211 
SUCCESSION LIST 
OF THE 
MASTER-GUNNERS OF ENGLAND. 
BY 
MAJOR R. H. MURDOCH, R.A. 
(Assistant Superintendent It.A. 'Records). 
In redeeming, to-day, the pledge given in footnote on page 9 of “ The 
Master-Gunner of England,” Proceedings R.A. Institution , Vol. XIV., 
No. 3, 1 regret the delay, which has been unavoidable. 
The Succession List is even now incomplete—not because of data being 
non-existent, but of the impracticability of a non-resident in London 
devoting sufficient leisure to get at them, involving as such research 
does the functions of a British Museum book-worm, or faded parchment 
Rolls Court moth. 
The Authorities are too numerous for quotation—consisting of Ex¬ 
chequer receipts, &c.. Treasury issues, “ Garde-robe” accounts, 
parchment rolls, Rymer's Fcedera , Royal and Ordnance Warrants, 
Harleian and Cleaveland MSS., Grose's and Leland’s Antiquities, &c. 
The Cleaveland Memoirs have been particularly useful; but discovery 
of several important errors in these generally accurate MSS. necessi¬ 
tated verification by references to the original sources. 
Regimental historians have hitherto been content with fixing the 
birth of the Royal Artillery at the permanent establishment, in 1715, 
of the last “Train of Artillery.” The disbandment of “Trains” was a 
legal fiction—to comply with the constitution, prior to first Mutiny Act 
of William III.—as an Artillery force was continuous from the dawn of 
the 13th century; and this Succession List presents, in a succinct form, a 
retrospective outline of Artillery history during the five hundred years 
preceding 1715. There is inductive evidence that the Roger cle Leyburn 
of A.D. 1265 had, for executive, a Fleming, and that Flemish experts 
continued to instruct Artillerymen down to the end of the Tudors. The 
Master-Gunner of Scotland (Johannis Crab), so early as 1319, is described 
by his contemporary as a “ Flemyng”—“ that was of so gret sutelte,”— 
although Bourne, in his “Art of Shooting” (printed A.D. 1587), 
attributes to Henry VIII. the regular introduction of Flemish 
Magi sir i: but the insular English antipathy to foreigners during the 
reigns of the immediate successors to the unfortunate King John may 
account for what appears to have been designed concealment of names 
of the earliest Master-Gunners. 
There is an indefinable, incommunicable pleasure in delving among 
6. YOL. XIX. 
