pluck from every goose six wing-feathers for the purpose of improving
arrows, which were to be paid for by the King. In 1421, though the French
had been defeated at Crecy, Poictiers, and Agincourt, by the English
archers, yet they still continued the use of the cross-bow; for which
reason Henry V., as Duke of Normandy, confirms the charters and privileges
of the _balistarii_, who had been long established as a fraternity in his
city of Rouen.

We now meet with several enactments by Edward IV. for the appointment of
bowmen with the long-bow; but we pass over these and other records to the
19th year of the reign of Henry VII., who forbade the use of the cross-bow,
because "the long-bow had been much used in this realme, whereby honour
and victory had been gotten against outward enemies, the realm greatly
defended, and much more the dread of all Christian princes by reason of
the same." Statutes for the promotion of archery with the long-bow are now
very frequent; but the cross-bow is proscribed in the same proportion: and,
in the time of Henry VIII. a penalty of ten pounds was inflicted on every
one who kept a cross-bow in his house.

Though archery continued to be encouraged by the king and legislature for
more than two centuries after the first knowledge of the effects of
gunpowder, yet by the latter end of the reign of Henry VIII., it seems to
have been partly considered as a pastime.

From this period we pass to the date of the annexed CUTS, for which we are
indebted to the research of an ingenious Correspondent, with the
antiquarian subscription of "JONATHAN OLDBUCK,"[5] who appends to his
sketches the following historical notice:

"After the destruction of the Spanish Armada, fears being entertained lest