182 GUNPOWDER. 



There are passages in the history of the English wars, whicl 

 assert the employment of artillery antecedent to the above 

 periods. For instance, if we are to credit John Barbour, arch- 

 deacon of Aberdeen, Edward III. had artillery in his campaign 

 against the Scots, A. D. 1327, and which were described as 



1 Craky's of war, 



That they before heard never." 



In 1339, at the siege of Stirling, the Scots used battering 

 cannon, which certainly had been sent by their French allies. 

 At the siege of Calais, in 134-7, ^gunners and artillers " appear 

 in a MS list of the English troops in the Harleian collection. 

 The Earl of Pembroke, who commanded a British fleet, A D. 

 1372, was taken prisoner by a Spanish squadron superior in 

 numbers, and which were (perhaps for the first time) provided 

 with cannon. Indeed we are shewn that more than half a cen- 

 tury afterwards the English ships of war had very few guns, 

 seldom more than two, and those not mounted so as to be altered 

 occasionally in their direction, a circumstance, the motion of the 

 sea considered, which must have rendered them of little service. 

 In 1378 is the first authentic mention of the lately invented 

 instruments of death to be found; for then Richard II. sent to 

 Brest great quantities of saltpetre, sulphur, and charcoal, toge- 

 ther with two greater and two lesser engines called cannons, 

 and 6,000 stone bullets. John of Gaunt, who had the com- 

 mand of the army, attempted to take St. Maloes, but was baffled 

 by the conduct of the Great Du Guesclin, although, it is said, 

 he had a train of 400 battering cannon playing upon the town. 

 The Flemings in 1382, had a most dreadful piece of ord- 

 nance : " it was (says Froissart) fify feet long, and threw won- 

 derfully large stones. Its report was heard five leagues by day 

 and ten by night ; and its noise was so immense, that one would 

 have thought that all the devils in hell had a share in it." 



