This thesis drastically overstates the killing power of the longbow and is reminiscent of similarly misguided notions about the efficacy and impact of crossbows. An archer could not so easily punch through armor or kill large numbers of knights easily. Like all weapons, the longbow was not a battle winner in and of itself, but rather a tool that could be effectively employed as a part of a combined arms approach to victory. There are plenty of battles where longbowmen were ineffective or even useless due to the circumstances of the fight. If anything, the social change that the longbow brought about served less to upend the social hierarchy of the day and more to reinforce it. The middling farmers, small landowners, and skilled tradesmen who became professional or semi-professional longbowmen in English armies became increasingly tied to royal and aristocratic service as a result of their military activity. Mounted archers as a demographic saw a rise in their social and economic fortunes during the Hundred Years War, but this was not to result in some kind of middle class revolution. These soldiers fought alongside their kings and lords (sometimes even shoulder to shoulder!) and, if anything can be said about their motives as a whole, were more interested in advancing themselves within this society than subverting it.