Iron guns were not cast in this country until the year 1547, foreigners being generally employed to manufacture them. Both Henry VII. and Henry VIII. took great pains to introduce the art of gunnery into the kingdom; and to this end, had a number of Flemish gunners in their daily pay; in fact, it is said, that the latter monarch himself, invented small pieces of artillery to defend his waggons. Hand-culverines.The earlier species of field artillery, embraced among others, a small kind of ordnance called, “hand cannon,” or culverins, which were so light and portable, that they could be carried and served by two men; they were fired from a rest, placed on the ground; Organ-guns.also “ribandequins” or organ guns; these latter consisted of a number of tubes, placed in a row, like those of an organ, and appear to have been of French origin, as were many of the improvements which took place about that period, including the invention of wall pieces, throwing leaden balls of ten to the pound.
Mortars, Henry VIII.
For mortars we are indebted to workmen of Henry VIII. as “one Peter Bawd and one Peter Vancollen, both the king’s feed men, devised and caused to be made certain mortar pieces, being at the mouth from eleven to nineteen inches wide, Shells.and also certain hollow shot of cast iron, to be stuffed with fire-work or wild-fire, for to break in pieces the same hollow shot.” Varieties of cannon.And in the first year of Edward VI. the said Peter Bawd did make ordnance of iron of divers forms, as fawconet, fawkons, minions, sakers, &c. His servant, J. Johnson, did like make and cast iron ordnance cleaner and to better perfection, to the great use of this land. His son Thomas Johnson, in 1593, made forty two cast pieces of great ordnance for the Earl of Cumberland, demi cannon, weighing 5,000lbs. or three tons the piece. Queen Elizabeth’s Pocket-pistol.At Dover there is a culverine, presented to Queen Elizabeth, by the States General of Holland, and called Queen Elizabeth’s Pocket-pistol. It is 24 feet long, diameter of bore 41⁄2 inches, weight of shot 12lbs.; it was manufactured in 1544, and is mounted on an ornamented iron carriage made in 1827, at the Royal Carriage Department, Woolwich Arsenal. ([Plate 17], fig. 2.)
Mons Meg.
There is a large gun at Edinburgh Castle, called Mons Meg; it measures about 13 feet 4 inches in length, the diameter of the bore is about 1 foot 6 inches; it has a chamber about 4 feet long and 6 inches in diameter. ([Plate 17], fig. 3.)
Field-guns, 1554.
The battle of Remi, in 1554, was the first action in which light field guns, having limbers, were used,—these guns accompanied the cavalry.
Red-hot shot, 1580.
Pere Daniel says that red-hot iron shot were used by Marshal Matignan, during the siege of la Fère, in 1580.
Calibre, time of Queen Elizabeth.