The word Artillery, and also the word Engine, did not, however, apply in the fifteenth century exclusively to cannons; for both words were frequently used to designate all projectile weapons, such as balistæ, long-bows, cross-bows, guns of various descriptions, bombards (somewhat resembling the modern mortars), and also portable firearms. Some descriptions of cannons, as, for example, those called bombards, {219a} which are considered to have been the first in use, threw large stones or balls, by a parabolic curve, against places besieged, whilst others were afterwards introduced, of a different description, which sent balls direct, or point blank. In 1414, one Nicholas Merbury was Master of the Ordnance to Henry V., “Magistro Operationum Ingeniorum & Gunnarum.” {219b} There was also a Master of the Ordnance in 1481, in the reign of Edward IV.; and a warrant was then issued for the payment of £100 to the Master of the Ordnance, for the purchase of draught horses. {219c} I apprehend that it will not be denied, that it affords very strong evidence of this destructive instrument of war, being brought to considerable perfection, and into general use, when the genus had thus become subdivided into species, and when a public officer existed, whose province it was to superintend that particular department of military affairs. Later on, in the same century, it became still more subdivided, and appears to have consisted of many varieties; for we read of bombards, cannons, mortiers, veuglaires, guns, serpentines, ordnance, fowlers, coulevrines, hand-coulevrines, hand-guns, haquebuts, &c. &c.; from which it may be presumed, that gunnery had then become a science, and occupied a great portion of the attention of the military. The bombard is supposed to have derived its name from the sound proceeding from its explosion; the mortier or mortar, from its death-dealing or destructive nature; the serpentine basilisk and coulevrine, from some fancied resemblance in their appearance or effects to a serpent; the fowler, to the rapid and birdlike flight of its ball; and some of the large bombards were jocularly called “bourgeoise,” from their constant residence in one place, their weight rendering them inconvenient to move. {220} Under whatever name or form, however, this destructive engine appeared, its general effects were, to a certain extent, similar; and I venture to think, that the authorities, which will now be referred to in chronological order, furnish strong proofs of its having become, not in occasional, but in general use for warlike purposes by the English, in the fifteenth century. CHRONOLOGICAL REFERENCES. 1400 TO 1500.