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The Silver Arrow archery competition was held annually in the University
of St Andrews from about 1618 to the 1750s. Each year before the
competition the medals of previous victors were attached to silver
arrows and paraded down to the Bow Butts, the archery range. Three
silver arrows and seventy medals survive. Each medal is unique, though
most bear the coat of arms of the victor on the obverse and the figure
of an archer on the reverse. Some bear a Latin quotation, expressing the
winner's attitude to his triumph. Each medal was paid for by the winner,
and may reflect his wealth, learning and social position. Several
winners of the Silver Arrow competition became, in later life, key
figures in the social, cultural, intellectual, scientific and / or
political development of Scotland. For example, James Graham, later 1st
Marquis of Montrose (victor 1628), Captain General of Charles I's forces
in Scotland and Archibald Campbell, later 1st Marquis of Argyll (1623),
who was one of the leaders of the opposing side in the Civil War;
Alexander Robertson of Struan (1687), a prominent Jacobite; and William
Murray, later Marquis of Tullibardine (1706), who unfurled Bonnie Prince
Charlie's standard at Glenfinnan in 1745.
Depicted here are the medals of
Robert Douglas, Lord Dalkeith, in 1622 and 1624, two of 70 surviving
Silver Arrow archery competition medals, and 3 silver arrows, from the
Silver Arrow archery competition at the University.
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