Longbows strongbows

“For they feared the English king's infantry because amongst them were many archers.” Walter of Heminburgh, describing Edward I’s march from Bruges to Ghent in 1297. The flanks of the king’s little army were allegedly ‘bare of troops’, but the French refused to attack due to their fear of his archers.

This might be an early reference to Welsh archers armed with the longbow or war bow (or mega-bow, whatever). All of Edward’s infantry at this stage of the Flanders campaign were Welsh, recruited largely from Gwynedd and Glamorgan. Contemporary sketches of Welsh soldiers (see below) show them armed with short bows, though it is difficult to see why armoured French knights should have baulked at charging men armed with ordinary missile weapons. It would seem Gerald of Wales’s description of 12th Welsh archers armed with bows of dwarf elm, rough and unpolished, yet capable of pinning knights to their saddles, has some foundation after all.


There is also the evidence from the siege of Dryslwyn in 1287. One contemporary account of the siege describes an arrow from a Welsh archer shot with such force that it drilled clean through the head of an English soldier. Modern excavations at Dryslwyn and elsewhere have found plenty of arrowheads that would have been launched from ‘true longbows’. Dr Chris Caple, in charge of the digs, answered my query thus: 

“Yes these arrowhead were from longbows, the longest arrowhead with socket being over 16cm in length – the bows launching these arrowheads were effectively true longbows.  Olly Jessop (who wrote the typology of medieval arrowheads) wrote the specialist report for us (reference below).  There is plenty of evidence for similar arrowheads from other castles such as Criccieth in Wales. Our examples are perhaps a little better dated than other given the modern excavation standards at Dryslwyn.  The problems are always to do with words – terms such as war bow, longbow etc mean different things to different authors.  The best and most telling evidence is from archaeology.”

None of the above, however, supports the popular view of Wallace’s spearmen being shot to bits by longbows at the battle of Falkirk. Most chronicle accounts agree the Welsh refused to fight at Falkirk until the closing stages. Therefore the schiltrons must have been broken up by other means, and there is no evidence of English troops using longbows at this stage.