The reason for the disuse of castles is popularly attributed to the invention of gunpowder, but the introduction of cannon can hardly be accepted as entirely responsible for the decline, and we must therefore seek for other reasons which, added to the first, eventually succeeded in effecting their destruction and abandonment. The use of gunpowder was introduced into England in the first half of the fourteenth century, the first authentic date being 1327, when Edward III. employed it in his campaign against the Scots. The first reference by Froissart is in 1339, cannon being specifically mentioned, while at Cressy in 1346 there were a number of those weapons in use. These early pieces were, however, of small calibre and were provided with such indifferent powder that against the walls of a castle they were practically innocuous, and it was not until the invention of trunnions for cannon, and of bombards capable of throwing heavy spherical shot in the fifteenth century, that fortified places had anything to fear. But long before 1327 the English castle had begun to show signs of falling into abeyance, in fact but very few new structures of that class were erected after the close of the thirteenth century, and those that did spring into existence no longer exhibited the overwhelming strength and powers of resistance which stamped the erections of the preceding century. When prosecuting his war with France, Edward III., in 1337, endeavoured to leave the Kingdom in as defensible a condition as possible during his absence, and with that object in view ordered the keepers of the Royal castles to put their respective charges into first-class order. In spite of this a report upon their efficiency a few years later revealed the fact that several were utterly unfit to withstand a siege. In 1322, when the incensed Edward II. raised forces to avenge the insult to his queen by Bartholomew de Badlesmere at Leeds Castle, and quickly captured that place, Tickhill, Warwick, Tutbury, and others, the ease with which they fell into his hands indubitably proves that they were no longer in a thoroughly defensive condition. And this, be it remembered, was before the introduction of gunpowder.