content_output-055_4 (Q6279)

It was in Italy and Germany that cannon were manufactured and the early firearms developed; and it was from these countries that the French were supplied with guns larger and in every way superior to any possessed by the English. After the Wars of the Roses the English remedied the defect. King Henry VIII. was particularly anxious to add to his store, and sometimes, as in 1522, he levied princely blackmail of fire-arms from the Venetian galleys trading to Flanders; yet as early as 1513 the Venetian Ambassador had reported to the Doge that Henry had “cannon enough to conquer hell.” A visitor to the Tower of London in 1515 states that there were then in the Tower about 400 cannon, and that most of them were mounted on wheels. It was in the reign of Henry VIII. that cannon were first cast in England. Peter Bawde, a Frenchman, was the artícer; he cast brass cannon in Houndsditch in 1525. Later, about 1535, John O’Ewen was engaged in the work, and by 1543 the industry was flourishing at Uckfield, Sussex, then the centre of the iron trade in Britain.