Archery in the English Civil War.

Yes, I said it, archery in the English Civil War.

Archer from Gervase Markham's 
Art of Archerie

As a weapon of war, the bow began to fall from popularity in the sixteenth century, so much so that Henry VIII had to introduce several statutes enforcing archery practice in order to maintain a force of archers. In Elizabeth's reign the bow became less and less prominent until, in 1589, the Privy Council restructured the trained bands and removed archers from their strength. The bow died hard though, and continued to be used, particularly in rural and provincial regions, well into the seventeenth century. At Repton in Derbyshire, mustered militia men had 'a cote and bowe and a shiffe of arowes and a quiver' in James I's reign. [Cox, p. 160] As late as 1628, Sir Philip Carteret wrote that Jersey had 3,000 able men for its defence, of whom, 300 were armed with muskets and pikes, 'the rest having bows, bills, and [un]armed.' [CSPD, 1625-49 Addenda, 26/01/28] And in 1638 the Earl of Arundel at Carlisle requested that 'some quantity of bows with offensive arrows should be poured into our bordering shires of Cumberland, Northumberland, and Westmorland (already used to archery).' [CSPD, 1637-38, 03/08/1638]

The seventeenth century also saw a number of schemes to revive the bow, the best-known of which is probably William Neade's project of 1625, the 'double-armed man'. Neade's idea was that by arming pikemen with a bow in addition to their pike, they would no longer be relegated to standing around getting shot at for most of a battle, waiting in case they were needed against cavalry. With a bow they would have an offensive capability in addition to their defensive role.

The Double-Armed Man

 The fantastical nature of Neade's invention appears, at first glance, to be something of a novelty, hardly a practical proposition. And yet, we know it worked. Neade himself made it work, and he persuaded the Artillery Company in London to put it into practice. In March 1628 the Council of War ordered a formal trial of Neade's device [CSPD, 1628-29, item. 55], and 300 members of the Artillery Company turned out in St. James's Park to demonstrate it before Charles I. [CSPD, 1637, item. 148] Charles himself had a go, and was impressed enough to commission Neade and his son to instruct the county militias in its use. [CSPD, 1633-34, item. 52] Charles and his Council of War were not the only ones impressed by Neade's invention: William Bariffe wrote of it,

In all these firings, the pikes never come to charge, but stand in a square battell, in danger of the enemies shot: themselves neither being able to offend the enemy, nor to defend themselves. And yet if by frequent practise, they were inured to the use of the longbow, fastened to their pikes, I make no question but that, when they should become expert in the use of the Bow and Pike, they would not onely be a terrour to their enemies, by the continuall showers of Arrows which they would send amongst them; but also that they would be a great meanes to rout their enemies, & utterly to breake their order. [Bariffe, p. 310]

Ward, in his Animadversions of Warre, and Kellie, in Pallas Armata, were also advocates of the double-armed man [Ward, p. 301; Kellie, p. 107]. But Neade and his double-armed man were part of a much larger revival of the bow in the first half of the seventeenth century. In 1631 and again in 1637 Charles reissued the statute of 33. Henry VIII requiring all men between the ages of 16 and 60 to own and practice with the bow. [CSPD 1637, item. 78; CSPD, 1629-31, 30/01/1631].

The most significant attempt to reinstate the bow came in 1627 when Charles' favourite, the Duke of Buckingham, raised a force to attack the Isle de Rhe in support of the French Huguenots at La Rochelle. Orders were sent to the counties for the levying of men, and it was instructed that 24% of them were to be archers. In some counties, the order for archers arrived after the county's contingent had already set off for the embarkation point, and in other counties not enough archers could be found to fill the quota: nevertheless, bows and arrows were ordered from the Tower, and archers were reported assembling at Portsmouth. [CSPD, 1627-28, item. 37]. How many archers made it to France is unclear, but French sources reported arrows being shot into the fort of St. Martin de Rhe. [Annales, p. 444]

So, in the years prior to the civil war there were plenty of bows around, and not a few archers. 300 men trained with pike and bow in London and, given William Neade's commission, it is reasonable to suppose that at least some men trained with them in the provinces. Several hundred archers at least were assembled for the Isle de Rhe expedition, and by recently-enacted law every man from 16-60 had to own and practice with the bow. The law was certainly observed in the breach, but to assume that the entire country ignored it would be folly. But does that mean that bows were used in the field during the English Civil War? No, it doesn't, not by itself, but it does mean that we should examine the evidence a little further before dismissing them.

In the weeks leading up to the beginning of open conflict Charles issued Commissions of Array, ordering and authorising his supporters to raise troops in their locales for his service, and they included provision for archers. The Commission sent to the Marquis of Hertford, for example, to raise troops in the West Country and Wales instructed that he was to raise an army consisting of 'Horsemen, Archers and Footmen of all kindes of degrees meet and apt for the Wars.' [Copy of the Commission, p.5] I've chosen that example particularly because in Hereford, one of the counties covered by Hertford's commission, there was raised in 1642 a company of archers. [Willis-Bund, p. 21]

At the same time, confusingly, a company armed with pikes and bows was raised in Hertford for the defence of the town. On hearing that the town was threatened by a Royalist force, the Earl of Bedford sent a party of cavalry under Captain Ankle to augment the defences. Ankle's troop arrived outside the town and were met by piquets posted there by the defenders but on giving the watchword were admitted to the town where they were met by 'the second watch, being a company of pikes with bowes and arrowes.' [Dacres, p. 3]

Yet a third company of archers was raised on behalf of Parliament in Shropshire. Parliamentarian troops stationed at Bridgnorth were expecting the arrival of the Earl of Essex when instead a Royalist force under Prince Maurice arrived. Cavalry were sent out, but a large force of Royalist musketeers under Lord Strange took up position outside the town and saw the horsemen off. Afraid that the Royalists were about to ford the river and enter the town, the defenders 'with ... Bowes and Arrowes sent to them which did so gaule them, being unarm[our]ed men (only offensive Armes) that with their utmost speed they did retreat.' [Norcroft, p. 6]

In the early months of the war, then, formations of archers were assembled, and in at least one case used in action, in the defence of towns. Archers may have been a common feature of sieges on both sides of the walls throughout the war. At Gloucester in 1643 bows were used to shoot messages into and out of the beleaguered city, and messages were shot into Basing House by arrow by the Parliamentarian besiegers in 1644. [Gaunt, p. 115; Basing Castle, p. 11]. At Lyme Regis the Royalist shot fire arrows into the town and set alight buildings, and arrows were still being used for sending messages as late as the 1648 sieges of Colchester and Pembroke.

But locally raised formations of archers defending their towns, or what might be only one or two archers present at sieges, are not the same as formations of archers active in the field armies, though no less important. In September, 1643, the Parliamentarian newspaper Mercurius Civicus reported the news from Oxford that the Royalists

have set up a new Magazine without Norgate, onely for Bowes and Arrowes, which they intend to make much use of against our horse which they heare (though to their great griefe) doe make much increase: and that all the Bowyers, Fletchers, and Arrow head makers that they can possibly get they imploy and set on worke there for that purpose. Also, that the King hath two regiments of Bowes and Arrowes. It is therefore necessary, that no Arrow-heads be suffered to goe from London towards Newbery, or into any other parts where the Cavaliers may by any means come to achieve or surprise them. And it were to be wished, that the like provision were made by the Parliament here to get Bowes and Arrowes (at least some for their Pikemen) it being not unknowne what victories have been formerly atchieved in France and other parts by our English Bow-men. Besides the flying of the Arrowes are farre more terrible to the horse then bullets, and doe much more turmoyle and vex them if they enter. [Mercurius Civicus, p. 106]

That the king had two regiments of archers is unlikely, but that fact that it was printed in 1643 indicates that it was not considered unlikely at the time, and the fact that the movement of arrowheads was to be restricted suggests that there was at that time a supply worth restricting. The most intriguing thing perhaps about this article is that bows and arrows were proposed for pikemen in Parliament's army, suggesting that the double-armed man was still considered a possibility in 1643, and may have been what was meant by the ambiguous reference to the 'company of pikes with bowes and arrowes' at Hertford the previous year.

Most importantly of all, the rallying cry of Mercurius Civicus for a Parliamentarian force of archers was heard in the highest circles. Thomas Taylor served as a lieutenant under Colonel Fiennes at the siege of Bristol, and was called as a witness by Fiennes to appear at his trial for surrendering the city too early. When he first gave his deposition he was a lieutenant, but by the time of the trial itself he had been promoted to Captain. [Prynne, pp. 37-39, 67] As well as his promotion, Taylor was also given his own command:

Whereas, by Virtue of a Commission under my Hand and Seal, dated First Day of Nov. 1643, directed to Mr Thomas Taylor, Citizen of London, he the said Thomas is authorized to raise a Company of Archers, for the service in Hand, and to set the same on Foot, by and through the free Bounties of the well-affected People, in and about the City of London, and Parts adjacent, as by the Teneur of the said Commission appears... [Rushworth, p. 370]

Highlander c. 1630
German print.

It has been said that the last use of the bow in a battle in Britain occurred at Tippermuir on 1 September 1644 when Montrose's Royalist highlanders defeated an army of Scottish covenanters commanded by the Earl of Wemyss. The highlanders were still well-known for their use of the bow at this time, and at Tippermuir the 'Atholl and Banzenoch men had swordes, bowes, and fyrelockes.' [Ruthven, p. 78] In the Bishops' Wars of 1639-40 bow-armed highlanders had played their part, and from that conflict comes a wonderful description of the kind of men who fought at Tippermuir:

They were all or the most part of them well timbred men, tall and active, apparrelled in blew woollen wascotts and blew bonnets. A pair of bases of plad, and stockings of the same, and a paire of pumpes on their feete: a mantle of plad cast over the left shoulder , and under the right arme, a pocquett before their knapsack, and a pair of durgs on either side of the pocquet. They are left to their owne election for the weapons; some carry onely a sword and targe, others musquetts, and the greater part bow and arrowes, with a quiver to hould about 6 shafts, made of the maine of a goat or colt, with the hair hanging on, and fastened by some belt or such like, soe as it appears allmost a taile to them. [Aston, p. 28]

However, on the same day that Montrose and Wemyss were battling it out at Tippermuir, the Earl of Essex was losing the last day of the Battle of Lostwithiel against the king in Cornwall. Whether Thomas Taylor's company of archers took part in that last day's fighting is unknown, but there can be little doubt that having been raised by Essex the previous November they then went on to join his army for the West Country campaign of 1644. Possibly, however, they were knocked out of the fighting in mid-August, for around 14 August Royalist troops plundered Lanhydrock House, the home of Parliamentarian Colonel Lord Robartes, and 'in the howse was found many bowes and divers quivers of arrowes'. [Symonds, pp. 54-55]

There is no evidence of Taylor's company of archers after August 1644, and it is likely that if they survived the march out of Cornwall after the defeat at Lostwithiel they were probably incorporated into another regiment and re-equipped, or disbanded. Taylor himself continued in Parliament's service and ended his military career in 1647 when he was one of the three men who presented the Leveller tract An Agreement of the People to the army. [Brailsford, p. 311] The use of the bow did not entirely die out with Taylor's company, however, and if the Parliamentarians were still using bows at the sieges of Pembroke and Colchester, the Royalists still had archers in the field in 1647 when James Winstone, a Parliamentarian soldier, 'was wounded in ye righte hande by an arowe' at a skirmish in Hathersage, Derbyshire. [Cox, p. 160] Hathersage is the legendary burial place of Little John, so it seems fitting to lay this article to rest there too.

E.T. Fox

E.T. Fox's book, Seventeenth-Century Military Archery, containing complete transcripts of William Neade's The Double-Armed Man (1625), the anonymous A New Invention of Shooting Fire-shafts in Long-Bows (1628), and Gervase Markham's The Art of Archerie (1634) is available from Fox Historical Publications.

(With thanks to S.F. Jones of Tyger's Head Books for pointing out a couple of references)




Bibliography.
Annales de Chimie et de Physique, vol. 3 (Paris, 1841)
Calendar of State Papers, Domestic.
A Copy of the Commission of Array Granted From His Majesty to the Marquesse of Hertford (London, 1642)
A Description of the Siege of Basing Castle (Oxford, 1644)

Aston, John. Diary in Six North Country Diaries (London, 1910)

Bariffe, William. Military Discipline: or, the Yong Artillery Man (London, 1635)
Brailsford, Henry Noel. The Levellers and the English Revolution (Stanford, 1961)
Cox, J. Charles. Three Centuries of Derbyshire Annals (London, 1890)
Dacres, Sir Thomas. A Perfect Diurnall of the Proceedings in Hartford-shire, From the 15. of August to the 29. (London, 1642)
Gaunt, Peter. English Civil War, a Military History (London, 2014)
[Jones, S.F. ed.] Mercurius Civicus, London's Intelligencer, vol. 1 (reprint, 2013)
Kellie, Sir Thomas. Pallas Armata (Edinburgh, 1627)
Markham, Gervase. The Art of Archerie (London, 1634)
Neade, William. The Double-Armed Man (London, 1625)
Norcroft, John.  Exceeding Joyfull Newes From his Excelence the Earle of Essex (London, 1642)
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Rushworth, John. Historical Collections of Private Passages of State, vol. 5 (London, 1721)
Ruthven, Patrick Gordon of.  A Short Abridgement of Britane's Distemper (Aberdeen, 1844)
Symonds, Richard. Diary of the Marches of the Royal Army During the Great Civil War (London, 1859)
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