Donald Featherstone, Bowmen of England (Perdios)

Donald Featherstone

Bowmen of England

(Pen & Sword, 2011) 164pp.  $19.95

Bowmen of England

The late Donald Featherstone’s Bowmen of England is a concise history of the English longbow and the men who used it. The book itself was first published in 1967. This is a reprint. While it does show its age when compared to more recent works on the English longbow, like those by Anne Curry, readers need to understand the book for what it is: an introduction for those who are not familiar with the longbow’s history—beginning with its Welsh origins, through its implementation during major battles of the late medieval period, down to its use by Captain Jack Churchill in World War II. Furthermore, Featherstone links the rise of the longbow with the development of England’s national consciousness.

The book is not meant to be an overly scholarly work. The text reads much like a cross between works by Lt-Col. Alfred H. Burne and a piece of historical fiction. Featherstone’s prologue is a short story, describing English longbowmen in combat (perhaps at Poiters given the descriptions of their surroundings). Featherstone also mingles the historical narrative with quotes from Shakespeare, Chaucer, or Arthur Conan Doyle’s The White Company for added dramatic flair. At Crecy, for example Count D’Alençon, cries out “Slay me those rascals! They do but hinder and trouble us without reason!” just before he and his men trample the Genoese crossbowmen.  The quote comes from Froissart, but Froissart is not cited. There are no in-text citations.

As for the historical narrative itself, much of it will already be familiar to those who have studied the Hundred Years’ War and the War of the Roses. Early chapters focus on he development of the bow by the Welsh. Because of their mountainous country, the Welsh had to develop thicker bow staves for hunting and fighting. Although initially the Normans feared the bow, they soon made use of it. Middle chapters each narrate an individual battle, starting with Falkirk, where the English standardized their use of the bow by defeating Scottish schiltron formations. Featherstone argues that the longbow contributed to the England’s national consciousness from the victories at Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt. The longbow became the weapon of the common man, which ended the dominance of cavalry, and thus knights, on the battlefield. Still, in the end, the longbow could not compete with the firearm in terms of ease of use and training. Yet it remains an important symbol of English culture.

When taken into context of when it was written, this history is complete. It draws upon many of the technical, historical, and primary sources available at the time. For the scholar, the bibliography is a concise list of pre-1960s sources. The beginner, however, might have some difficulty locating some of these works, since they might be long out of print.

The most glaring omission come not from Featherstone, but from the blurb of the book’s back cover. The last sentence reads: “The Introduction is written by the pre-eminent medieval scholar Richard Barber.”

This is unfortunate. A new introduction summarizing the scholarship of the longbow in the decades following the book’s first publication would have been most welcome. Mentioning more recent works would supplement the book’s bibliography. Readers new to the history would have had further reading that is current and accessible.

Still, overall Bowmen of England remains a classic. It can serve as a good introduction to people who are unfamiliar with the longbow’s history. While not intended to be a scholarly work, Featherstone’s romantic and nationalistic prose may entice the reader into further study.

Stelios V. Perdios

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