![]() ![]() Welsh longbows required considerable training to operate, but were far more powerful than any other ranged weapons of the era. This was suited to a landscape in which the main fighting tactic was a quick charge followed by a feigned retreat into the woods, with the intention being to trap pursuers in a lethal short-range ambush. Early Welsh bows were constructed from wych elm, as opposed to yew or horn used in the English adaptations which came later, and designed not for distance but to inflict severe wounds in close quarters. The historical record relates that in AD 633, five centuries before its earliest known use by the English, a Welsh longbow was used to kill Prince Edwin of Northumbria in a confrontation with the army of King Cadwallon of Gwined. Long before the prominence of archers as staple regiments in the English army during the Hundred Years' War, there had already been an extensive tradition of archery in Wales. ![]()
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