English Longbow: Mary Rose Yew Bows, 160-Pound Draws and Warped Spines

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Almost no medieval longbows survived the damp European soil, so ideas about England's great war bow rested on legend until the Mary Rose. Henry VIII's warship sank in 1545, and its oxygen-free mud preserved 137 longbows and more than 3,500 arrows. The bows averaged about six feet six inches, some nearly seven feet, with a thick D-shaped cross-section. Each was a self bow cut from a single yew stave, with tension-loving sapwood on the back and compression-resisting heartwood on the belly. Demand was so heavy that the 1472 Statute of Westminster made wine importers deliver four bowstaves per ton, later raised to ten under Richard III.

Replicas suggest the Mary Rose bows drew 150 to 160 pounds, some up to 185, against 50 to 60 for a modern hunting bow. Archers laid their body into the bow, and their skeletons show enlarged left arms, bone spurs and twisted spines. Modern testing indicates arrows could not pierce the front of top quality plate, so the bow's power at battles like Agincourt came from killing horses, exhausting knights in mud and cutting down lighter infantry. Caught without stakes at Patay in 1429, archers were ridden down. Muskets that a peasant could learn in weeks replaced them, and Elizabeth I disbanded the longbowmen from the trained bands in 1598.

• In 1532 the Duke of Bavaria complained that yew cutting broke the forest canopy and let winds topple the remaining trees.
• By 1568 the yew monopolies collapsed because mature trees had nearly run out.
• At Shrewsbury in 1403, surgeon John Bradmore widened a wound with honey-soaked elder pith and pulled an arrowhead from Prince Henry's face with screw tongs.
• A skilled longbowman could loose about six heavy war arrows a minute and send light flight arrows 300 to 400 yards.
• In 1363 Edward III ordered able-bodied commoners to practice archery on holidays instead of playing sports.