A MASTER-GUNNER OF ENGLAND. 
125 
in March, 1648, for similar services in the summer of 1647. 
In March, 1648, Colonel Wemyss returned to Scotland, and on 27 of 
the same month an Act was passed by the Scottish Parliament “granting 
to Colonel James Wemyss the privilege of making leather ordnance for 
three terms of nineteen years with power to enforce secrecy.” The 
aforesaid Act specially mentions the fact that Colonel James Wemyss 
“ hath come to his native country with the intention of using his 
utmost endeavour to its service ” and that he et intends to put divers 
inventions in practice of which he hath elsewhere brought to per¬ 
fection.” We have already heard of the leather guns being used at 
the battle of Cropredy Bridge and we shall presently hear of them 
again. About this time (1648) Wemyss appears to have veered round 
to the side of the King. We gather this from the notice of his services 
in Douglas's Peerage of Scotland , where it is stated that the inventor 
of the leather guns for field service “ was deprived of his office by 
Parliament for his concern in the engagement to rescue the King in 
1648.” 1 2 Whatever amount of truth there may be in this statement 
certain it is that Colonel Wemyss left England very hurriedly in the 
spring of 1649, and his post of Master-Gunner of England was bestowed 
on Kichard Wollaston. The Scotch, who at the eleventh hour had 
become Royalists, received their distinguished countryman with open 
arms and on 10 July, 1649, an Act nominating Colonel James Wemyss 
to be General of Artillery, in the room and place of Colonel Alex 
Hamilton, was passed by the Scottish Parliament. His pay was fixed 
at 600 Scots marks per month and he was given, in addition, the com¬ 
mand of a regiment. In his new capacity, Wemyss served with the 
Scottish army at the battle of Dunbar, 3 3 September, 1650, on which 
occasion the Scots were routed with great slaughter by Cromwell. 
Many leading Scots officers were taken prisoners, but the General of 
Artillery had the good fortune to escape capture, although 30 guns 
fell into the hands of the conquerors. Recovering shortly from this 
defeat, the Scots determined to march into England hoping that many 
of the English nobility and gentry would flock to join King Charles 
II. who accompanied their army. A fresh train of artillery was formed 
and Wemyss appears to have been allowed carte blanche in fitting the 
train to take the field. On the last day of March, 1651, we find the 
Scottish Parliament ordering £12,000 to be paid to their General of 
Artillery. (( The King's army,” writes Lord Clarendon, “ was as well 
modell'd and in as good a condition as it was like to be whilst he 
stayed in Scotland. By the time that Cromwell was ready to take the 
field his Majesty was persuaded to make David Lesley his Lieut.- 
General of the army.The artillery was in very good 
order under the command of Wemmes [sic], who had not the worse 
reputation there for having been ungrateful to the King's father. He 
was a confessed good officer.” 3 The fate of this fine army is a matter 
1 Douglas’s Peerage of Scotland. Vol II., p. 619. 
2 Sarleian MSS., 6844, folio 123. 
8 Clarendon’s Eeiellion, Vol. VI., pp. 396-7. 
