Hugh D. H. Soar - Secrets of the English War Bow

The might of England standyth upon her archers

Sir John Fortescue (d. 1478)

There can have been no more awesome sight for those who sought to challenge the might of England upon the battlefield than to be faced by rank upon rank of stolid longbowmen. Cold-eyed professional fighters, arrogant and xenophobic to a man, they stood in silence, confident of their ability, deadly shafts notched on taut bowstrings, anticipating the sound of battle horn and drum, ready to loose their fearsome arrow storm to maim and kill all in its path, for the arrow is blind and no respecter of degree: lowly foot-slogging peasant or high-born man-at-arms, neither escaped its murderous point.

It was the task of these bowmen to dull the opposition. Disciplined at village butt on holy days to shoot strongly and to effect, they knew their worth, these free-born Englishmen and their Welsh companions, and they did their work well.

Of the many battles in which the longbow and those who used it were prominent, none has been so thoroughly described as Agincourtfought on a late October day in 1415a day dedicated to saints Crispin and Crispinian. While the lowly bowmen are given credithow could it be otherwiseunderstandably,perhaps, official English accounts, of which there are many, emphasize the activities of the men-at-arms.

Then the French came pricking down as if to over-ride our men, but God and our archers made them stumble. Our archers shot no arrows off target; all caused death and brought to the ground both men and horses. For they were shooting that day for a wager. Our stakes made them fall over, each on top of the other so that they lay in heaps two spears length in height. Our king with his company and men at arms always fought on for he battled with his own hands. When the archers ran out of arrows they laid on with stakes.

Another source states:

The warlike bands of archers with their strong and numerous volleys darkened the air, shedding as a cloud laden with a shower, an intolerable multitude of piercing arrows, and inflicting wounds on the horses, either caused the French horsemen [who were intent upon overriding them and fighting the English from the rear] to fall to the ground, or forced them to retreat, and so defeated their dreadful purpose.

With archery thus dismissed, the author reserves the more purple of his prose for a gory description of the battlefield.

O, deadly war, dreadful slaughter, mortal disaster, hunger for death, insatiable thirst for blood, insane attack, impetuous frenzy, violent insanity, cruel conflict, merciless vengeance, immense clash of lances, prating [aimlessness] of arrows, clashing of axes, brandishing of swords, breaking of arms, infliction of wounds, letting of blood, bringing on of death, hacking up of bodies, killing of nobles! The air thunders with dreadful crashes, clouds rain missiles, the earth absorbs blood, breath flies from bodies, half dead bodies roll in their own blood, the surface of the earth is covered with the corpses of the dead, this man

While English accounts of Agincourt adequately describe the ebb and flow of the days events, it is to the French accounts that we turn for graphic illustration, in particular, the dress and explicit activity of the archers. Most of these men, we are told, were without armor, dressed in their doublets, their hose loose around their knees, having axes or swords and hatchets hanging from their belts. Many had bare heads and were without headgear although some had hunettes or cappelines of boiled leather and some of osier on which were bands of iron. It was also noted that some archers went barefoot.