And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
English longbowmen. They could loose 12 arrows a minute and hit a one yard circle at 200 yards consistently. When the French captured one, they would cut off their two bowstring fingers, which is why the English version of "giving the finger" is to present those two fingers toward the enemy accompanied by jeers and whatever insult came to mind.
Lovely illustration; I wonder who the artist is. From a book?
ReplyDeleteIs that from "The White Company", by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle?
ReplyDeleteThat was my first thought.
DeleteYep, that sounds about right. Loved that book.
DeleteThe original Boyz In Da Hood ...
ReplyDeleteEnglish longbowmen. They could loose 12 arrows a minute and hit a one yard circle at 200 yards consistently.
ReplyDeleteWhen the French captured one, they would cut off their two bowstring fingers, which is why the English version of "giving the finger" is to present those two fingers toward the enemy accompanied by jeers and whatever insult came to mind.
N.C. Wyeth was the artist. I am pretty sure this was used for the endpapers on the Scribner's Tales of Robin Hood.
ReplyDelete