The most ancient gun made in Britain is undoubtedly that bombarde known as Mons Meg in Edinburgh Castle. An inscription on the new stock, cast at Woolwich in 1835, states that the gun "is believed to have been forged at Mons, in 1486." But this is proved now to have been a gross mistake, an assertion which is utterly without warrant, as an elaborate "History of Galloway" shows from proofs indisputable that it was made by a smith of that county, in 1455, for the service of James II. (then besieging the Castle of Threave), at a place still named Knockcannon. It weighs six tons and a half, is composed of malleable iron bars hooped together, and its balls, which are all of Galloway granite, are twenty-one inches in diameter.
Two of these shots fired from it compelled the castle to surrender in the summer of 1455, and both were found in 1841 amid the ruins—one in the wall, the other in the draw-well; and both lay in a direct line from Knockcannon to the breach in the huge donjon tower. For his work, M'Kim received the forfeited lands of Mollance, pronounced in Scottish parlance, Mowance, and hence the tradition of "Meg" being forged at Mons. In 1497, it accompanied the Scottish army into England in the cause of Perkin Warbeck; to the siege of Dumbarton in 1489, and many other scenes of strife. In 1681, the gun burst, when firing a royal salute for James Duke of Albany, as two of the fractured hoops still show. On these occasions, like the old bombardes of the Dardanelles, it was generally shotted, as the Royal Treasurer's Accounts contain many entries of payments, for "finding and carrying her bullet from Wardie Mure to the Castell."
In 1509—thirty-four years before Ralph Hogge began to cast guns in Sussex—James IV. employed Robert Borthwick, his master gunner, to cast a set of brass ordnance for Edinburgh Castle. Seven of these were named by the king the sisters of Borthwick—being all alike in size and beauty. They were inscribed—-
"Machina sum, Stoto Borthweick Fabricata Roberto."
With ten other brass field-pieces, these guns were all taken by the English at the battle of Flodden, where Borthwick was killed, and the Earl of Surrey, who saw them, asserted that there were none finer in the arsenals of King Henry. Several of these guns were retaken by the Scots from the Earl of Hereford's army in 1544, and were long preserved in the Castle of Edinburgh, on the walls of which, in the siege of 1573, were a number of guns that bore the crowned salamander, the badge of Francis I., and had perhaps been brought from France by the Regent Duke of Chatelherault.
An old cannon named Dundee, which had been used in war by the Viscount of that name, was long preserved in the Castle of Kilchurn; but has now disappeared.
In the heart of British India there was, singular to say, found an antique Scottish cannon, which is now shown in Edinburgh, and the story of which is remarkable. At the siege of Bhurtpore in 1826, among the guns on the ramparts was one of great calibre and destructive power, popularly known among our soldiers by the absurd name of "Sweet-lips," which was taken at the point of the bayonet by H.M. 14th Foot.
Beside it was found a Scottish brass cannon, an 18-pounder, inscribed:—
"Jacobus Menteith me fecit, Edinburgh, Anno Dom., 1642."
It at once attracted the attention of Captain (afterwards Colonel) Lewis Carmichael, an old Peninsular officer, then aide-de-camp to Sir Jasper Nicolls. On the day before the storm, with six grenadiers of the 59th and four Ghoorkas, he had made a gallant dash into one of the breaches, to reconnoitre it for the desperate work that was to come, and he asked for the old Scottish cannon as a reward. It was at once given, by order of the Governor-General, and he brought it with him to Edinburgh, where it is preserved in the Museum of Antiquities, with several other ancient guns, some of which belonged to Sir Andrew Wood of Largo, Admiral of James III., and captain of the Yellow Frigate; but how it came to be so far up country in India, among the Jauts, it is difficult to conjecture, unless it had belonged to one of the ships of the old and ill-fated Scottish East India Company, which was ruined by the enmity and treachery of William of Orange.