Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T16:17:12.591Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Boxted Bombard

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 April 2011

Howard L. Blackmore
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In 1792 the Society published in Archaeologia an engraving of ‘An antient Mortar at Eridge Green’, with the claim that it was the first gun made in England. Subsequent writers on the history of artillery, while noting the gun's importance as one of the first examples of a wrought-iron cannon or bombard (to give it its correct name), believed that it had been destroyed. In fact, by the date of its publication, the bombard had been removed to Boxted Hall, Suffolk, where it remained unrecognized until its transfer to the Royal Armouries, H. M. Tower of London, in 1979. This article traces the history of the bombard, the method of its construction and concludes that it was probably made in England, in the Weald, during the fifteenth century.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 67 , Issue 1 , March 1987 , pp. 86 - 96
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1987

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Notes

1 Archaeologia, x (1792), pl. xxxvn (p. 472)Google Scholar.

2 Society of Antiquaries Library, London, Arms and Armour Volume, 68. Basire, JamesGoogle Scholar(1730-1802) was appointed Engraver to the Society in 1759. James Lambert, son of the landscape painter of the same name, was noted for his genre, fruit and flower paintings. He exhibited at the Society of Artists and the Royal Academy, 1769-78.

3 Military Antiquities Respecting a History of the British Army, from the Conquest to thePresent Time, 2 vols. (London, 1786-1788)Google Scholar. The engraving appears in vol. 11 on Artillery, pl. 2, fig. 1, and is noted ‘Pub. 18 Decr. 1786 by S. Hooper’. The description is on p. 322.

4 This scrapbook, which is now in a private collection, includes a manuscript catalogue of the collection of arms and armour acquired by Domenic Colnaghi, mainly in Italy during 1816-17. The Colnaghi collection was bought by Meyrick and formed the nucleus of his own collection at Goodrich Court. The Eridge drawing is one of fifty-four drawings of pieces in other private and public collections apparently drawn during May and June 1784. The majority of these were used as originals for Grose's engravings and are nearly all in reverse. Their presence is explained by a note: ‘Drawings not from the Meyrick Collection of Armour but of which similar specimens were with the Collection’. Another manuscript copy of Colnaghi's Arms and Armour Catalogue of 1818 is in the Royal Armouries Library, H. M. Tower of London.

5 Lord A. C. Hervey, ‘Boxsted Hall. Family of Foley’. Paper read at a meeting of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology, Boxted Hall, 29 June 1859, p. 15.

6 Lower, M. A., ‘Historical and Archaeological Notices of the Ironworks of the County of Sussex’, Sussex Arch. Coll. ii (1849), 182Google Scholar; Gardner, A. J. Starkie, ‘Iron Casting in the Weald’, Archaeologia, lvi (1898), 135Google Scholar; Dawson, Charles, ‘Sussex Ironwork and Pottery’, Surrey Arch. Coll. xlvi (1902), 15Google Scholar.

7 Straker, E., Wealden Iron (London, 1931; repr. 1969) 257–8Google Scholar.

8 ffoulkes, C., The Gun-Founders of England, (Cambridge, 1937), 20, 71-2nGoogle Scholar. Correspondence between ffoulkes and the Marquess of Abergavenny, Eridge Castle, Tunbridge Wells, 11-12 February 1936 (Royal Armouries File XIX. 314).

9 It is not mentioned by Greener, W. W., one of the earliest writers on firearms history, in his The Gun and its Development (London, 1881)Google Scholar, nor in the recent surveys by Brigadier Hogg, O. F. G., English Artillery, 1326-1716 (London, 1963)Google Scholar and Artillery; its Origin, Heyday and Decline (London, 1970).Google ScholarClephan, R. C. in his specialized study, ‘Early Ordnance in Europe’, Arch. Aeliana, new ser. xxv (1903)Google Scholar, made a reference to the bombard but obviously did not know that it still existed. Howlett, Richard, writing on ‘Norwich Artillery in the Fourteenth Century’, Original Papers, Norfolk & Norwich Arch. Soc. xvi (1) (1905)Google Scholar, described the ‘Eridge mortar’ as an example of contemporary construction without apparently realizing that it was preserved in a neighbouring county.

10 Pope, Dudley, Guns (London, 1965), 31Google Scholar. A distorted version of this drawing appeared in Jun., Z. Zygulski, Brón W Dawnéj Polsce (Warsaw, 1975), 122Google Scholar.

11 Mons Meg at Edinburgh, for instance, is 13 ft. 12 in. (4·013 m.) long with a calibre of 19·5 in. (496 mm.). The Boxted Bombard is nearer the dimensions of the smallest of three ‘cannon bombards’ listed in the accounts of William Hickling, Purveyor of the King's Ordnance, dated 31 December 1455. See Blackmore, H. L., The Armouries of the Tower of London, i: Ordnance (London, 1976), 220, 392Google Scholar. The word bombard, Italian in origin, was used originally to describe all sizes of cannon. In Venice and Dubrovnik in the fourteenth century, the smallest, bombarde parve, were little more than handguns. The largest, bombarde grossime, however, threw stone balls weighing 200 and 300 lb. See Petrovic, D., ‘Fire-arms in the Balkans on the eve of and after the Ottoman Conquests of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries’, in Parry, V. J. and Yapp, M. E. (eds.), War, Technology and Society in the Middle East (London, 1975), 172–4Google Scholar. See also the chapter, ‘Le Bombarde’, in Angelucci's, A.Documenti Inediti per la Storia delle Ami da Fuoco, Italiane (Turin, 1869; repr. Graz, 1972), 67–101Google Scholar.

12 The mark of an arrow or a cross, on a splayed base, formed the basis of many merchants or tradesmen's marks of the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries. See Elmhirst, E. M., Merchants' Marks, Harleian Soc. cviii (1958), nos. 347, 740, 979Google Scholar; Girling, F. A., English Merchants' Marks (London, 1964), 10, 32Google Scholar; Trivick, H., The Picture Book of Brasses in Gilt (London, 1971), nos. 103–5Google Scholar. A cannon founder's or merchant's mark appears on the English or Flemish bronze falcon of c. 1520 in the Royal Armouries ( Blackmore, , op. cit. (note 11), 57, no. 25)Google Scholar.

13 Of similar shape and construction to this breech, but of smaller size, is the fifteenth-century Boiler or mortar in the Historisches Musuem, Bern. See Wegeli, R., Inventar der Waffensammlung des Bemischen Historischen Museums in Bern, IV (Fernwaffen, Bern, 1948), 76, no. 2112Google Scholar.

14 From the Privy Wardrobe Accounts quoted by Tout, T. F. in ‘Firearms in England in the fourteenth century’, Eng. Hist. Rev. xxvi (1911), 666–702CrossRefGoogle Scholar, it is apparent that considerable numbers of iron guns were being made by 1372. Some of the first cannon paid for in 1346 were apparently made by Walter, the King's Smith, in the Tower of London, who must have worked in iron rather than bronze. Straker, , op. cit. (note 7), 34–6Google Scholar, quotes the accounts of the Tudeley Ironworks near Tonbridge, Kent, for the period 1329-61, to prove the availability of iron.

15 Britain, , or a Chorographical Description of the most flourishing Kingdomes… Writtenfirstin Latine by William Camden… Translated newly into English by Philemon Hollan (London, 1637), 306Google Scholar.

16 Blackmore, , op. cit. (note 11), 220Google Scholar. Some of the smiths names are given in William Hickling's accounts for 1453-6: P.R.O. E 364/90 D.

17 Cal. Pal. Rolls 1461-7, 36, 114, 183, 232, 280, 303.

18 See Jobe, J. (ed.), Guns. An Illustrated History of Artillery (London, 1971), 202Google Scholar; Petrović, , op. cit. (note 11), 172–3Google Scholar. The contemporary account of the manufacture of a wrought-iron gun in 1375 describes how fifteen men took six weeks to make a great ‘canon de fer’ weighing 2000 lb. The account is printed in full (27 pages) in Favé, and Napoleon, , Études sur le passé et l'avenir de l'Artillerie, iv (Paris, 1863)Google Scholar, Appendix, xviii et seq. A summary was published by Brackenbury, H., ‘Ancient Cannon in Europe, Pt. II’, Proc. Royal Art. Inst. v (1867), 7–9Google Scholar, and repeated in ffoulkes, op. cit. (note 8), 11-12. See also Descamps, G., L'Artillerie montaise, ses Origines (Mons, 1906)Google Scholar, for the manufacture of a great bombard weighing 9500 lb. in 1378. It was made in three months by eighteen workmen.

19 See Rule, Margaret, The Mary Rose (London, 1982), 149–68.Google ScholarBlackmore, , op. cit. (note 11), 27-8, 55–6Google Scholar.

20 The rings of square indentations cut into the breeches of Mons Meg and another bombard at Basel have given rise to the belief that these breeches could be unscrewed, in the fashion of cast-bronze bombards like the Dardanelles Gun in the Tower of London. The cutting of a female screw-thread internally on the wrought-iron barrel-band and a male one externally on the breech would have presented considerable technical difficulties. It is more likely that the holes were made to help roll or manoeuvre the guns into position. The sectional drawing of the Basel bombard in Essenwein, A., Quellen zur Geschichte der Feuerwaffen (Leipzig, 1877), pi. xxxaGoogle Scholar, shows clearly that the only ring of indentations is cut into one of the barrel-bands and not the breech.

21 For a sectional drawing of the mortar see Ritter, Karl, ‘Aufbar und Herstellung der schmiedeeisernen Steinbüchsen des Mittelalters’, Technische Mitteilungen Krupp, v (Sept. 1938), 113–28, pl. vi (i)Google Scholar. A similar drawing appears in Schmidtchen, Volker, Bombarden, Befestigungen, Büchsenmeister (Dusseldorf, 1977), 34Google Scholar. See also Wettendorfer, E., ‘Zur Technologie der Steinbiichsen, Zeitschriftfur Historische Waffen- und Kostümkunde, neue Folge vi (7) (1938), 147–54Google Scholar.

22 A preliminary radiographic examination of Mons Meg was carried out by North British Steel Group Ltd, who also established by chemical analysis and microscopical photography that it was made of wrought iron. Further examinations of Mons Meg and the Boxted Bombard were made by the Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment, Fort Halstead, Kent. I am much indebted to both authorities for making their reports available to me. Both studies form part of a project organized by Mr Robert Smith of the Royal Armouries, H. M. Tower of London. See his preliminary report in Hist. Metallurgy, xix (2) (1985), 193–5Google Scholar.

23 See T'sas, Francois, ‘Dulle Griet’, ArmiAntiche (Türin, 1969), 13–56Google Scholar. The Paris bombards are nos. N.20 and N.37.

24 Ibid., 43-7.

25 This attribution was given publicity by Colonel Favé in Favé and Napoleon, , op. cit. (note 18), III (Paris, 1862), 119Google Scholar. See also Lefroy, and Pole, , ‘Les Michellettes: two large English cannon of the fifteenth century preserved at Mont St Michel in Normandy’, Arch. J. xxii (1865), 136–49Google Scholar.

26 Gaier, C., ‘The origin of Mons Meg’, J. Arms & Armour Soc. v (1967), 425–31Google Scholar.

27 Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, MS fr. 2608. See Norman, A. V. B., ‘Notes on some early reproductions of guns and on ribaudekins’, J. Arms & Armour Soc. viii (3) (June 1975), 234–7, pl. XCaGoogle Scholar.

28 This early form of gun carriage was probably like those described in an English list of ‘Necessaries for Gonnes’ of 1513 as ‘Shotyng cradels for bombards’: Blackmore, , op. cit. (note 11), 220Google Scholar.

29 Kohler, G., Die Entwickelung des Kriegswesens und Kriegfuhrung in der Ritterzeit von Mine des 11 Jahrhunderts bis zu den hussiten Kriegen, III (Breslau, 1887), 287ffGoogle Scholar. Catalogues of the Rotunda, Woolwich, from 1874 onwards describe the Bodiam mortar as having a cast-iron interior or lining. Recent tests seem to confirm this.

30 The painting is reproduced in Guttman, Oscar, Monumenta Pulveris Pyrii (London, 1906)Google Scholar, where it is dated, on the evidence of an artist's receipt, to the year 1343. Through the kindness of Mr and Mrs Eduardo Coelho of Florence, I was able to inspect the painting recently. Since Guttman published a photograph of the painting it has deteriorated and parts are now missing, but it is still possible to see that soldiers in the scene are wearing Italian armour of the first quarter of the fifteenth century. Mr Coelho is also of the opinion that the date on the document quoted by Guttman has been misread and that it should be 1412.

31 Universitätsbibliothek, Göttingen, Cod. Philos 63. Reproduced in the facsimile reprint by YDI-Verlag (Dusseldorf, 1967), fo. 108.

32 Nationalbibliothek, Vienna, Cod. 3062, fo. 147v.

33 The painting is reproduced in colour in Müller, H., Guns, Pistols, Revolvers (London, 1981), 27Google Scholar.

34 British Library Cotton MS Julius E. IV, Art, 6, fo. 24V. See Dillon, Viscount and Hope, W. H. St John (eds.), Pageant of the Birth, Life and Death of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, K.G., 1389-1439 (London, 1914), 95Google Scholar. The origins of the drawings, which may have been made for Earl Richard's daughter Anne, Countess of Warwick (d. 1493), were discussed by Thompson, Sir Edward M. in Burlington Mag. i (1903)Google Scholar. They were reproduced in facsimile by the Roxburghe Club in 1908. See also Marks, R. and Payne, A., British Heraldry (Brit. Mus. London, 1978), no. 47Google Scholar.

35 Lindner, A., Der Breslauer Froissart (Berlin, 1912), pl. xxivGoogle Scholar.

36 P.R.O. E 101/55/7. On 24 August 1492, John Straude, Richard Goldes, and Robert Sparowe were given commissions to purvey ‘chariet horses’, ‘sumpter horses’, and ‘draught horses’ for the carriage of the King's ordnance in Surrey, and Sussex, : Cal. Pat. Rolls 1485-94, 404Google Scholar.

37 Blackmore, , op. cit. (note 11), 256Google Scholar.

38 Blair, C., ‘A new carriage for Mons Meg’, J. Arms & Armour Soc., v (1965-1967), 431–52Google Scholar.

39 Morin, M. and Held, R., Beretta, The World's Oldest Industrial Dynasty (Chiasso, 1980), 24Google Scholar.

40 Woodcut by Reeuwich, Erhardus in Bredenbach, Opusculum Sanctorum Peregrinationum (1486)Google Scholar. See Jun., J. F. Guilmartin, ‘The early provision of artillery armament on Mediterranean war galleys’, Mariner's Mirror, lix (3) (Aug. 1973), 260, pl. xiiGoogle Scholar; id., Gunpowder and Galleys (Cambridge, 1974), 296–9Google Scholar. These bombards, mounted as centre-line bow guns, were known as cannone di corsia and played an important part in Mediterranean warfare. For a brief period in the late seventeenth century, then described as ‘Cassia guns’, they were tried by the English Navy. See Blackmore, , op. cit. (note 11), 225–6Google Scholar.

41 Vale, M. G. A., ‘New techniques and old ideals: the impact of artillery on war and chivalry attheend of the Hundred Years War’, in Allmand, C. T. (ed.), War, Literature and Politics in the Late Middle Ages (Liverpool, 1976), 72Google Scholar.

42 Calder, R., Leonardo and the Age of the Eye (London, 1970), 78Google Scholar. The workings of the hydraulic machine are explained in Dibner, B., Leonardo da Vinci, Military Engineer (New York, 1946), 19–20Google Scholar. See also Heydenreich, L. H., Dibner, B. and Reti, L., Leonardo the Inventor (London, 1981), 117–18Google Scholar. Leonardo wrote many observations on bombards. Of the discharge of a small one he noted, ‘it will cause women to miscarry and also every animal that with young, and the chicks will perish in their shells’: MacCurdy, E., The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (London, 1938), 11, 180Google Scholar.

43 It was in this fashion that the famous iron pillars at Delhi and Dhara were constructed in the eight century A.D.

44 The Musee de l'Armee, Paris, bombard is no. N37. I am indebted to Mr Michel Decker for this information and to Mr Bernard Sevestre who kindly supplied photographs. The use of wooden patterns and mandrels in the construction of wrought-iron guns is mentioned in an Augsburg Act of 28 March 1373. See the note by Rohde, Fritz in Zeitschrift für Historische Waffen- und Kostümkunde, neue Folge vii (5/6) (1942), 173Google Scholar.

45 Holinshed, Raphael, The Historie of England… (London, 1586 edn.), III, pt. 2,960. Not in the first edition of 1577Google Scholar.

46 ffoulkes, , op. cit. (note 8), 71-2Google Scholar.

47 Straker, , op. cit. (note 7), 47.Google ScholarGardner, J. Starkie in ‘Iron Casting in the Weald’, Archaeologia, lvi (1898), 133–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar, described examples of iron firebacks and grave slabs which he considered were cast in Sussex during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and put forward the opinion that cannon balls could have been cast there as early as the fourteenth century.

48 Blackmore, , op. cit. (note 11), 242Google Scholar; Schubert, H., ‘The first cast-iron cannon made in England’, J. Iron & Steel Inst. cxlvi (1942), 134Google Scholar.

49 Cal. Letters & Pap. Henry VIII, I, pt. 2, no. 3613 (p. 1511). What may be the earliest cast-iron cannon of Henry VIII's reign still preserved was discovered recently at Padstow and is now on exhibition at the Royal Armouries, H. M. Tower of London.

50 Ibid., XX, pt. 1, no. 1275 (p. 632); pt. 2, no. 40 (p. 61).

51 Royal Armouries Library, H. M. Tower of London, Account Book of Francis Fleming, Lieutenant of the Ordnance, 1547-53, MS I. 119. This manuscript only came to light after I had written the catalogue of Ordnance in the Armouries and had mistakenly attributed the Pevensey gun to the reign of Elizabeth I.

52 For a life of Ralph Hogg see Teesdale, E., The Queen's Gunstonemaker (Seaford, 1984)Google Scholar.

53 Blackmore, , op. cit. (note 11), 5–6Google Scholar.

54 Kennard, A. N., Gun Founding and Gunfounders (London, 1986), 92Google Scholar; Straker, , op. cit. (note 7), 387–8Google Scholar.

55 I am indebted to Mr G. P. Hoole of Tonbridge for information concerning the Weller-Poley family.