Everything you need to know about...Scottish weaponry Part 2: Antique guns and gunnery

Effective siege weaponry employing gunpowder only started to emerge in Scottish warfare during the 15th century. With huge guns capable of hurling stones weighing as much as 350 kilograms over a distance of 25 miles, Scotland's fortifications, which until then were largely fabricated in wood, required to become even more formidable. Across Scotland, stone-built castles rose in their hundreds.

In 1457, James II of Scotland was presented with two massive siege guns by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, his uncle by marriage. The surviving canon is known as Mons Meg, having been tested during an assault on the Belgian town of Mons, close to the French border, and it is today housed in Edinburgh Castle. The impracticality of such massive weaponry in an age of man and horsepower, is immediately apparent, but this did not prevent these enormous canons from being trundled around the country and shown off as a deterrent.

The unfortunate James was perhaps rather too keen on his artillery. He was killed in 1460 when another of his guns exploded during the siege of Roxburgh Castle.

James IV was also immensely proud of his artillery capability. Unfortunately, when confronting the English army at the Battle of Flodden in 1513, his big guns became entrenched on a muddy hillside facing in the wrong direction. Had the English army marching north not mistakenly passed behind the Scottish emplacement in a mist, the outcome of the ensuing battle might have been entirely different.

Early pis...

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• By : Sally Toms
• In : Interview
• Issue : 40
• Page : 74
• Words : 706