WAS ROBIN IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD?
KEN PYE on the city’s medival archers and that legendary outlaw
ROBIN Hood’s well-known fondness for redistributing wealth may have won him friends in Liverpool.
But did the legendary archer and defender of the oppressed ever lead his merry men through the Mersey Forest?
Perhaps not, but one of the city’s ancient relics, the Robin Hood Stone, is named in honour of the iconic outlaw and is believed to have been used by fellow archers, if not the man himself.
On Booker Avenue in Liverpool, at its junction with the appropriately named Archerfield Road, and protected by iron railings, the Robin Hood Stone is an eight feet high, three and a half feet wide sandstone monolith, deeply scored from centuries of what is said to be arrow-sharpening.
Before being re-sited, in August 1928, the stone stood in a nearby field known as Stone Hey, but was moved when its original location was being built over by the houses that now cover the area. A plaque on the base of the stone records this.
Archers lived and worked here in Medieval times, in the service of the local landowner, Sir Richard Molyneux, and while there is no basis for claims that Robin sharpened his arrows on it, the stone named after him is nevertheless of considerable archaeological and historical significance.
Sharp arrows
Especially during the Hundred Years War, fought between the English and the French in the 14th and 15th centuries, all able-bodied English men, plus boys over the age of 12, no matter in what part of the country they lived, by law had to be proficient at the longbow.
They would practise, and keep their arrows sharp, in case the Lord of the Manor or the King summoned an army to go to battle.
The reputation for deadly precision and for the fearlessness of the English archers was legendary among our enemies. This became particularly true following the Battle of Crecy, in 1346, and Agincourt, in 1415.
With a quiver containing between 24 and 36 arrows, an archer in battle would plant his arrows in the ground in front of him for quick access.
He could then release 10 arrows a minute, which meant that by the time the first one had landed, another would be in flight. English archers were not just fast, they were also deadly accurate and their bows were extremely powerful.
Using the longbow, which had been introduced by the Welsh in the 12th century, a skilled bowman – and all those called to military service had to be – could put an arrow through an enemy’s helmet visor at 200 yards.
English arrows came with two types of tip: long, pointed ones for penetrating armour, and double-edge tips for attacking infantry at shorter distances.
If English archers were ever ambushed or captured in battle, and were not slain, the first two fingers of their right hands would be chopped off so that they could no longer draw their longbows.
They would then be sent back to their own lines as a warning to the English. However, this only provoked the archers to greater ferocity against the French.
Two fingers
Some historians believe English archers lined up ready for an attack would brandish their two bow-drawing fingers at the enemy.
This demonstration of bravado would also act as a threat and a warning, and has given rise to the unproven belief that this is how the raising of two fingers, as a gesture of abuse and aggression, passed into the British lexicon of “nonverbal communication”!