Whence then proceedeth this vnkinde and vnusuall strangenesse? Am I heavy for burden? Forsooth, a fewe light stickes of wood. Am I combrous for carriage? I couch a part of my selfe close vnder your girdle, and the other part serueth for a walking-staffe in your hand. Am I vnhandsome in your sight? Euery piece of mee is comely, and the whole keepeth [73] an harmonicall proportion. Lastly, am I costly to bee prouided? or hard to bee maintayned? No, cheapnesse is my purueyour, easinesse my preseruer, neither doe I make you blow away your charges with my breath, or taynt your nose with my sent, nor defile your face and fingers with my colour, like that hellborne murderer, whom you accept before me. I appeale then to your valiant Princes, Edwards, and Henries, to the battayles of Cresey, Poyters, Agincourt, and Floddon, to the regions of Scotland, Fraunce, Spaine, Italy, Cyprus, yea and Iury, to be vmpires of this controuersie: all which (I doubt not) will with their euidence playnely prooue, that when mine aduerse party was yet scarcely borne, or lay in her swathling clouts, through mee onely your auncestours defended their Countrey, vanquished their enemies, succoured their friends, enlarged their Dominions, aduanced their religion, and made their names fearfull to the present age, and their fame euerlasting to those that ensue. Wherefore, my deare friends, seeing I have so substantially euicted the rightof my cause conforme your wils to reason, conforme your reason by practise, and conuert your practise to the good of your selues and your Country. If I be praise-worthy, esteeme me: if necessary, admit me: if profitable, employ me: so shall you reuoke my death to life, and shew your selues no degenerate issue of such honourable Progenitours. And thus much for Archery, whose tale, if it be disordered, you must beare withall, for she is a woman, & her mind is passionate.
And to giue you some taste of the Cornish mens former sufficiency that way: for long shooting, their shaft was a cloth yard, their pricks 24. score: for strength, they would pierce any ordinary armour: and one master Robert Arundell (whom I well knew) could shoot 12. score, with his right hand, with his left, and from behinde his head.
Lastly, for neere and well aimed shooting, Buts made them perfect in the one, and rouing in the othe: for prickes, the first corrupter of Archery, through too much precisenesse, were then scarcely knowne, and little practised. And in particular, I haue heard by credible report of those, who professed and protested themselues to haue bene eye-witnesses, that one Robert Bone of Antony shot at a little bird, sitting upon his cowes back, and killed it, the bird (I meane) not the cowe; which was either very cunning in the performance, or very foolish in the attempt. The first of these somewhat resembled one Menelaus, mentioned by Zosimus, lib. 2. who nocking three arrowes, & shooting them all at once, would strike three seuerall persons, and might haue deserued a double stipend in the graund Signiors gard, where the one halfe of his archers are left-handed, that they may not turne their taile to their Sultan while they draw. The other may in some sort compare with that Auo, reported by Saxo Gramaticus, for so good a markman, as with one arrow he claue the firing of his aduersaries bowe, the second he fixed betweene his fingers, and with the third strooke his shaft which he was nocking: or with that exploit of the fathers piercing an apple on his sonnes head, attributed by the same Saxo, to one Toko a Dane: and by the Switzers histories, to Guillaum Tell, the chiefe occasioner, and part-author of their libertie.
[74]
Hurling taketh his denomination from throwing of the ball, and is of two sorts, in the East parts of Cornwall, to goales, and in the West, to the countrey.
For hurling to goales, there are 15. 20. or 30. players more or lesse, chosen out on each side, who strip them- selues into their slightest apparell, and then ioyne hands in ranke one against another.