Yet if anyone thinks that archery is an easy sport, he errs grievously. Let him try a "York round," which mans shooting six dozen arrows at 100 yds, four dozen at 80 yds. and two dozen at 60 yds, with a walk between the targets after every three arrows. Even a "Hereford round,"
Since gunpowder was first used in battle—was it at Poitiers? My memories from school are vague—English Kings repeatedly strove to keep archery alive. Edward III ordained that all his subjects must practise it constantly and must not "after any manner apply themselves to the throwing of stones, wood, or iron, handball, football, bandyball cam-buck, cockfighting, nor such like.vain plays, which have no profit in them." That lovely romance of Stevenson's "The Black Arrow" shows how effective archery was in the Wars of the Roses. Henry VIII organized a tournament at Windsor and dubbed the best archer "Duke of Shoreditch," from which all captains of City of London archers were called by the same title. Arrows were used at Flodden. Queen Elizabeth encouraged archery, and Charles LI held a tour-riament, when there was a big turnout of archers but they shot disgracefully. After that one hears little more of archery till the days of Lady Diana Sweepstakes.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.