THE ROYAL COMPANY OF ARCHERS. green tunics and eagle-plumed bonnets, so bore themselves with patrician confidence until they serried their ranks in front of Holyrood? It is the history and tradition of the best blood in Scotland for at least 300 years. It is probable that the history and tradition even goes further back than this. There is a pretty story, which, if we salve it from the historian's pedantry, tells us that when they counted the cost on bloody Flodden's field, the dead body of the Scottish king was found fenced in with a ring of slain archers. Bowmen of the King's life-guard, faithful Of all the picturesque scenes of which Edinburgh was the centre last month during the Royal Visit, there was none that so appealed to the writer as the moment when the King's Royal Company of Archers turned into the gates of Holyrood House Palace as they marched to be, for the first time in their wonderful history, presented with new colours at the hands of the Sovereign it is their duty to guard. The history of the ancient walls of Holyrood House is so essentially the history of Scotland. The background to this historic monument to Scotch tradition unto death. It is robable that and history was so essentially Scotch. The grey of a grey Scotch morning enveloped the Salisbury Crags and Arthur's Seat in an atmosphere that blended with all the national characteristics in the scene that animated the Palace forecourt. A King's Guard, furnished by the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, was turning out to salute the Royal Archers. With the catlike tread of mountaineers, the pipers of the Royal Scots were playing the bowmen to their destination. The tout ensemble brought to the imagination the glorious picture of those qualities in manly strife, in fervid loyalty, and patriotic endeavour which is the foundation of the great Scots race. What of this company of bowmen who, in their holly the custom of the Scottish kings of keeping in their service a corps of picked bowmen as a bodyguard is even of greater antiquity than this tradition. This much history will allow us. The custom of maintaining Royal bodyguards of archers, drilled and organised in a manner peculiar to the Scots, spread throughout Europe, so much so that some of the peculiar Scottish titles exist in European countries to this day. The high office of Captain-General, as known today in Spanish officialdom, is a relic of the original CaptainGeneral who commanded the Royal Company of Archers in bonnets and kilts, while the London Train bands also borrowed the style of CaptainGeneral, which survives in the King's office as chief of the Honourable Artillery Company. The first genuine record that exists in the Royal Company, however, is a medal affixed to the "Musselburgh Arrow," the most ancient record of the Company. This gives the date of 1603. The oldest recorded Charter, however, dates from the reign of Queen Anne. Archery was apparently at this time in need of encouragement by local officialdom, for a clause in this Charter runs: "Whereanent, and with all that might be objected against the same, we have dispensed, and for us and for our Royal successors, as immediate lawful superiors of the said Royal Company, in free blench - farm for ever, with free ingress and regress to all public butts, plains, and pasturages legally allotted both for shooting arrows with the bow at Random or at measured distances, and that freely, quietly, well, and in peace: Prohibiting by these presents all Magistrates, Sheriffs, Justices of the Peace, Masters of Butts, and any others whomsoever, to cause any obstacle or impediment to the said Royal Company in the lawful exercise of the ancient arms of Bows and Arrows, whether at measured distances or at Random: Rendering therefor yearly, the said Royal Company, to us and our successors, one pair of barbed arrows at the Term of Whitsunday, if asked only." "I accept the Reddendo' from the Royal Company of Archers, my Bodyguard in Scotland, whose ancient rites and privileges it is my pleasure to recognise and maintain." Somewhere in the period of 1775 the Royal Company acquired the buildings known as as "Archers' Hall," which is still the Headquarters of the corps, and we have for that period the first real record of the fixed uniform of the organised bowmen. There is in the Archers' Hall a valuable Raeburn a portrait of one Dr Nathaniel Spens,1 a noted marksman of the day. He is wearing a holly-green coat, a green bonnet with a whiteand-green hackle, and has a leather guard on his left wrist to save his sleeve from fraying by the catgut. The leading characteristics in the uniform, painted by Raeburn a hundred and fifty years ago, survive to-day in the appropriate dress of the Archers of the King's Scottish Bodyguard. The History of the Royal Company of Archers,' by Sir James Balfour Paul. William Blackwood & Sons. They wear a braided tunic of holly-green, piped with a rifleman's scarlet on epaulettes, cuffs, belts, and overalls. The bonnet is finished with the Scots emblem, which fastens in place a rakish eagle plume. The belt is also finished with the same emblem, while attached to the girdle, in which are jauntily placed three arrows, is a scarlet tassel, a survival of the "arrow-wiper" which it was customary for bowmen to carry in war to cleanse shafts that had to repeat their deadly message already successfully performed. A stout long-bow is carried in the hand, which, when white gloves are added, gives the Archer a distinctive character in bearing, dress, and armament, which renders him as unique as the gentlemen-at-arms who perform the same loyal funotions at the Court of St James as the Archers fulfil at Holyrood House Palace. The distinction of belonging to the the Royal Company of Archers is one that is highly prized amongst "the best men in all Scotland." The Royal Company includes in its ranks to-day, as it has always, the flower of the aristocracy of Scotland. The Captain-General is the Duke of Buccleuch. Its four captains are Lord Wemyss, Lord Rosebery, Lord Haddington, and Lord Home. As lieutenants it has Lord Elgin, Lord Balfour, Lord Polwarth, and Lord Aberdeen. Its ensigns-and it is worthy of note that it is the sole military body in the world in which the rank of ensign survives—are Lord Tweeddale, Sir J. H. A. Macdonald, Lord Dalkeith, and the Duke of Abercorn. It possesses another rank, namely, that of Brigadier. Of these latter officers there are twelve, which at the present moment include the Duke of Lennox (Richmond) and the Duke of Roxburghe: The rank and file contain many noblemen of Scotland and the scions of nearly every noble and gentle house: Recruited upon a more or less hereditary basis, it is to-day far more a corps d'élite than were the companies of Scottish gentlemen who took service as archers in the foreign courts in the middle ages, or any other organised military body in the service of the King of the United Kingdom and the Emperor of India. In 1822 the Royal Company acted as bodyguard to King George IV. when he visited Edinburgh. On this occasion the "Reddendo" was offered and accepted. In 1832 William IV. presented the Royal Company with the colours that they surrendered at the Royal function, and which the King referred to as having been borne by them during four reigns. Queen Victoria, although she was so fond of Scotland, but rarely ordered those State occasions upon which Royal Archers appear. 1842, however, they formed her bodyguard, and were really of service to her Majesty's person, in keeping off her carriage the crowd which in its inquisitive loyalty at one time became the In turbulent. In 1876 the Royal Company was present at the unveiling of the Scottish Memorial Statue of the Prince Consort. In 1881 the late Queen reviewed the Scottish Volunteers in the Queen's Park, Holyrood House, and was furnished with a guard of her Royal Archers. In 1886 the Queen again officially visited Edinburgh, and the Royal Archers were mustered for the occasion. In 1888, when the Queen opened the International Exhibition of Industry, Science, and Art at Glasgow, the Bodyguard of Bowmen was again on duty. The late King Edward saw the holly-green tunics on two occasions, namely, when he held the great Volunteer Review that preceded the inauguration of the Territorial Force, and when he made his official visit to Edinburgh. Of the patriotism, loyalty, and esprit de corps that is locked up in the Scottish hearts beneath the holly-green tunics of the Royal Archers, there was a touching example at the ceremony of the dedication of the Thistle Chapel at St Giles' Cathedral, when the aged Lord Home, the eldest member of the Royal Company, was supported up the aisle of the Cathedral by two stalwart Archers. As the aged officer with tottering steps took his post as King's duty-man, one felt the influence influence of the magnetism of tradition and patriotism. The Royal Company of Archers is the embodiment of this great magnetism. RECALLED. There is an Irish legend that in old times fairies mixed with the human race, and that one or two families owe their beauty to an intermarriage with a fairy. A LITTLE strain of music came creeping through my dream;- Then softly as a shadow I stole across my room, I drew the casement open and looked into the night. I saw the white moon's circle clear-cut against the gloom, And all my old time comrades were dancing in its light. They laughed and caught my fingers, they drew me through the air, They bound my neck with daisies and shod my feet with dew. "Still half of you is shadow, and you are very fair, Dance, dance," they cried, "O sister, dance while the night is new!" Ah, then I whirled the measure old in the days of Finn, I sang the spells I whispered when Erin's kings were young, And through our sweet wild dancing bats flitted out and in, And owls, deep in the forest, made answer when we'd sung. And ever louder, louder, I heard the harp-strings speak, Then tiny arms enclosed me,-frail threads of gossamer,And words like rippling waters were murmuring all around: "Nay, she shall stay for ever! What need has he of her, Our little lost companion to-night at last is found." |