THE EOYAL AETILLEEY INSTITUTION. 
267 
English army, that there would have been much difficulty in dragging the 
great guns to the place where the battle was raging, had not the Bishop of 
Winchester offered his coach-horses and traces for the purpose/” 1 Even 
when the guns had arrived, there was so great a want of gunners to work 
the guns that a serjeant of Dumbarton's Regiment, (the 1st Royals), named 
Weems, was forced to take on himself the management of several pieces, 
and for which he received a gratuity of £40, “ for good service in the action 
at Sedgemoor, in firing the great guns against the rebels.” 2 
Passing on to Marlborough’s time we find a greater proportion of artillery 
allotted to an army than had previously been the case. At Blenheim the 
proportion of guns was 1*2 per 1000 men. After the first attacks in this 
battle, finding he could make no impression on the enemy, Marlborough 
ordered Colonel Blood of the British artillery to take a battery across the 
river by a bridge which had been formed, and this artillery manoeuvre 
materially contributed to the success of the day. 3 
At Ramilies he had two guns per 1000 men, a large proportion con¬ 
sidering the state of the ordnance then, and at Malplaquefc 1*1 guns per 
1000 men. 
This latter battle affords perhaps the first instance of a fight in which 
when the crisis arrived, the deciding stroke was given by the artillery. 
Having succeeded in piercing the Erench centre, Marlborough “ instantly 
gave the grand battery of 40 guns in the allied centre orders to advance. 
With the utmost rapidity the guns were limbered up, and moving on at a 
quick trot, they soon passed the retrenchments in the centre, and facing to 
the right and left (i.e. wheeling outwards by wings) opened a tremendous 
fire of canister and grape on the dense masses of Erench cavalry which stood 
in the rear of the infantry.Yillars' position.was no longer 
tenable. Pierced through the centre, with a formidable enemy's battery on 
either side thundering on the reserve squadrons, in the very heart of his 
lines, it had become hopeless to attempt to keep the field.'' 4 
This example alone proves that Marlborough was as great a general of 
artillery as he was a leader of cavalry; and that he made no better use of 
his guns in his other battles is easily accounted for when we read that at 
Oudenarde “few pieces of artillery were brought up on either side, the 
rapidity of the movements of both having outstripped the slow pace at which 
those ponderous implements of destruction were then conveyed." 5 6 
The importance of artillery but gradually forced itself upon the minds 
of the English, and it was not till 1727 that the Royal Regiment of Artillery 
was formed of the companies of the Regimental Artillery Train. 
1 Macaulay’s “ History of England.” 
2 “Notes on the early history of the Eoyal Artillery” in the “Proceedings” of the E.A; 
Institution, Vol. II. p. 128. By Capt. Yopge, E.A. 
3 Aide-Memoire. Art. Ordnance. 
4 Alison. “Life of Marlborough,” Yol.II. p. 68. Pave. “Histoire et Tactique des Trois 
Armes,” p. 98. It seems odd to an English officer to find, in Capt. Fave’s detailed account of this 
battle, the Duke of Marlborough’s name only once mentioned as the commander of an English 
force attached to the German army. All the manoeuvres are represented as having been ordered 
by, and all the success is attributed to, Prince Eugene. 
6 Alison’s “ Life of Marlborough,” Yol. I. p. 396; 
