The proper length of the English longbow was about the archer’s height, say between five feet six inches to six feet, with a bend of nine inches; and those made from the bough of a yew were preferred; but as yew trees were scarce, bowyers were enjoined by Act of Parliament to make four bows of “witch-hazel,” ash or elm, to one of yew; and no persons under seventeen years of age, with certain exceptions, were permitted to shoot with a yew bow, under a penalty of six shillings and eightpence. This Act of Parliament was repealed in Elizabeth’s reign. The string was either of silk or hemp, twisted or plaited, but always round where the notch of the arrow was placed. The shaft was drawn by two or sometimes three fingers to the head, and always towards the ear, when shot at short marks; but towards the breast when used at long ranges. The archer kept both eyes open, and looked only at the object aimed at, holding his weapon perpendicularly. Part of the light cavalry in the thirteenth century consisted of mounted archers. During the reign of Henry VIII. hand-guns had greatly superseded the use of the longbow, but the king himself was a skilful archer. The archer carried his sheaf of arrows, consisting of twenty-four, in his belt; the length was a clothyard shaft, feathered or plain at the base, and tipped usually with a sharp, but sometimes barbed head. These heads were of iron, pointed with steel. The archer wore a leathern wrist-guard, called a bracer, to avoid hurt by the recoil of the string. The arrow with feathers from a goose’s wing was the “broad arrow,” first used as a regal badge by King Richard I. The plain pile, without feathers, was considered to penetrate better. Henry V. enacted that the Sheriffs of Counties were to take six wing feathers from every goose for feathering arrows. Arrows of ash were preferred. They were about thirty-two inches long, and usually tipped with a sharp unbarbed head. Any ordinary English archer would rarely miss an object the size of a man at 250 yards; and he could discharge his weapon twelve times a minute. The extreme range of a bow was “from sixteen to twenty score yards;” in fact, a “bow-shot” seems to have been used to express a distance of 400 yards, and the minimum range for archery contests was usually 220 yards.