Just below the castle in Rye is the quiet Gun Garden, with its row of cannon and views across the river and, on a clear day, the wind farm and Dungeness power station. The battery, including a magazine for ammunition, was built in the reign of King Henry VII, during what is known as his Device Fort programme – when what is now called Camber Castle, originally Winchelsea, was constructed. An excavation in 1997 revealed the traces of earlier usage during the medieval period. When the battery was first in use, it overlooked the harbour, so was intended to defend the town against attack by sea – mostly by the French and Castilians. At the time of the great Spanish Armada during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, in 1588, the battery was resupplied with cannon. It was strengthened again during the Napoleonic Wars and is known to have still been operative in 1830, when it is recorded that 18 cannon were installed.
By the time that the battery was built for Henry VIII, guns had been in general use in northern Europe for more than a hundred years. There was a wide range of ordnance available for use, which ranged from small handguns such as culverins to huge bombards. One of the latter, Mons Meg, can still be seen in the grounds of Edinburgh Castle. This huge cannon, with a calibre of about 20 inches, was made in Mons, Belgium in 1449, by order of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy. In 1454 he presented it to King James II of Scotland. It was one of three, only two of which now survive, the other being seen in Ghent. This massive piece weighs 15,366 pounds and is 15 feet long. It was originally painted with red lead, like all the royal cannon, in an attempt to stop the iron from rusting. It was used until the 1540s, after which it was fired on purely ceremonial occasions. It was last fired in 1680, during a visit by James, Duke of York, brother of King Charles II. The gunner in charge, an Englishman, put in too much powder and the barrel burst. Locals believed that he did this deliberately because England had no cannon of comparable size. It must have been fearsome when used in anger, firing cannon balls weighing 386 pounds for anything up to two miles. This distance was recorded on 3 July 1558, when soldiers were paid to find the ball it had fired to mark the marriage of Mary, Queen of Scots to the Dauphin of France. It would certainly have been used, and been effective, against castle walls.
The oldest bombard in England was found in the moat of Bodiam Castle. It has a calibre of 12 inches and probably dates from the late 14th century. These huge guns were eventually phased out and replaced by guns of a smaller calibre and longer barrel.
Guns were generally built of iron or bronze, and very often the men who made them were also the men who worked them. The cannon balls could weigh anything up to more than 700 pounds, which would have required a huge charge of gunpowder. It was calculated that it took one pound of gunpowder to launch a ball weighing nine pounds. The guns washed out with vinegar and water between each shot. Ten shots per hour was considered a good rate of firing.
It was usual to begin a battle with cannon fire, or, as at Barnet in 1471, on the evening before the battle. Their slow fire rate meant, however, that only one salvo would be fired before the hand to hand fighting began. It was reckoned that a well maintained cannon would have a range of upto 2,500 yards. The 15th century gun was generally safe to use, although there were instances of barrels bursting, as famously happened in 1460 when King James II of Scotland was killed whilst standing too close to a cannon which exploded. A piece of metal fractured his thigh, the wound being severe enough to cause his death.
Cannon were in regular military use by the time of the Wars of the Roses, fought by the rival factions of the House of Plantagenet, known as Yorkists and Lancastrians, between 1455 and 1487. John Judde was master of ordnance to the Lancastrian King Henry VI from December 1456. He was a London merchant who offered to supply 60 guns called serpentines along with 20 tons of sulphur and saltpetre, ‘under certain reasonable conditions,’ at his own expense. The king accepted, as he was ‘not as yet sufficiently furnished with guns, gunpowder and other habiliments of war.’ By early 1457 Judde had sent 26 serpentines to the king at Kenilworth Castle. He boasted that he had built three ‘great serpentines to subdue any castle or place that would rebel.’ In 1459, with the forces of the House of York in disarray, Henry ordered Judde to take control of all their weapons. Robert Bale, a Yorkshireman living in London wrote that Judde ‘had maliciously conspired and laboured to ordain and make all things for war to the destruction of the Duke of York and all the other lords.’ Things did not, however, go all Judde’s way. On 22 July 1460, he was ambushed and killed near St Albans whilst supervising the delivery of more armaments to the king. Robert Bale was not displeased, saying that it was ‘a wretched end, as the caitiff deserved.’
Henry VI wanted artillery but had no great feeling for it. His successor, Edward IV of the Yorkists, was deeply aware of the importance of ordnance. An Italian visitor to England in 1475 wrote of how every day the king would inspect his artillery. Between 1463 and 1477 the master of ordnance was John Wode, an experienced administrator who had served in Calais. He was followed by John Sturgeon, an expert in supplying the needs of the navy. Their status in the royal household can clearly be seen in their title of Esquire of the King’s Body, a small, elite group of no more than 300 people at the top of the establishment. During the reign of Richard III and Henry VII the masters of ordnance were further promoted to the rank of knight.
Image Credits: Nick Forman .
Great article
Thank you