Billius, a learned and noble Milanese, who lived at the time, says that hand-guns were first used at the siege of Lucca, in 1430. The Florentines were provided with artillery, which, by the force of gunpowder, discharged large stones, but the Luccquese perceiving that they did very little execution, came at last to despise them, and every day renewed their sallies to the great slaughter of their enemies, by the help of small fire-arms, to which the Florentines were strangers, and which before this time were not known in Italy. Billius explains this by saying, Said to have been invented in Italy.“That besides darts and balistas for arrows, they invented a new kind of weapon. They carried in their hand a club, a cubit and a half long, to which were affixed iron barrels. These they filled with sulphur and nitre, and by the power of fire, iron balls were thus ejected.” ([Plate 19], fig. 1 and 10).
Scorpion.
About this time the scorpion (afterwards a piece of ordnance) was a tube for firing gunpowder, held in the hand, and called by the English, hand-cannon, and also hand-culverines.
From a roll of purchases for Holy Island 1446 is,—“bought 11 hand gunnes de ere,” Made of brass.from whence we learn that they were made of brass.
Edward IV.
Hand-guns, or hand-cannons were used in the early part of the reign of Edward IV., and towards the close of it, we learn from Philip de Comines, Harquebus invented.that the harquebus was invented; this seems to have been an improvement on the hand-gun. The Latin word used for this weapon was arcusbusus, evidently derived from the Italian, arca-bouza, a bow with a tube or hole; to that people, therefore, Stock, &c., from cross-bow.are we to ascribe the application of the stock and trigger in imitation of the cross-bow. Match-lock. 1478.Hitherto the match had been applied by the hand to the touch-hole, but the trigger of the arbalest suggested the idea of one to catch into a cock, which having a slit in it, might hold the match, and by the motion of the trigger be brought down on a pan which held the priming, the touch-hole being no longer at the top but at the side. ([Plate 19], fig. 9).
Hand-gun improvements.
The hand-gun was cast in brass, and, as a tube, was of greater length than the hand cannon; a flat piece of brass, made to turn upon a pin, covered the pan which contained the powder; Sighted.it had also a piece of brass fixed on the breech, and perforated to ensure the aim.
Hand-guns in England 1471.
The first introduction of hand-guns into England, we find, was soon after their invention in Italy; in the year 1471, King Edward IV., landed at Ravenspurg, in Yorkshire, and brought with him, among other forces, three hundred Flemings, armed with “hange-gunnes.” Made in England, 1474.In 1474, he directed “all the bombs, cannon, culverines, fowlers, surpentines, and all other cannon whatsoever, as also powder, sulphur, saltpetre, stones, iron, lead and other materials, fit and necessary for the same cannon, wherever found, to be taken and provided for his use, paying a reasonable price for the same.”