Chapter X Hand Ammunition
Fire-Arrows and Fire-Pikes
The system of attaching incendiaries to arrows, lances, &c., survived the introduction of gunpowder and died a lingering death. In November 1588 the Government ordered the purchase of “20 Slurr Bows at 25s. each, and 20 doz. of firework arrows for the said slurr bows at 5s. the doz.”380 From a list of naval stores for the year 1599, it would appear that fire-arrows were discharged from long-bows as well as slur-bows:—
“Slurbowe arrowes with firewoorkes, 184;
inde 19 without firewoorkes.
Longbowe arrowes with firewoorkes, 4 shef. 1 arr.”381
Hansard gives a plate of an English archer, 1250, with spicula ignita, or arrow tipped with wildfire.382 Sir R. W. Payne-Gallwey gives a sketch of a slur-bow. It is a cross-bow, with a barrel and a single string which works in two slits cut in the sides of the barrel.383
Fire-lances were used, perhaps for the last time, at the first siege of Bristol, 1643. There, Prince Rupert tells us, “Captain Clerk, Ancient Hodgkinson, and some others running in upon (the Royalists) with fire-pikes, neither men nor horses were able to endure it. The fire-pikes did the feat.”384
Fire-arrows had a longer spell of existence, and were used by the Chinese against the French in 1860.385
Hand Grenades
Incendiary hand grenades are of great antiquity. We have seen that earthenware grenades were used at the siege of Salonika,386 904. Towards the end of the thirteenth century Hassan er-Rammah describes grenades made of bark, papyrus, or glass—materials well adapted to break up on impact and scatter about their burning contents.387 They were used at the passage of the Lys in 1382:—“Adonc vinrent arbalêtriers et gens de pied avant; et si en y avait aucuns qui jetait de bombardes portatives et qui traioient grands quarriaulx empennés de fer,” &c.388 By a common figure of speech Froissart calls the grenade a bombard, just as the author of the “Avowing of Arthur” calls a shot a gun:—
“... there came fliand a gunne
And lemet as the leuyn....”389
(A gun came flying by and gleamed like lightning.)
The plate from the MS. of Kyeser’s Bellifortis, 1405, given by Herr von Romocki (i. 169), shows three projectiles which were unquestionably hand grenades. Figs. 25 and 30 are provided with spikes, like crow’s-feet.390 Fig. 27 is a flask or bottle of the same family as Hassan’s grenades, and was probably made of earthenware. It was by an explosive earthenware grenade that Del Vasto was severely wounded in 1528, during the sea-fight between the French and Spaniards off Cape Campanella.391 The Comte de Rendan was killed by a grenade of unknown construction at the siege of Rouen, 1562,392 and grenades were freely used at the siege of Famagusta, 1572. Du Bellay tells us that grenades were made in large quantities at Arles in 1536.393 As it is improbable that iron grenades could have been turned out in large quantities in the first half of the sixteenth century, we may conclude that they were either earthenware or some form of brittle brass. This is rendered probable by Whitehorne’s remarks on the subject. He says that “earthen bottles or pottes,” filled with incendiary or explosive matter, had been formerly used; but he recommends “hollow balles of metal, as bigge as smal boules and ¼ in. thick, cast in mouldes and made of 3 partes of brasse and 1 of tinne.” Their charge consisted of “3 partes serpentine, 3 partes fine corne pouder, and 1 part rosen.” A little fine corned powder was used as priming; and he directs the grenades to be “quickly thrown,” as they will almost immediately “breake and flye into a thousand pieces.” The want of a proper fuze rendered their use so dangerous that he advises trials to be made with them, “to see how long they will tarry before they breake.”394
Major Ralph Adye mentions that grenades were supposed to be capable of being thrown 13 fathoms, or 26 yards.395
Evelyn says in his “Diary” that on 29th June 1678, he saw at the Hounslow Camp certain soldiers “called granadiers, who were dexterous in flinging hand-granades.” In the Archæological Journal, xxiii., 22, will be found a plate “Blow your Match,” after a sketch by Lens, “limner to His Majesty” George II., which represents a grenadier of the 1st Regiment of the Guards in 1735, grenade in hand.
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