226 
THE MASTER-GUNNERS OF ENGLAND. 
SUCCESSION LIST OF THE MASTER-GUNNERS OF ENGLAND. 
Reign. 
Date of 
Appt. 
Name. 
War Services, &c. 
James I. 
(Contd.) 
wheelers and others, whose trades are appro¬ 
priated to military ends, as nothing was there 
almost wanting, which was fit for the State to 
provide, either for honor or safety. But for 
as much in these latter times, either through 
the evil example or tolleration of some lieu¬ 
tenants of the Tower, or by abusing of trust 
reposed in some officers who have particular 
relation to the place, there hath insensibly 
crept in diverse abuse and incroachments, 
whereby the said antient limits of the Tower 
and those other habitations and storehouses, 
appointed for public use, are now perverted 
to private profit, the splender and magni¬ 
ficence of the said Royal Castle being by that 
means defaced, and the place itself as it were 
besieged in the wharf, ditches, and liberties 
thereof. 
Upon complaint made of all which abuse 
the Board ordered as follows :—That whereas 
there was a lease procured from His Majesty 
to William Hammond , Master-Gunner of Eng¬ 
land in the Tower, of the Artillery yard near 
unto the minorits, and an antient obsolete 
name of the tifal yard, for 223 years, and the 
same lease being defective and apparently 
void, and so acknowledged by the same Ham¬ 
mond and his councel for manifest imperfec¬ 
tions found out by the said Sir Edward Cooke, 
was by the said Hammond delivered into the 
hands of the said Sir Ed. Cooke, and now 
remains in the Councel’s chest. It is ordered 
that the said Artillery yard be for the future 
restored to the public use for which it had 
been formerly employed, viz.:—for exercise 
of arms and artillery, and that the same shall 
not henceforth be alienated or converted to 
any other use . . . .” 
(To be continued.) 
