£90 
MINUTES OE PEOCEEDINGS OF 
Edward III. may have used cannon in his northern expedition against the 
Scotch. The statement that he did possess cannon in his camp in that 
expedition is made by John Barbour, archdeacon of Aberdeen, who wrote 
in 1375 his poem, “The Bruce, being the life and acts of the most victorious 
conqueror Bobert Bruce, King of Scotland." Here, noticing this campaign, 
and speaking of that night when Douglas descended from the Scotch camp, 
and penetrated as far as the English boy-king's tent, he says of the 
Scotch• 
“ Twa noweltyis that day thai saw. 
That forouth in Scotland had bene nane: 
Tymmris for helmys war the tane. 
That tliaim thoucht than off gret bewte. 
And alsua wondre for to se. 
The tothyr crakys war off wer, 
That thai befor herd nevir er.” 1 
There cannot be any doubt that Barbour by “crakys of war" meant 
cannon; and moreover that he distinctly intended to mark this as their first 
appearance in that land, for, in an earlier place in his poem, speaking of 
the siege of Berwick by Edward II. in 1319, and of Robert Bruce's famous 
defence, we find 
“ Jhone Crab, a Plemyng, als had he 
That wes off sa gret sutelte 
To ordane, and mak apparaill, 
Por to defend, and till assaill, 
Castell off wer, or than cyte, 
That nane sleyar mycht fundyn be. 
He gert engynys, and cranys, ma. 
And purwayit gret fyr alsua; 
Spryngalds, and schot, on fer maners 
That to defend castells affers, 
He purwayit intill full gret wane; 
Bot gynnys for crakys had he nane, 
Bor in Scotland yeit than but wene 
The uss off thaim had not bene sene. 2 
But Barbour was only born between the years 1320 and 1326; and he 
can therefore be speaking only from hearsay : so that unless we can obtain 
some corroborative evidence, we are not justified in calling this an authentic 
instance of early cannon. 
Such corroborative evidence, however, has never yet been produced; and 
there is, on the other hand, strong negative evidence that Barbour is ante¬ 
dating a fact of much later occurrence. All the army accounts of this 
period relating to this northern expedition, which are among the Queen's 
Remembrancer's Miscellaneous Papers at the Public Record Office have been 
searched either by or for the author of this paper, but no mention of guns 
or gunpowder or of anything of the kind is there to be found: nor does 
1 Tlio Bruce ed. Pinkerton, 1700, Vol. III., p. 136. 
2 Ibid, p. 68. 
