184 



GUNPOWDER. 



It certainly was not for want of bulk that the artillery of the 

 age failed in becoming respectable. We are told by Monstretel 

 of a piece of ordnance which sent a ball weighing 500$* from 

 the Bastille at Paris, to Charenton in 1478. The cannon too 

 used by Mahomet II. at the siege of Constantinople were im- 

 mense both in bulk and power. On the other hand, there was 

 the culverm (a kind of light artillery, sometimes carried by one 

 and sometimes by two men), and which was used by the Switzers 

 at the battle of Morat, where 10,000 of them were so armed. 



This weapon (an entirely different instrument from the long 

 cannons formerly named coulouverines or culvermes) seems to 

 have been the parent of the musquet, and was placed on a rest 

 to be discharged. But to return to the more immediate history 

 of Gunpowder, we find from Camden, in his life of Queen 

 Elizabeth, that she was the first that procured gunpowder to be 

 made in England, that she might not pray and pay for it also 

 to her neighbours. At first, gunpowder was not granulated, but 

 remained in its mealed state ; it was then called serpentine pow- 

 der. In several accounts of military stores during the reign of 

 Edward VI. and Elizabeth, there are large quantities of ser- 

 pentine powder. 



The making of gunpowder after the most ancient man- 

 ner: 



Anno 1380, saltpetre, brimstone, charcoal, equal parts. 



in ordnance : Borthwic, an engineer of eminence, had the direction of 

 it. Lewis of France had sent him to James with a large present of brass 

 cannon, on each side of which was inscribed Machina sum Scoto 

 Borthwic fabricate Roberto.*' This valuable train of artillery fell into 

 the hands of the Earl of Surrey after the battle of Flodden, together with 

 seven " faire culverines," called the seven sisters. To his successful 

 general, Henry restored his father's patrimony, the dukedom of Nor- 

 folk ; and this honourable addition to his arms, that he was permitted 

 to bear on the bend of his arms, the upper half of a red lion, painted as 

 in the arms of Scotland, with the mouth pierced through with an arrow. 



