Chapter 5: Archery in the Long Eighteenth Century

Although well established in many cultures, the longbow has always been important to England as a national and cultural symbol. The longbow gave England victories over the French at Crécy (1346) and Agincourt (1415), and parliamentary statutes mandated archery practice for men and the establishment of shooting butts (earthen targets) in villages. England’s medieval folk hero Robin Hood was a master archer. But after the battle of Flodden (1513), the bow lost ground to gunpowder. Once the musket became the weapon of choice at the end of the sixteenth century, archery became a recreational pursuit rather than a national imperative. After the restoration of the monarchy, the archaic sport became the preserve of the British upper classes; just as Robin Hood gentrified in early modern British literature, transforming from common outlaw into nobleman-turned-outlaw, archery’s practitioners shifted from the yeomanry to the nobility and gentry. ¹ By the end of the eighteenth century, the sport was deemed suitable exercise even for ladies, who participated in several mixed-sex archery clubs.