glowed in the cheeks of one who sat in their midst. "In good truth," said more than one lady to Mistress Dale, "if thy husband can handle the longbow as skilfully as the harp, his rival has little show of winning!" The saying augured well.
Yet, if the Squire will have me, I would choose to fight under the five roses of Loring, for though I was born in the hundred of Easebourne and the rape of Chichester, yet I have grown up and learned to use the longbow in these parts, and as the free son of a free franklin I had rather serve my own neighbor than a stranger."
At any Continental watering place, Longbow, or one of his family for it is a large one can be met with. He is, indeed, a wonderful man on intimate terms with all the crowned heads of Europe, and proves his intimacy by always speaking of them by their Christian names.
Beside him, crushing lavender betwixt his rough fingers and strewing it over floor and sheets, was Aylward the archer. His longbow leaned at the foot of the bed, and his steel cap was balanced on the top of it, while he himself, sitting in his shirt sleeves, fanned off the flies and scattered the fragrant herbs over his helpless master.
Longbow was ploughed three times at Oxford, and once "sent down." But he is now the very orthodox vicar of a West End parish, a preacher of culture, and a pattern of ecclesiastical propriety.
"Now by our gracious Lady fair," quoth old Sir Amyas o' the Dell, who, bowed with fourscore years and more, sat near the Sheriff, "ne'er saw I such archery in all my life before, yet have I seen the best hands at the longbow for threescore years and more." And now but three men were left of all those that had shot before.
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