War of the Roses gun

[jaxenro]

I understand some type of handgun, or gonne, was used in the WotR anyone know what type?

 

[earlwb]

Well at that time it was mostly rudimentary cannons being used. The shot size ranged from 30mm to 94mm based on the balls dug up at some battle sites. Now at the battle at St Albins in 1461 they employed a company of mercenaries who used hand cannons at the time (handgonnes?). It seems they got mentioned, but that is about it for them though. That might have been the 30mm shot found. But early small guns could have been three or more guns mounted on a carriage a fired that way too.

Now the English still heavily used the long bow. They would employ large numbers of bowmen to fire volleys of arrows. Thus gunpowder, cannons and handcannons were not used much. Since they didn't have any sieges at the time the cannons never got deployed like they normally would.

The English were slow to use cannons, handcannons, etc in war. I think the first example was at the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh (fought against Scottish forces near Edinburgh in 1547), where a English army would win a decisive battle using cannons, etc.

 

[dave_person]

Hi,
The style of guns varied. If you are serious about early guns in England, buy a copy of T. F. Tout's "Firearms in England in the fourteenth century". You can usually find inexpensive copies available from Abebooks and Alibris books online.

dave

 

[Gene L]

The British used a couple of cannon at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. I don't think they added much to the battle, though. And I don't know if it was the first instance of cannon being used.

The first instance where hand gonnes were used was in 1260, Battle of Ain Jalut, in what is now Syria or Egypt. (I googled this, didn't know it.) The battle is notable only for that fact.

 

[Gene L]

Also, I don't know if the gonnes fired projectiles. They were employed to scare horses in the cavalry.

 

[robinghewitt]

I have a lock dated late 15th century by Martin Pegler at the Royal Armouries, so, based on a sample of one, the Wars of the Roses were fought with snapping matchlocks utilising both side button and trigger release :thumbsup:

 

[jaxenro]

From what little I have found so far they looked like snapping matchlocks with a lever release like a crossbow

 

[ChrisPer]

Have you seen this?
Article 'earliest battlefield recovered gun fragment'

Exploded fragment of War of the Roses gun goes on show at new Richard III exhibition
A new Richard III exhibition in York shines fresh light on the King’s reign. And it features a remarkable artefact that has changed the way historians interpret the War of the Roses. MATT CLARK reports.

BLINK and you’d miss it, but tucked away on the top floor of Monk Bar is one of the most important finds in the history of warfare. It may not look much, but this exploded fragment of a barrel is from the earliest hand gun found on a medieval battlefield anywhere in the world.

This is the evidence academics had been waiting for to prove that guns were used during the War of the Roses, and tomorrow it will go on public display for the first time.





“Handguns had been around for less than a century by the time of the Battle of Towton in 1461, and these fragments show just how unreliable they were,” says Sarah Maltby, of York Archaeological Trust. “We can tell that this weapon effectively blew apart, almost certainly in use, so we can only imagine the horrific injuries ”“ and possible fatality ”“ its owner would have suffered.”

The piece was found by detectorist Simon Richardson at Towton, the scene of the most barbaric battle ever fought on English soil, which led to the crowning of Edward IV, the first Yorkist king, and Richard III’s elder brother.

Part of the killing field was known as Bloody Meadow, with good reason. But for Simon it offers rich pickings. Over the years he has discovered hundreds of artefacts.

But nothing like this.

“It’s a very rare find,” he says.

“The only known gun fragment from that period found in Europe.

It’s also very important because it’s right on the cusp between armies using longbow and gunpowder weapons. This is from the beginning of the modern era of history.”

At first Simon didn’t know what he had unearthed. He’d found a lead ball so had a notion that guns might have been used, but nothing prepared him for this.

“It was a big lump of bronze that had been caught by a plough and brought up from really deep. At first I thought it might be from a steam engine, when I realised what I’d found I was overwhelmed, it was a bit more than wow.”





York Press:
The exploded fragment of a barrel from the earliest gun to be found on a battlefield anywhere in the world, which goes on show at the Richard III Experience

The shard of gun barrel contradicts the previously held theory that during the period guns were only used to attack castles. And that lead ball fitted the bore perfectly.

Simon says he doesn’t believe in consigning his finds to a drawer and while nothing in his collection at Monk Bar compares in importance, there are some exquisite War of the Roses items on display.

“I’ve found several Yorkist supporters badges. The one on display is a particularly good example.

Some I found had their buckles pulled apart during hand-to-hand combat.

“The collection represents 30 years of hard work, which has been carefully recorded from the start.

York Press:
Monk Bar, York, home of the Richard III Experience

Each find has been like a little piece of jigsaw, and piecing these together has made it possible to discover much more about how the Battle of Towton was conducted.”

The gun fragment is one of a number of new exhibits at York’s Richard III Experience, which reveal new perspectives about the life, reign and rediscovery of the much-maligned monarch as the nation prepares for the re-interment of his body at Leicester Cathedral later this month.

Guns of Bosworth

The Guns of the Battle of Bosworth, 1485
By Douglas D. Scott


Battle of Bosworth Field by Philip James de Loutherbourg.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The November 2012 issue of Armchair General magazine features ACG Board Member and internationally-renowned forensic archaeologist Douglas D. Scott’s article “Battlefield Detective: The Case of the Small Lead Ball.” The diminutive (less than 30mm) lead ball ”“ fired by a small cannon during the 1485 Battle of Bosworth ”“ helped battlefield detectives, at long last, discover the true location of one of history’s most famed battles. In this web article, Scott expands on his ACG magazine article by delving into how the discoveries at the Bosworth battlefield are redefining historians’ knowledge of early gunpowder weapons’ use in medieval warfare.


The August 22, 1485 Battle of Bosworth gave England’s House of Lancaster victory in the War of the Roses (1455-85), displacing the House of York on the English throne. However, until important fieldwork was undertaken in 2009, the decisive battle’s exact location had been lost to history. Yet, the discovery of a small lead ball proved the key to unlocking the secret of where the battle was fought. More fieldwork unearthed other small projectiles from the battle. These finds by battlefield detectives of numerous lead cannon projectiles of widely varying sizes have not only allowed us to finally discover the actual location of the Battle of Bosworth, this evidence provides fascinating new information about the use of early cannon in medieval war. The pattern of distribution of the unearthed three dozen cannon lead projectiles suggests an exchange of artillery fire by both sides.

The various calibers and types of roundshot discovered at the site. (Courtesy, Glenn Foard)The scale of the battle’s initial artillery salvo seems to have influenced the way the Battle of Bosworth was fought, encouraging Henry Tudor’s Lancastrian army to make a flank attack on King Richard III’s York army rather than face a frontal approach under heavy fire. However, these weapons were not yet a battle-winning force. In the main action it was almost certainly through archery and then hand-to-hand fighting, just as at Agincourt (1415) or Crecy (1346), that the battle was won. Not until the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh (fought against Scottish forces near Edinburgh in 1547), would an English army win a decisive victory in a major battle chiefly through the use of firepower.

Most of the lead round shot discovered at Bosworth ranges in diameter from less than 30mm up to 94mm, roughly equivalent to the largest mobile field artillery piece in common use in the following centuries. In contrast only two or possibly three lead bullets, likely to have been fired by “hand cannons,” an early type of hand gun with a large bore, have so far been recovered from the site. But this is no surprise. With one or two notable exceptions, such as St. Albans in 1461 where a company of foreign hand gunners were deployed, handheld firearms seem rarely employed by English armies until the mid-16th century. The effectiveness of the English longbow meant that the introduction of the early handgun was not a priority here compared to other parts of Europe.

The later part of the 15th and early-16th centuries was a period of great experimentation and innovation in the technology of gunpowder weapons, something confirmed by the variation in type and size of munitions fired at Bosworth. All the types reported in the documentary sources for the first half of the 16th century are present. Some are of solid lead but most are composite: several have an iron cube at their core, others a large pebble, while yet more contain either small pieces or large chunks of flint, all cast about with lead to make a spherical projectile. The reasons for this are now hotly debated: Was it simply to save lead? Was it an attempt to give the munitions special ballistic properties? Or was it perhaps to reduce their weight because the gun barrels, many of which were made of wrought iron rather than the cast iron or bronze typical of later centuries, simply could not take the pressures that a heavier ball would cause? By the time of the Civil War in the 1640s, composite munitions had long since disappeared, replaced by cast iron, with only some of the smallest artillery pieces still using solid lead munitions. By then the character and battlefield role of gunpowder weapons was well-established and firepower often decided the outcome of battles.

A 15-century hand cannon
Determining how many artillery pieces were actually firing at Bosworth, and whether it was fire from both armies, will require more research and experimentation for there is, as yet, no comparative data from any other battlefield. For example, some of the munitions of nearly identical diameter could have been fired from a “ribauldequin,” an artillery piece which could have three or more barrels on a two-wheeled carriage. However, there are so many different diameters of round shot present that there must have been at least ten pieces of artillery and perhaps two hand cannons present.

There are more munitions still to be found as new finds in October 2010 demonstrate; others may have been lost in the small areas now built up by the three farms on the battlefield; and a few more were perhaps retrieved by farmers in former centuries, though no record of this has yet been found. The importance of Bosworth is not that it is the first place where such guns were used in battle. Nor did it see their first large-scale use, for the Swiss captured perhaps as many as 400 when they defeated the Burgundian army at the battles of Grandison and Murton in 1476. Neither was it the guns that won the battle. No, the great excitement of the recent discoveries at Bosworth is that it opens the door on the archaeological study of the origins of firepower. It shows that where sites have not been ravaged by treasure hunters, archaeology may be able to reveal the numbers and sizes of guns, where they were positioned and the intensity of fire they laid down. Work by the team in 2010 on surviving guns in Europe and complemented by firing experiments using reproduction guns, and the application of various techniques of scientific analysis, has shown it may be possible to distinguish whether the gun from which the ball was fired was of the old cast iron type or the new cast bronze guns.

Douglas D. Scott, PhD, is a widely-recognized authority on military archaeology and a frequent commentator in broadcast media. His numerous books include: Archaeological Perspectives on the Battle of the Little Bighorn, A Sharp Little Affair: The Archaeology of the Big Hole Battlefield, They Died With Custer, and Custer’s Heroes: The Little Bighorn Medals of Honor.

 

[nhmoose]

Granny Clampet carried a Double shotgun.