Archery was a popular pastime in those days with young and old. The bow and arrow continued to be used in warfare long after the discovery of gunpowder. As late as 1572 Queen Elizabeth promised to furnish six thousand men for Charles IX. of France, half of whom were to be archers. Ralph Smithe, a writer on Martial Discipline in the reign of the same queen, says: "Captains and officers should be skilful of that most noble weapon the long bow; and to see that their soldiers, according to their draught and strength, have good bows," etc. In the reign of Henry VIII. several laws were made for promoting the use of the long bow. One of these required every male subject to exercise himself in archery, and also to keep a long bow with arrows continually in his house. Men sixty years old, ecclesiastics, and certain justices were exempted from this obligation. Fathers and guardians were commanded to teach the male children the use of the long bow, and to have bows provided for them as soon as they were seven years old; and masters were ordered to furnish bows for their apprentices, and to compel them to learn to shoot therewith upon holidays and at every other convenient time. In 1545 Roger Ascham published his _Toxophilus, or the Schole of Shooting_, in which he advocated the practice of archery among scholars as among the people at large, and gave full directions for making and using bows and arrows. He dedicated the book to Henry VIII., who rewarded the patriotic service with a pension of ten pounds a year. Ascham urged that attention should be paid to training the young in archery; "for children," he said, "if sufficient pains are taken with them at the outset, may much more easily be taught to shoot well than men," because the latter have frequently more trouble to unlearn their bad habits than would suffice to teach them good ones. One of the statutes of Henry VIII. forbade any person who had reached the age of twenty-four years from shooting at a mark less than 220 yards distant; and a writer of 1602 tells of Cornish archers who could send an arrow to a distance of 480 yards. Matches of archery were held under the patronage of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, to encourage skill in the art. At one of these, held in London in 1583, there was a procession of three thousand archers, each of whom had a long bow and four arrows. Nine hundred and forty-two of the men had chains of gold about their necks. The company was guarded by four thousand whifflers (heralds or ushers) and billmen, besides pages and footmen. They went through the city to Smithfield, where, after performing various evolutions, they "shot at a target for honor."