497. From, 1st edit.
498. So, edit. 1569.
499. Should, 1st edit.
500. Payne, 1st edit.
501. The allusion is to gunnery. Thampion (tampon, Fr., a bung, cork, or plug of wood) is now written tampion, and signifies the stopper with which the mouths of cannon are closed up, to prevent the admission of rain, or sea water, whereby their charges might be rendered incapable of service. A tewel (tuyau, or tuyal, Fr.) is a pipe; and is here used (for the sake of continuing the metaphor) for bore or calibre. Moxon, in his "Mechanick Exercises," defines the tewel to be that pipe in a smith's forge into which the nose of the bellows is introduced; and in a MS. fragment, said to be written by Sir Francis Drake, concerning the stores of one of the ships under his command, the word tewel is applied to a gun.—S.
In Lambarde's "Dictionarium," p. 129, it is said: "It happened in the Reigne of Quene Marye, that the master of a Shippe passinge by while the Court lay theare, and meaninge (as the maner is) with Sayle and Shot to honor the Place, unadvisedly gave Fyre to a Piece charged with a Stone instede of a Tampion, which lightinge on the Quenes house ranne throughe a Chamber, and did no further Harme."
Our antiquary writes like one unacquainted with his subject; no man, I believe, ever talked of charging a gun with a tampion; neither would the said tampion (consisting of a piece of hard oak) have done much less mischief than a stone, if pointed from the Thames at the Queen's Palace at Greenwich.—S.
502. Addition in the 2d edit.
503. A piece of ordnance.—S.
504. The Regent was one of the largest ships of war in the time of King Henry the Eighth. In the fourth year of his reign, Sir Thomas Knevet, master of the horse, and Sir John Carew, of Devonshire, were appointed captains of her, and in company with several others she was sent to fight the French fleet near Brest haven. An action accordingly ensued, and the Regent grappled with a French carrick, which would have been taken, had not a gunner on board the vessel, to prevent her falling into the hands of the English, set fire to the powder-room. This communicating the flames to both ships, they shared the same fate together, being both burnt. On the part of the French 900 men were lost; and on that of the English more than 700 (See Hall's "Chronicle," 1548, fol. 21).