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Scottish bows?

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Gimlis Ghost:


The above is a portrait of the Captain General of the Royal Company of Archers, the body guard of their king.

I've read before that the Scots had used composite horn bows to some extent and this bow has a decidedly Asian look to it.
The average Scotsman used Yew bows for hunting, though far different than the English long bow.

Their self bows are usually pictured with deeply recurved tips and a good deal of reflex, though not as much so as the bow pictured here.

Does anyone here know how common composite bows were in Scotland or other parts of the UK in historical times?
The Italians were known to import some horn bows from the East and their own Yew long bows bows had the same general features as the Scots Yew bows.

Composite bows are believed to have been subject to degradation of the natural glues used in construction when used in the moist conditions of most of Western lands.
No doubt methods of protecting such bows were available but few if any examples survived to the modern day.

stuckinthemud:
Since the company was not formed until the late 17th century, I would think it unlikely to be a composite, though there's no reason it couldn't be. The English had a long history of using composite weapons from the 11th to 15th century. The very extensive use of crossbows as the primary weapon of the English infantry is well documented, with as many as 1 in 10 members of royal military personnel (standing army and crew of royal water craft) being crossbowmen with a large proportion of these crossbows being composite. I have no doubt that Saracen recurves would have been popular amongst those able to afford such things but I have found absolutely NO evidence for this. By the time of the formation of the Company, however, composite weapons had entirely been replaced by steel springs in crossbows and fire-arms everywhere else.

The captains were very wealthy and powerful members of the gentry/aristocracy and would have used the finest weapons available. I am not sure, and this is entirely my opinion but I can imagine that composite bows would have been unfashionable at this time as an out-dated technology. There's no reason it couldn't be a beautifully made wooden bow and of course, steel bows were not unknown, just a thought.  The pinched tips look more like a steel bow to me, but I am happy to be corrected.

The pedant in me needs to point out that in the Jacobite period, the company was not the King's bodyguard but rather a gentleman company of archers pretending to be a sports club but actually was a militia that could be used if the need arose. The organisation appears to have become defunct for a number of years around the Jacobite rebellion and was not recognised as the bodyguard of the monarch until 1822.

WhistlingBadger:
I've looked into this a bit too.  Most of the pictures I've seen show bows that are taller than the shooter, but with various-sized recurves in them.  I doubt composite bows would be much good in such a wet climate, at least not if they used hide glue and sinew.  I've wondered about backing a bow with flax or dogbane fibers, though, using some sort of waterproof glue. 

This guy has some interesting info, reasonably well-researched.  I want to do a little more research on the "Rotten Bottom Bow."  What a great name...

http://ceathairne.blogspot.com/2012/01/gaelic-archery.html
http://ceathairne.blogspot.com/2013/07/archery-in-scottish-highlands.html

bownarra:
It is a yew recurve :) I've made some replicas for various people. To make them 'better' bows don't add the handle reflex.

bownarra:
True composites in Scotland make no sense.

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