MK235
King & Country
Looking towards the enemy and holding the shaft of an arrow and his bow this kneeling archer prepares to stand up and fire.
Beginning in the late 12th Century and into the 13th Century the ‘Longbow’ finally began to appear in the hands of more and more peasants or ‘yeomen’. This new development had a much longer range and greater penetration power than earlier ‘Shortbow’ and required considerably more skill and strength.
Its lack of accuracy at longer ranges meant that its best use on the battlefield was as a weapon of mass destruction when hundreds of arrows would descend from above onto the packed ranks of standing foot soldiers or the long lines of advancing cavalry.
Nowhere was that success better shown than the two victories of the English at Crecy in 1346 and Agincourt in 1415.