28 
MINUTES OF PROCEEDINGS OF 
riven; which some foolishly called a bad omen. The Scots resented it 
extremely, thinking the Englishman might of malice have done it purposely, 
they having no cannon in all England so big as she.” 
In Maitland's History of Edinburgh, published in 1753, we re. 
“ Adjoining to the fourth or innermost gate of the Castle, on the ground , lie*, 
a huge piece of ordnance denominated Mounds Meg.” By the phrase, “ on 
the ground," it would appear that Mons was at this time without a carriage. 
In 1754 our venerable bombard, riven, rusty, and carriageless, was sent 
to England; but she does not seem to have quitted the land of her glories 
without a plunge, for in the Tower books of this date we find John Dick 
applying to the Board of Ordnance for compensation “for injury to his 
vessel and hawser on shipping the great gun at Leith for conveyance to the 
Tower." 
In 1829, on an application to George the Eourth, in which Sir Walter 
Scott was prominently active, Mons Meg was restored to Scotland; and in 
her march from Leith to Edinburgh she was “attended in grand procession, 
and with a military Guard of Honour, to her ancient quarters in the 
Castle." 1 
Under date of June, 1835, the Officer commanding Boyal Artillery at 
Leith Eort informs the Board of Ordnance that “the large gun called Mons 
Meg, placed in the Battery in the Castle of Edinburgh, fell down with a 
great crash." The Society of Antiquaries of Scotland also report the wreck 
of “ the old wooden carriage, which had crumbled almost to dust," and pray 
the Board to grant the supply of a new one. In accordance with this wish, 
a new carriage was constructed at the Boyal Carriage Department at 
Woolwich, and forwarded to Edinburgh in 1836. It is of cast-iron, and 
still supports the honoured remains of The Great Murtherer. 
The name of Mons borne by this bombard is generally attributed to its 
having been fabricated at the town of that name in Elanders; and this 
probability seems to gather strength from the circumstance of the great gun 
of Ghent resembling it so closely in model and construction. Hall tells us 
besides how James II. of Scots in 1460 besieged Roxburgh Castle with 
“his newe Bombarde lately cast in Elaunders, called the Lion” 
At various periods of her career, the appearance of Mons Meg has been 
preserved by the arts of portraiture; by the sculptor, the modeller, and the 
engraver. 
An ancient sculptured stone, apparently of the close of the sixteenth 
century, which once formed part of a gateway in Edinburgh Castle, and is 
now fixed over the entrance to the Ordnance Office there, exhibits the figure 
of Mons mounted on one of her old “ cradills." In the “ Memorials of 
Edinburgh" is an engraving of this stone> which, by the kindness of the 
1 Macdonald. 
