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Bowmen of England (Pen & Sword Military Classics)

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The Bowmen of England By Donald Featherstone

The classic account of the English Longbowmen written by Donald Featherstone over thirty five years ago still has relevance today. The Bowmen of England is one of the most approachable accounts of the longbow from its development to its last use. From this a more then basic knowledge of the weapon, made famous by its use in the Hundred Years War, can be gained.

Featherstone makes several points with his book. The longbow's origins can be traced to Wales. Its ancestor may have been the Welsh bows that were used for hunting in the valleys and mountains. These bows were slightly larger then the normal hunting bows of the time. The bows were made from wych elm. This was the only type of wood that grew in the mountains that was suitable to bow making. The Welsh bows were four feet long. These bows were known to have a better range and penetration power than any other type of bow at the time. Featherstone believes that these bows were the origins of the English longbow. The nature of the borders in this region would have permitted the traveling of these bows into England. This idea, that the bow originated in Wales is very likely. The English, who were always fighting with or against the Welsh, could have noticed the difference in the bows.

The accounts in the book of the Welsh Wars of Edward I are how Featherstone introduces the tactics of the longbow. He puts forth the idea that the familiar tactics of the longbow in France came from these battles with the Welsh who also had large numbers of bowmen in their armies. Edward I developed these tactics when dealing with the Welsh defensive formations of spearmen in a "hedgehog". This was a semi circular phalanx type formation with the spears facing outwards in all threatened directions. Edward discovered that the archers could cover the advance of the cavalry by disrupting these formations with arrows. From this the principle that the effectiveness of the longbow was much greater when combined in the offense with cavalry came about. The use of the longbow in this fashion against the Scots and their large numbers of pike men seem to prove that the tactics were from before this war.

The most interesting point that Featherstone makes is that the longbow's use ended before its useful life was over. Several facts support this idea. The longbow was not used as a major military weapon after the early Sixteenth Century. At this time the armies of Europe were beginning to switch over to firearms on a large scale. The longbow could fire three or four times for every time of a musket. This was evident until Eighteenth Century. The effective and accurate range of a long bow was nearly 250 yards. This was far greater then the effective range of a musket which was around 100 hundred yards. An arrow was much heaver then a lead shot from a musket and had a greater ability to kill or main a soldier. With this said the need for lifelong training was one of the largest draw backs for the longbow. Firearms training could be effective after a few weeks. Weather also had a greater effect on bows then on firearms. While rain and water could affect both, if the powder was kept dry a firearm could function in the rain. However a bow has a more difficult time. Wind also had a much greater impact on archery than on shooting a firearm. The properties that the arrow uses to fly a stable projectory make it very susceptible to wind. For these reasons the switch to firearms was inevitable.

There are several major weaknesses with The Bowmen of England. Donald Featherstone spends a great deal of the book on the military use of the longbow. He does this by using major and a few minor battles as examples of their use. He spends a great deal of time narrating the story of the battle. However he lacks a useful description of the direct use of the longbow. The tactics and logistics of the English armies in these battles would greatly benefit the reader. One of the more important problems of the text is his 'use' of citations. The lack of any citations in the book greatly hurts the reader's ability to track down the sources of some of his information. The bibliography in the book in useful, but it does not give an account of the source of specific information. At times the book seems to use the descriptions of C.W.C. Oman's The Art of War in the Middle Ages. Some of the passages of both books are remarkably similar. It may not be the case but it is difficult to prove one way or another because of the lack of any type of citation.

The book is well written, easy to read and is a useful resource as a one stop source for the history of the longbow. Other histories of the longbow are often incomplete. Hugh Soar's The Crooked Stick spends a great deal of time with the history of the recreational use of the longbow. Featherstone covers the information that is often overlooked regarding the years under Edward I, the connection with Wales and the later uses of the longbow in the Scottish inter clan struggles. The book is a useful one, but should be used with caution. There are many questions that need to be asked regarding the source of some information as well as the light treatment of the longbow in the battle histories. In all Featherstone is a good source for a different look at the Hundred Years War.

Jamison Clark and Dr. Carl Edwin Lindgren
American Military University

This is volume 1 in the Pen & Sword Military Classic series. The series was initiated in 2003 with 26 titles. The series is a continuing one, and looks to cover a multitude of military subjects, all well worth reading should one have both time and money to do so.

This one particularly caught my eye due interest in medieval times, and the revolutionary English longbow. A device so simple, yet so deadly, as to its impact on warfare of that time, giving ripple effect into much later times as well. As the author states that time began in the Hundred Years War. With the skill and perfection of it all happening in the 14th & 15th centuries.

The English longbow is a long, hand-drawn bow, used in medieval England, sometimes exceeding 6 feet (1.8 meters) in length. It took both strength and skill to handle the bow, but in the hands of a skilled archer, it was as deadly as a modern day bullet. I find it of great interest that an arrow could very easily penetrate much of the armor of that time. Not only were armored knights at risk, but so too the horse they rode, be the steed armored or not.

And when the arrow did not provide a killing shot, an archer now fighting on foot, could approach the downed and disabled armored knight, much as a turtle on it back, to thrust a knife blade through the chink of said knight's armor to apply the killing blow.

I found everything is this slim volume of less than 200 pages of interest. Should I have to pick a most memorable chapter, it would be the prologue. Wherein the author pretty much describes not only the use of the bow in action, but also the bowmen themselves. It's as close to medieval combat as we are get without actually be present.

To be able to find a book such as this on today's bookstore shelf is truly joyous. Read this one for sure if you have any interest in English history, medieval history, or that most wonderful invention the longbow.

Semper Fi.

I've recently bought all the Pen & Sword Military Classics thus far released and have started reading them in order. This title is #1 in the series. I found it an enjoyable read on a period of history with which I was not very familiar. Featherstone does an admirable job of describing the tactics employed by English archers in the period of their ascendance in European warfare. He also provides some details on who became archers and their place in English society. Short but clear descriptions of battles like Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt round out the picture. Featherstone has a pleasant writing style, although he uses a lot of technical terms regarding bows and armor that I think most people will need to look up in an unabridged dictionary.

I read this book for a graduate course in medieval history.
Donald Featherstone is a great historian of the longbow. "History of the English Longbow" is a great comprehensive work for the history of this medieval weapon of mass destruction. In his book, Featherstone has meticulously researched the history of the longbow, from ancient history through its greatest impact in warfare during the Hundred Years' War; specifically, the battles of Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt.

Featherstone turns his attention to the more detailed study of the longbow's genesis and development in Britain. It is definitively impossible to know when the longbow first came into existence in Britain. However, history does record several historical periods when we know that the longbow, or a weapon similar to it, was used and introduced by invaders of the British Isles. There is evidence that shows that the Germanic longbow made its way into Britain with the invasion of the Saxons in the fifth century. Viking law, from mid-tenth century, required that while aboard ship, fighting men must be equipped with bows and arrows as an addition to their other usual weapons that they employed in their raiding parties. One can still read Viking Sagas of the era extolling the use of bows and arrows as weapons. In 1055, Welsh bowmen while firing from hidden positions on mountain ridges, cut down the Earl of Hereford's Saxon cavalry with devastating effect. This action would be a great lesson lost on King Harold eleven years later, in his defeat at the battle of Hastings. King Harold did have some longbow men in the battle, if one takes the Bayeux Tapestry to be a true pictorial history of the Norman Conquest. Unfortunately, for the Anglo-Saxon army of King Harold, he had to travel very quickly over 250 miles south to engage the invading Normans, which prevented him from taking many archers on foot. In fact, the Bayeux Tapestry is famous for its depiction of King Harold being fatally shot in the eye by a Norman arrow, and thus, changing the course of British history forever.

It is during the fourteenth century in Britain that the longbow gains its reputation as a force multiplier in battle. In military terminology, a force multiplier denotes a factor, in this case, the longbow providing a technological factor, dramatically increasing the combat capability of a military force. In keeping with the theme of our course in comparing fourteenth century events to modern times, one can easily equate the importance of the longbow to fourteenth century warfare in the same way that one can compare the importance that the machine gun had on early twentieth century warfare-specifically during World War I. The longbow provided the English armies of Edward I, through the end of the Hundred Years' War, a distinct and singular advantage over the French armies and their cavalry forces.

Despite all of the early history of the longbow in Britain, it is Edward I who is the real progenitor of the longbow, as used in battle. Edward I keenly learned the tactics and logistics that were necessary to employ with great success the longbow on the battlefields of Wales and Scotland. He realized that the longbow was less expensive and awkward to use in battle then the crossbow, and with a moderate amount of practice, his Welsh bowmen could shoot more arrows in a given time then cross bowmen could. He worked hard at building a national army. In 1298, at the battle of Falkirk, most of his longbow men were Welsh. By 1346, most longbow men were English. They were well trained, well paid, and could be counted by the thousands. Longbow men where deemed so important to the army that they were given pardons for all types of offenses, including murder, in order to go off to France to fight. Their pay was comparable to that of master craftsmen. During the reign of Edward II, English military prowess was in decline. Although Edward II continued many of the recruiting and logistical policies of his father, his tactical decisions, and those of his commanders, were sorely lacking. He suffered an embarrassing defeat at the battle of Bannockburn at the hands of Robert the Bruce of Scotland. However, the lessons his son, Edward III, learned from that defeat put the British army in good stead for fighting in the Hundred Years' War. Those lessons, learned and used in such future battles as Crécy, Poitiers, and Agincourt, were insuring good organization before battle and good discipline of soldiers during the fight. In addition, cavalry without longbow support was useless against enemy spearmen. Conversely, longbow men who were isolated on the battlefield without support, would easily fall prey to enemy cavalry attack.

Crécy is emblematic of the successes that the British enjoyed at the battles of Poitiers and Agincourt. It was the sight of the first major battle of The Hundred Years' War and was a rousing success for the invading British army of Edward III and his sixteen-year-old son, Edward, also known as the Black Prince. Edward III had 12,000 men arrayed against a French force of between 30,000 to 40,000 combatants. Although heavily outnumbered, Edward's longbow men were the force multiplier that garnered a stunning victory for the British over the French. The record shows that the English longbow men were capable of firing ten arrows in a minute. Most estimates of the longbow tactics used in the battle, state that the over one-half million arrows fired by the British, easily cut down the French armored cavalry. The longbow, and the brilliant way in which it was employed, were responsible for the lopsided casualty figures of the battle. Although casualty figures are somewhat unreliable, most sources put the French losses at one-third of the French nobility-about 12,000 men in all, against the British losses of 150 to 1,000 total. In the battle, longbow men comprised anywhere from between five to one, upwards to three to one, of the English invading force. Featherstone states in his book, "They were some of the finest, most highly trained and militarily efficient troops that any nation ever put into the field of battle." So, why did the French when seeing the efficient destructive power of the longbow, not learn from the advantage it could afford them and emulate the English? Featherstone postulates a few reasons, such as, the French culture of class snobbery made it difficult for the nobles to accept peasants as equals on the battlefield. In addition, cavalry and chivalry were too hard for French nobles to give up. Another reason was that the French King did not have the power to field a national army in the same way that his English counterparts did. French kings had to rely on their nobles and Italian mercenaries to prosecute their wars during this time; thus, they could not enforce regular training regimens, nor standardized battlefield logistics and tactics. In fact, the longbow reigned supreme on the battlefield until the mid-sixteenth century. By this time, other technologies such as better-tempered armor, cannon, and musketry, overtook the effectiveness of the longbow.

In conclusion, I highly recommend Featherstone's book to any serious student of medieval history. "History of the English Longbow," is an excellent introductory work for understanding the significance that the weapon had during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. It is well written and appointed with plenty of illustrations. The book is a very enjoyable read for anyone with even a casual interest in the longbow or the Hundred Years' War.

Recommended reading for those interested in medieval history, and military history.

This book visits some of the great battles where the longbow turned the tide. It has nice pacing and never got dull.

This is an interesting history about the role of the English longbow in warfare from about 1200 A.D. to about 1500 A.D. In the course of discussing the English longbow in warfare, the book touches upon some issues of warfare that go beyond combat archery itself, including the following: The role of combined arms in combat; The importance of military logistics; The effects of tradition and social mores on military strategy and tactics; and How traditional enemies draw different lessons from the battles they fight and wars they wage. I recommend this book because it provides an interesting discussion of the English longbow that puts it in a broader context beyond just the battlefield itself and points out some facets of archery warfare that are worth considering. Anyone interested in archery warfare should also consider reading Vic Hurley's Arrows Against Steel: The History of the Bow (Mason/Charter Publishers, Inc., 1975).