In 1414, one Nicholas Merbury was Master of the Ordnance to Henry V., “Magistro Operationum Ingeniorum & Gunnarum.” [219b] There was also a Master of the Ordnance in 1481, in the reign of Edward IV.; and a warrant was then issued for the payment of £100 to the Master of the Ordnance, for the purchase of draught horses. [219c]
I apprehend that it will not be denied, that it affords very strong evidence of this destructive instrument of war, being brought to considerable perfection, and into general use, when the genus had thus become subdivided into species, and when a public officer existed, whose province it was to superintend that particular department of military affairs.
Later on, in the same century, it became still more subdivided, and appears to have consisted of many varieties; for we read of bombards, cannons, mortiers, veuglaires, guns, serpentines, ordnance, fowlers, coulevrines, hand-coulevrines, hand-guns, haquebuts, &c. &c.; from which it may be presumed, that gunnery had then become a science, and occupied a great portion of the attention of the military.
The bombard is supposed to have derived its name from the sound proceeding from its explosion; the mortier or mortar, from its death-dealing or destructive nature; the serpentine basilisk and coulevrine, from some fancied resemblance in their appearance or effects to a serpent; the fowler, to the rapid and birdlike flight of its ball; and some of the large bombards were jocularly called “bourgeoise,” from their constant residence in one place, their weight rendering them inconvenient to move. [220]
Under whatever name or form, however, this destructive engine appeared, its general effects were, to a certain extent, similar; and I venture to think, that the authorities, which will now be referred to in chronological order, furnish strong proofs of its having become, not in occasional, but in general use for warlike purposes by the English, in the fifteenth century.
CHRONOLOGICAL REFERENCES.
1400 TO 1500.
1403, 8th September.—Warrant of the 4th Henry IV. relative to the safe custody of the castle of Laghadyn, in Wales, “Utpote, in personis Defensalibus, victualibus, armaturis, artillariis, et omnibus aliis rebus, pro hujusmodi munitione garnisturâ et custodiâ ejusdem Castri, necessariis et opportunis.”—8 Rymer’s Fædera, fo. 328; folio edition.
1404, 29th August.—Warrant of the 5th Henry IV. respecting the giving up of the castle or fortalice of Fascastle, in Scotland, to the Warden of the East Marches, “unâ cum artillaria, et aliis Rebus nostris, quibuscumque, in eodem Castro sive Fortalitio, existentibus.”—Same, fo. 370.
The word “artillery,” as has been already stated, was formerly often used to denote cannons and other weapons, the operation and efficacy of which entirely depended upon gunpowder, and also projectile weapons of various descriptions, such as long-bows, cross-bows of different kinds and sizes, balistæ catapultæ, &c. &c., which were used in war quite independently of gunpowder. The same observation also applies to the word “engine.” The English very frequently not only used engines which depended upon gunpowder for their operation, but others which were independent of it, in order to cast stones, &c., in sieges, in the fifteenth century. It is impossible, in every instance which will be noticed in the following pages, to determine clearly in which of those senses the word “artillery” or “engine” is used; and it must be left to the judgment of the reader to decide the meaning from the context.
1405.—Henry IV., at the siege of Berwick Castle, “caused a peece of Artillerie to be planted against one of the Towers, and at the first shot overthrowing part thereof, they within were put in such feare that they simplie yeelded themselves.”—Holinshed’s Chronicles, vol. i. fo. 530.