128 
A MASTER-GUNNER OF ENGLAND. 
passing of said Act. 1 2 Two years later, Charles II. granted a patent “to 
James Wemyss, senior., and James Wemyss, junior (son of the former) 
of the invention of the former for making light ordnance, and of a way 
whereby all motions caused by the force of a river, wind, or horses, 
may be done by one or two men and may be useful for lifting of 
weights, draining of mines, 3 etc.” This patent was the result of an 
exhibition by Colonel Wemyss of his “light ordnance” before a 
Council of War at which the King was present. In 1666 Wemyss left 
England for good and took up his abode in Scotland. On 24 August 
same year we find a “Petition of James Wemyss, General of the 
Artillery in Scotland, to the King, to have the sum which he is to 
receive, as promised, for the office of Master-Gunner of England, dis¬ 
posed of by his Majesty to another person, and to order the same to 
be paid quarterly, from the Ordnance Office till the whole is paid.” 3 
This petition was received on 18 January, 1667. We gather from a 
letter sent by Sir Jno. Duncombe and Thomas Chicheley to Lord 
Arlington, dated 28 December, 1667, that Colonel Wemyss died in 
December 1667. The letter in question “ requested a warrant for a 
grant of the office of Master-Gunner of England to Captain Valentine 
Pyne, who executed it for some time in place of Colonel James Wemyss, 
engaged in other services in Scotland, the said Colonel being now 
dead.” 4 On 31 January, 1668, we find a “grant to Captain Valentine 
Pyne of the office of Master-Gunner in the Tower, fee 2s. a day, 
drawing pay from the death of James Wemyss.” 
About the year 1639, Colonel James Wemyss married Katherine, 
widow of John Guilliams, by whom he had a son and four daughters. 
This lady was the daughter of Thomas Payment, poulterer, of St. 
Botolph’s parish, Bishopsgate, and at the time of her first marriage, 
viz., in 1632, was 17 years of age. By John Guilliams, who died in 
1638, she had one son. The child was brought up by Colonel Wemyss 
with his own children, and on the death of his wife, in February J 649, 
he became legal guardian to young Guilliams, who was entitled, in right 
of his own father, to certain property at Walthamstow in Essex. Before 
leaving London, about Ladyday 1649, Colonel Wemyss appointed a 
certain Robert English as guardian and trustee to his children and 
step-son, whom he was to educate and bring up in the ColonePs 
absence from England. The lot of this trustee was certainly not a 
happy one. He was left £500 in hand, but Wemyss had not long left 
London before English had to pay £480 upon two judgments against 
the Colonel. And in June, 1651, the house property at Walthamstow 
was ordered to be sequestered on account of “ the delinquency of 
James Wemyss, now in Scotland, in service of the army against the 
State.” The rent from the Walthamstow house property was the only 
certain income English had to depend on, and he appealed, as guardian 
1 Act» of the Parliament of Scotland. 
2 S.P. Pom .—March 1663. 
3 Ibid.—2i August, 1606. 
4 Ibid— 28 December, 1667. 
