Elizabeth Queen of Scots

**McClef** · 10th June 12, 04:12 AM

The kilt police in Scotland must be undermanned!

**David Thorpe** · 10th June 12, 04:35 AM

Budget cuts hurt.

ith:

**Jock Scot** · 10th June 12, 05:03 AM

I wondered how long it would take for the comments to start up! I suspect that the hire companies and "Central Belt" influences had a lot to do with the styles worn.

**Bidule** · 13th June 12, 01:50 AM

Great document! Thanks for posting it...
Slainté!

**Salvianus** · 2nd July 12, 07:24 AM

Originally Posted by jhockin

are those English longbows? Didn't the Scots use a small bow, shot from waist level?? Perhaps one of the re-enactors would know? ( and I won't start any hijack about the politics

)

Well, that's a subject I find fascinating and it's not political at all as I see it: To simplify and summarise and probably get myself into trouble, there isn't much solid evidence for a distinct Scottish shortbow or waist-level stance and certainly what the Company shoots today are very similar to the 17thC bows they started with, explicitly styling themselves as a very patriotic and traditional body.

'English Longbow', is generally a misapplied term because self-bows of similar shape and proportion to the user survive from the Mesolithic and have been popular throughout North-Western Europe since the Bronze Age but in this case it's entirely accurate: the Company minutes reveal that when founded an apprentice, one Robert Munro, was sent to London to “be bred for making bows and arrows, and the treas” before he could become their official bowyer and he was engaged as apprentice to a "fletcher” named Egertoun for a year. In the Late Medieval period these were quite different specialist trades.

I think that reflects a general decline in military archery and the related crafts in Early Modern Europe, leaving relatively few centres of excellence still commercially producing fine bows appealing to the gentlemen of the day. Munro trained his successor and so on and (while there are far more fine Bowyers today supplying them and other traditional archers worldwide) these are essentially the same Early Modern bows. However, they are not quite the 'English bow' of Crecy and Agincourt.

The type of Company shoots suggest they have always used bows similar in performance to modern sporting self-bows of 40-65lbs draw-weight (usually clouts under 200 yards and short range butts with 'target' arrows). These are medium ranges for Late Medieval practice. The Bowyer James Duff recalled making a bow of about 88lbs pull for a member of the Company to experiment with longer distance archery, which had to be reduced to about 54lbs to improve the range to 280 yards (cast not closely correlated to draw-weight, which mainly permits heavier arrows capable of greater threat). Clubs like the Company have kept medium distance shooting with bare self-bows alive and today heavyweight self-bows are enjoying a renaissance building on their preserved traditions and the latest archaeological, historical and mathematical evidence.

Without getting into the debate about just how strong 'war bows' generally were in the Late Medieval or Tudor periods, the evidence strongly suggests that what were known at the time as 'livery bows' produced and issued in vast numbers to English armies during the 14th-15thC, famed as the 'English Bow' (and used by archers most famously from Cheshire and Flint, but many from elsewhere in Wales and the Marches, and, less well known, also the northern counties, London, Ireland, Normandy and Gascony) would be much more heavily built than most recreational 'longbows' from the 17thC until recent reconstructions so that more lethal arrows could be used in earnest against armoured men. Obviously they were imitated and indeed "long" bows are depicted in the mid 15thC miniature attributed to Fouquet believed to be based upon members of the Scottish bodyguard of the French King Charles VII, but we don't know their weights or performance.

Some contemporary criticism of Scottish archery, together with numerous tiny cramped illustrations on archery medals etc have given the impression that shorter bows were favoured in Scotland to some authors looking to explain the lesser reputation of Medieval Scots archers on the battlefield (particularly compared to the pike-armed schiltrons), but there are many other factors at play than simply the lack of a particular weapon system, including (in my own view) smaller numbers and informal supply of kit. More accurate illustrations such as Koler's well known one from 'Stettin' and Durer's Irish warrior who is usually interpreted as a Scottish 'Gallowglass' do show bows chest-high rather than head high plus, a length better for shooting in forests where manageability outweighs great strength or range, but these are hardly photographic records. I'm not familiar wih any firm evidence about average lengths, performance or even cross-sectional shape of Scottish bows, due to a dearth of survivals. The main benefit of greater length is durability and reliability and this allowed rather than achieved the higher poundages we see in Mary Rose bows. My own bow, of very modest weight, is close to 7', which has seen it through the heat and cold and dews and damps of the British Summer under canvas but has not had to be carried on my shoulder across country.

Notwithstanding the much noted instances of bows employed by Scots in the 17thC in lieu of firearms, the Company's initial constitution states that "The Practise of Archery being greatly decayed in Scotland” (Maitland, 1753 and Moseley, 1792), the Company of Archers of Edinburgh was founded as a private club in 1676 “to be called His Majesty's Company of Archers, which may not only be a nursurie for Archers in these parts, but may likewayes be a ready mean to raise ane emulation in others, and incourage them to use and practise Archerie in other places of this his Majestie's Antient Kingdom” (Balfour Paul 1875), presumably inspired by organisations such as the (St George's) “Fraternity or Guild of Artillery” chartered by Henry VIII and the various Scottish clubs which set up prize shoots such as the Musselburgh Arrow to encourage the younger generation to challenge the ascendency of firearms.

They really came into their own under Queen Anne, who granted their charter as the “Royal Company of Archers” and gave them a banner with the motto of the Order of the Thistle used by a number of Scots regiments. Membership came to widen beyond the initial “principle nobility and gentry”, including Allan Ramsay, Sir Henry Raeburn and the great Robert Burns, who accepted an appointment despite his contempt for “pageant mummery” and for George III, then its royal patron, who in 1787 granted monies to establish the first “King's Prize”.

Sir Walter Scott was admitted and they offered themselves as an honour guard for George IV's great visit of 1822, taking an oath of loyalty and, without precedent to guide them, assumed the model of the The Honourable Band of Gentlemen Pensioners. Some archaic touches were added to the uniform, such as a ruff, soon after discarded. Perhaps reminded of their letter expressing abhorrence for the “desperate and atrocious attack” on him after the opening of Parliament five years before, George was taken with them enough to appoint them “The Sovereign’s Bodyguard for Scotland” and henceforward officers appeared at state occasions such as coronations.

Our American cousins might be interested in the incident in 1818 when a group of “North American Indians” with their chief Lenung-gis (“Long-Horns”), were honoured by the Company but found themselves unable to shoot to the same distance, employing handier, shorter, but less powerful horse-bows and an accurate but less powerful grip, using the forefinger and thumb to hold the arrow whilst steadying the string with the other fingers. His speech was described to include that he "little expected to find warriors in a country so remote from his own, who could exhibit such power and dexterity with the bow and arrow", that range shooting had been disused since the introduction of firearms and that "he would communicate to the warriors of his tribe the kind manner in which he had been treated by brother archers, at such a distance from his own country."

Contributing Tartan Historian figheadair has authored a detailed paper on the subject of the red tartan coats they used in the middle half of the 18thC before, in 1778, adopting jackets of the "same pattern as the 42nd Regiment" for the shooting uniform and the plain green for the standard uniform seen on the above mentioned banner and which you see today:
http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/f...archers-73707/

Hope that isn't too dull an answer, these things are seldom simple.