‘I have... shewed how the Bow and Arrow may againe profitably bee employed, and Revived, without offence or Scandall’ (dedication to the ‘Worshipfull Companies and Societies of Bowyers and Fletchers’).

The first edition of Gervase Markham’s (d.1637) scarce treatise on The Art of Archerie, defending England’s traditional pastime and system of self-defence amidst the rise of gunpowder weaponry. The latter had occasioned a decline in archery standards, which the Privy Council blamed in 1577 on people 'imagining it to be of no use for service as they see the caliver [arquebus] so much embraced at present’. By the end of the century the bow had almost completely disappeared from military life.

Markham’s treatise is thus something of a retrospective, recalling the glories of a previous age: ‘what Battayle have wee ever fought eyther at home or abroad and tryumphed, but the Bow (next unto God) hath carryed the honor, witnesse the famous Battaile of Cressie against Philip the French King, where (as our Adversaries themselves doe confesse) was slain all the Nobility of France, onely by the English Archers’ (p.15).

Produced towards the end of his life, Markham had retreated to the countryside following the failed rebellion of his erstwhile sponsor the Earl of Essex in 1601. His many works on husbandry and rural sports are informed by a practical knowledge of the outdoors and life as a tenant farmer in Huntingtonshire. ‘For the social historian, or the re-enactor, Gervase Markham's numerous works are indispensable guides to the practicalities of Renaissance life’ (ODNB).

One of Markham’s scarcest titles. ESTC records only 6 copies in institutional collections in the British Isles.