Look back at the olden time, when we triumphed at Agincourt, Cressy, and Poictiers—when we won for England her foremost place among the nations of earth. A writer in the _Cambridge Chronicle_ has collected all that he can find relative to “_The Longbow of the past_, _the Rifle of the future_,” and done good service by its republication under the title already given. There is a muster-roll of the army of Henry V. preserved among Rymer’s unprinted collection in the British Museum. The Earl of Cambridge appears in it with a personal retinue of 2 knights, 57 esquires, and 100 horse archers. The Duke of Clarence brought in his retinue 1 earl, 2 bannerets, 14 knights, 222 esquires, and 720 horse archers. The roll includes 2,536 men-at-arms, 4,128 horse archers, 38 arblesters (cross-bowmen), 120 miners, 25 master gunners, 50 servitor gunners, a stuffer of bacinets, 12 armourers, 3 kings of arms. A Mr. Nicholas Colnet, a physician, also brought 3 archers, 20 surgeons, an immense retinue of labourers, artisans, fletchers, bowyers, wheelwrights, chaplains, and minstrels. Foot-archers were not enumerated, but the total number of effective soldiers amounted to 10,731. These were the men who gained the field at Agincourt. Philip de Comines acknowledged that English archery excelled that of every other nation, and Sir John Fortesque states “that the might of the Realme of England standyth upon archers.” In the reign of Henry II. the English conquests in Ireland were principally owing, it is recorded, to the use of the long bow. The victory gained over the Scots, by Edward I., in 1298, at the great battle of Falkirk, was chiefly won by the power of the English bowmen. In 1333 Edward III., with small loss, gained a signal victory at Halidown Hill, near Berwick, when attacked by the Scots under the Earl of Douglas. Speed gives, from Walsingham, the following description of the battle:—“The chief feat was wrought by the English archers, who first with their stiff, close, and cruel storms of arrows made their enemies’ footmen break; and when the noble Douglas descended to the charge with his choicest bands, himself being in a most rich and excellently tempered armour, and the rest singularly well-appointed,—the Lord Percy’s archers making a retreat did withal deliver their deadly arrows so lively, so courageously, so grievously, that they ran through the men-at-arms, bored the helmets, beat their lances to the earth, and easily shot those who were more slightly armed through and through.” Gibbon notes the singular dread with which the English archers filled their enemies in the crusades, and states, “that at one time Richard, with seventeen knights and 300 archers, sustained the charge of the whole Turkish and Saracen army.” In the reign of Richard II., in 1377, the Isle of Wight was invaded by the French, who landed in great force at Franche-Ville (called afterwards Newtown), which they destroyed, and then directed their march