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This well equipped archer
represents the household bowmen serving in Henry V's
army in France. In this case a bowman of the retinue
of the Earl of Oxford, his hood bearing the Earl's
star badge.
The man wears a good
bascinet helmet and padded jack to protect his body
and is armed not only with his bow but a good sword
and buckler and a long 'misericorde' dagger. His
mounted status is indicated by the riding boots. Many
archers rode to war, dismounting to fight. These men
received a higher wage than their lowly unmounted
compatriots.
The archer is standing
behind a defensive stake and preparing to loose an
arrow from his yew longbow, a weapon with a range of
potentially more than 250 yards and deadly at close
range in the hands of a skilled bowman. Each man of
the king's army had to be capable of releasing at
least twelve aimed shots a minute and the sky at
Agincourt must have been filled with a deadly hail of
arrows as 5000 archers released death on the attacking
French.
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