CANtfOK AT CKESSY. 
161 
suppression. But in what possible way, it may be asked, could the 
statement about the guns have been offensive to the English Court ? 
Could anything have been more offensive to the Court, or to the 
country, than to hint that the victory at Cressy was not wholly and 
absolutely due to the courage and prowess of the King and the Prince 
of Wales, the knights and the archers; to insinuate that we owed our 
success, in the very smallest degree, to pernicious machines,* which 
were universally regarded as cowardly and devilish contrivances,t 
destructive alike to valour and honour and the whole institution of 
Chivalry ? 
Those who had hoped to find this question treated with his usual 
ability and finally settled by Mr. C. W. C. Oman in his “ History of 
the Art of War,” have been disappointed. Although the matter re¬ 
lates to the most important epoch in the whole history of war,—the 
first appearance of fire-arms on the battle field,—he consigns it to a 
foot-note J and makes no allusion to either the “Istorie Pistolesi” or 
the plain statements of Froissart. With the “ Chronicles of St. Denis 33 
and Villani Mr. Oman deals summarily. “ We need not,” he says, 
“pay much heed to the statement of Villani and the Grandes Chron- 
iques de France that the English had two or three small cannon in 
their front line, which scared the Genoese and horses.” Are not 
horses scared by Artillery fire now ? If the Genoese were scared by 
new engines of destruction at Cressy, were not French soldiers scared 
by new projectiles,—English rockets,—at Leipsig and Waterloo ? It 
is not clear why we are to pay less heed to Villani and the Chronicles 
about our guns than about any other matter. Edward left England 
with gunners and ammunition, and sat down before Calais a few weeks 
afterwards with twenty cannon.§ Why are we to pay little heed to 
credible witnesses who assure us he used his guns in the interval ? 
“ It is most unlikely,” continues Mr. Oman, “ that cannon could have 
been brought across France with a field army.” If it be most un¬ 
likely that we could bring two or three bombards across such a country 
as Northern France in Aug. 1346, it is simply incredible that Napoleon 
could drag guns many times their weight across the Alps in May, 1800. 
Yet we know he did it. The difficulty of transporting two or three 
; pots defer , weighing probably less than 50 lbs. each, || would not seem 
to be insuperable. Finally remarks Mr. Oman, “ no English Chronicle 
/ * “ i n generis humani perniciem ”; Melancthon. 
f “Diabolici strumenti ”; Muratori. 
XI, 611. 
^ § According to tlie author of a ballad written at the time, the effect of the guns at the siege of 
Calais was not all that could have been desired :— 
“ Gonners to schew their arte, 
Into the town in many a parte, 
Schot many a fulle great stone. 
Thanked be God and Mary mild, 
They hurt neither man, woman nor child; 
To the houses, though, they did harm.” 
Wright and Halliwell’s “ Reliquiae Antiques ” London, 1841. 
' || “ Ancient Cannon etc,” 
