THE BROME FAMILY. 
299 
Caesar, which were afterwards to be employed by Frederick the Great, 
in 1741, in Silesia with much effect. 1 
The subject of the artillery of the first half of the seventeenth century 
has been too ably handled in Yol. I. of the “ History of the Eoyal 
Artillery” (Duncan), and in the brilliant essays on “ The Mobility of 
Field Artillery ” and on “ The Field Artillery of the Great Rebellion ” 
(Hime) 2 to justify much digression at present upon'this topic j but quite 
a false impression will be carried away by the student of those pro¬ 
fessional treatises if he take the measure of the strength of the weakest 
developments to be a measure of the strength of artillery proper at 
that period. 
“ Mobility ” concerns only Field Artillery, and Field Artillery is a 
factor quite distinct from Siege or Garrison Artillery : the mobility of 
Field Artillery was a “ product of the inter-rivalry of arms.” 3 How 
effectively Siege (or Position ) artillery of England, from the days of 
Henry III. down to the 17th century, persistently maintained the 
superiority of Attack over the Defences of each succeeding age of 
fortification has been illustrated by the Royal Artillery “ War Services” 
in the “Succession List of the Master-Gunners of England.” 4 Colonel 
Hime had to admit that the “ vice of the (field) guns of the seventeenth 
(C century was not so much the fault of the guns as of the gunners,” 5 
and that “ the guns in themselves were not very far behind those in 
“use at the outbreak of the Peninsular War:” 6 while it is open to 
question whether the accuracy of practice in the 19th century, with the 
aid of range-finders and the perfection of gunpowder, much exceeds 
that of the sixteenth century, when, “ if the gunner be not acquainted 
“ with y e Peece and Mark, to fayle at y e first shotte is passable, and at 
“y e second is pardonable, but to fayle of a fair shotte at y e third time 
“is too much, and argues but little judgment and discretion in such 
“gunner.” 7 Indeed, Grewenitz observes that in France, in 1671, 
artillery was considered as “ an arm and a science, although looked 
“ upon elsewhere as a mechanical art.” Traiie, p. 59. 
The gunpowder (but with refined saltpetre) was of the same in¬ 
gredients—saltpetre, sulphur, charcoal—as discovered in 1320 by the 
German monk, Schwartz, and in 1216 by the English monk. Bacon, 
from the ancient MSS. or parchment treatise of Mamus or Marcus 
1 “Records of Woolwich” (Vincent), Vol. VII., p. 320. de Bello Gal. Lib. V. “ Frederick 
the Great ” (Brackenbury), p. 58. 
2 By Lieutenant (now Lieut.-Colonel, retired) H. W. L. Hime, R.A. <f Proceedings,” R.A.I., 
Vols.VI. and VII. 
3 “ Proceedings ” R.A.I., Vol. XIV., Ho. 3. 
4 “ Proceedings,” R.A.I., Vol. XIX., Hos. 5 and 6. 
5 “Proceedings,” R.A.I., Vol. VI., p. 293. In “His Modern Artillery,” p. 297, Colonel Owen 
adds “ . . . in the time of the Tudors the calibres of guns were much the same as those of 
“ cast S.B. oidance of the present day (1871).” “ We have, now,” (1772; writes Captain Jardine, 
“ pieces 200 years old of better metal than that now used.” See Abstract of Papers relating to 
the Military Society, p. 27. 
6 “Proceedings,” R.A.I., Vol. VI., p. 284. Two splendid specimens of 42-prs., brought over 
from Ireland in i647 by Henry VIII., are now in the Tower of London, and one in the Rotunda 
at Woolwich. Six 42-prs. were taken from the Spaniards at the capture of Minorca, 1708. 
Throughout all the Peninsular sieges no land service guns exceeded 24-prs.— B.H.M 
7 Robert Horton’s “ The Gunner,” anno 1628, p. 284. 
