The _fire-stick_, that is to say the arquebuse, which was then called _hequebutte_, with difficulty took the place of the bow, and with still greater difficulty that of the cross-bow. In 1481, Louis XI. deprived his sergeants-at-arms of both the latter weapons, not to arm them with fire-sticks, but in order to give them the pike, the halbert, and the broadsword, of which the Swiss in the recent wars had made such formidable use. Louis XI., however, increased the number of his mounted archers, and placed them later under the orders of the colonel of a company of free-lances known as Albanais or Scouts. These combined bodies formed the French national light cavalry till Francis I. replaced them by the light horse, a body chiefly composed of mercenaries of different nations. In England, ever since the thirteenth century, the mounted archers formed a considerable portion of the national forces. An army of fifteen hundred _complete lances_, which represented a total of six or seven thousand horsemen, required a complement of at least five thousand mounted archers, who were all skilful marksmen. In the time of Henry VIII., an English bowman could discharge as many as twelve arrows in a minute, and he would have considered himself disgraced if he had let fly a single shaft which failed to kill, wound, or at least strike an enemy. [Illustration: Fig. 49.--German Foot-soldiers fighting.--From a Drawing by Holbein preserved in the Museum at Basle (Sixteenth Century).] [Illustration: Fig. 50.--Italian Warriors of the Fifteenth Century.--From a Bas-relief on the Triumphal Arch of Castel Nuovo, Naples, erected in 1470 by Ferdinand of Aragon, to celebrate his Victories over John of Calabria, Son of René d’Anjou.]