where a treasure had been discovered, of which he claimed possession as suzerain. Adhemar V., Count of Limoges, his vassal, consented to share it with him, but decidedly refused to give it all up. Richard, who rejected the offer of compromise, was making the circuit of the ramparts on the 26th of March, 1199, when he was hit on the left shoulder by an arrow, which it is believed was poisoned. He tried himself to tear it from the wound; but the shaft only came away, and the head, which remained behind, added every moment to the inflammation. When this took place, the king had with him, as usual, his constant companion, Mercadier, leader of the mercenaries, whose practice it was to sell themselves to the first adventurer who employed them. He and Richard were inseparable friends; they travelled together constantly, they fought side by side, and the letters written from France by the king to his lords in England, always contained a word in praise of Mercadier. It was this knight who carried away the wounded monarch, had his wound dressed by the surgeon, and, in his absence, directed the assault on the castle. The place was taken and the garrison all hanged, with the exception of the cross-bowman by whom the king had been mortally wounded, and who was reserved for a more terrible fate. Richard, however, knowing that his end was approaching, entertained more generous sentiments than he had the credit of being possessed of, and before he died, expressed a wish to see the man to whom he owed this sudden end.

"What wrong have I done you ?" asked he of the man. "What wrong!" cried the archer; "thou hast killed my father and my brother, and at the present time you are preparing for my execution. But do what you will with

me, I shall suffer gladly if you yourself perish. I shall have avenged the world for all the misery thou hast inflicted on it."

"I pardon thee," said the king; but the young man refused his mercy.

"Thou shalt live in spite of thyself," said Richard, "to be a witness to my clemency."

The monarch then gave orders that his chains should be removed, that he should have a hundred English pence, and that he should be set at liberty. The story shows that Richard knew how to appreciate the qualities of a brother soldier, even though they had cost him his life. But his generous intentions were baffled, for Mercadier, disobeying his commands, detained the archer, flayed him. alive, and afterwards hanged him on a gibbet. Historians

are not agreed as to the name of the victim, and ascribe the death of the king to different persons. Bertrand de Gourdon, Pierre Bazile, and Jean Sandraz are mentioned among others; and it is now generally believed that Pierre Bazile shot the fatal bolt. It could hardly have been De Gourdon—or at least, if so, he was not flayed alive by order of Mercadier, seeing that we hear of him some years later, swearing fidelity to Philip Augustus for the domain of Gourdon. The historians, in attributing to him the death of Richard, may have been led into error by assigning the vengeance of Mercadier to personal antipathy; for Bertrand de Gourdon belonged to a noble family which the chief of the mercenaries had despoiled of their property.

Some other English sovereigns were very fond of archery, and among them Henry VII., whose two sons, Prince Arthur and his brother, who was afterwards Henry

VIII., inherited their father's taste, and became excellent bowmen. The former often took part in this exercise in company with the archers of London at Mile End, and it was in remembrance of his remarkable skill that every good archer adopted the name of Arthur. The captain of the body of archers was further honoured with the title of "Prince Arthur," which was some years after, during the reign of Henry VIII., replaced by that of "Duke of Shoreditch." The following were the circumstances under which this change took place. The king having one day arranged a shooting party at Windsor, a citizen of London, named Barlow, who lived at Shoreditch, introduced himself among the guests and eclipsed all by his dexterity. The prince was so charmed that he bestowed upon him in joke the title of Duke of Shoreditch, which the company of English archers afterwards appropriated to themselves.

Among the other monarchs who cultivated the art with success, Edward VI. and Charles I. should be mentioned. The ladies of England, who take part in every exercise that befits their sex, and who have illustrious exemplars in Diana the huntress and the Amazons, also made themselves famous as archers. The Princess Margaret, daughter of Henry VII., and Queen Elizabeth, handled the bow with great dexterity. The latter, when at the house of Lord Montecute, at Castle Cowdrey, in Sussex, went out on the morning of the 19th of August, 1591, to ride in the park. Suddenly a nymph came forth from a wood, and presented a cross-bow to the royal lady, who, being able to use this as easily as the long bow, immediately began to shoot with it, directing the arrows against a herd of deer, three or four of which fell under her shafts.

Queen Catherine of Portugal, wife of Charles II., did

not practise archery-the long bow had gone pretty much out of fashion in the 17th century-but she bestowed all her patronage upon the Society of London Archers, who, in testimony of their gratitude, presented her with a silver cup, bearing the inscription, "The Archers to Queen Catherine."

An English Lady practising with the Bow and Arrow.
(Early part of Nineteenth Century.)

Her Majesty Queen Victoria faithfully observed the traditions of her ancestors with respect to archery, and in her youth, and at the commencement of her reign, regularly practised with the long bow.

If the kings and queens of England used this weapon with such wonderful ardour, we must look to more than mere personal taste to explain the reason, which was, no

doubt, their desire to encourage this taste among the people. The dynasty could not be indifferent to the value of this arm, the taste for which, among the English, was so well known that their skill in it was proverbial.

The inhabitants of Wales surpassed all others in their

English Archer of the Middle Ages. (From a MS. in the British Museum.)

ability in the use of the bow. Giraldus Cambrensis, a writer of the 12th century, says that their arrows pierced oaken doors four fingers in thickness. He mentions also the case of a knight pinned to his saddle by two Welsh arrows, which went through his thighs. And this is not the only instance, as we shall show further on, of a man becoming a centaur in spite of himself, and being stuck by an arrow to his saddle-bow.