Читать книгу The Complete English Wing Shot онлайн

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This is no unsupported view, for Pope Innocent III. forbade the use even of the cross-bow against Christian enemies, but permitted it against Infidels. It was even said that Richard I. was killed by a shot from a cross-bow because he had disregarded the Pope’s Bull in the use of the weapon. This common belief well indicates the superstition, or religion, of the people, and is ample to account for the very slow growth of the use of gunpowder up to the time of Agincourt, which was obviously won, like the Black Prince’s victories over France, by the English long-bow; and, in the winning, destroyed the dying embers of the spirit of chivalry. That gunpowder did not do this may be gathered from the fact that Sir John Smyth, a general of Elizabeth’s army, declared he would take 10,000 bowmen against 20,000 armed with the match-lock of that period.

More than this, a match was made at Pacton Green, in Cumberland, as lately as 1792 with the bow against the gun, probably the Brown Bess, to test the two for warlike purposes at 100 yards range, and the bow won easily.