History of the Royal Regiment of Artillery, Vol. 1. Duncan Francis

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      The guns used were brass Falcons and iron 3-pounders.

      On examining the comparative pay of the various ranks, the Provost-Marshal seems to be well paid, ranking as he does in that respect with the Surgeon, and the Captain of the Pioneers. But if we may judge of the discipline of his train from one incident which has survived, his office can have been no sinecure. We find on the 23rd December, 1685, the King and Privy Council assembled at Whitehall, discussing gravely some conduct of certain members of the train, which had formed matter of complaint and petition from his Majesty's lieges. Four unhappy farmers had had a yoke of oxen pressed from each – the day after the rebels had been defeated – to bring off the carriages of the King's train of Artillery (then immovable, as might have been expected), and the animals had been made to travel as far as Devizes, forty miles from their home. One of the farmers, William Pope by name, had accompanied the train, in order that he might bring the oxen back. On applying for them at the end of the journey, the conductor "did abuse William Pope, one of the petitioners, by threatening to hang him for a rebel, as in the petition is more at large set forth." So the farmers now prayed to have their oxen, with the yokes and furniture, or their value, restored to them.

      As the King in Council was graciously pleased to refer the complaint to Lord Dartmouth, with a view to justice being done, the reader need not doubt that the petitioners went away satisfied.

      The details, contained in the Ordnance books, of the camp ordered by the King in 1686 to be formed at Hounslow, give the first intimation of that distribution of the Artillery of an Army, known as Battalion guns, a system which lasted in principle until 1871, although the guns ceased to be subdivided in such small divisions a good many years before. As, however, until 1871, the batteries had to accommodate themselves to the movements of the battalions near them, it may be said with truth that until then they were really Battalion guns. James II. ordered fourteen regiments to encamp at Hounslow with a view to overawing the disaffected part of the populace; but the effect was to reveal instead the unmistakable sympathy which existed between the troops and the people; so the camp was abruptly broken up. The Battalion guns were brass 3-pounders, under Gentlemen of the Ordnance, with a few other attendants, and escorted to their places by the Grenadiers of the various Regiments. Two demi-culverins of 10 feet in length, and six small mortar pieces, were also sent from the Tower to the camp.

      In 1687, uneasiness was felt about Ireland, and large quantities of stores were assembled at Chester, for ready transit to that country if required. A large issue of mortars for that service was also made, the calibres being 14¼, 10, and 7 inches, and the diameters of the shells being respectively a quarter of an inch less. Among other guns which occur by name in the Ordnance lists of this year, and which have not yet been mentioned, are culverin drakes of 8 feet in length; saker-drakes of the same; and saker square guns also 8 feet long.

      In the spring of 1688, his fatal year, King James was advised by Lord Dartmouth to send a young Gentleman of the Ordnance to Hungary to the Emperor's camp to improve himself in the art military, "to observe and take notice of their method of marching, encamping, embattling, exercising, ordering their trains of Artillery, their manner of approaching, besieging, or attacking any town, their mines, Batteries, lines of circumvallation and contravallation, their way of fortification, their foundries, instruments of war, engines, and what else may occur observable; and for his encouragement herein he was allowed the salary of 1l. per diem, besides such advance as was considered reasonable."

      A long and difficult lesson was this which Richard Burton had to learn, and ere it should be mastered the Sovereign who encouraged him should be gone from Whitehall.

      It was on the 15th of October, 1688, that undoubted advice reached the King that "a great and sudden invasion, with "an armed force of foreigners, was about to be made, in a hostile manner, upon his kingdom;" and although it is not contemplated to describe the campaigns of the pre-regimental days, a description of the train of Artillery with which he proposed to meet the invasion, and which was prepared for the purpose, cannot fail to be interesting. It is the most largely officered train which we have as yet met; and it was announced that, should the King accompany it at any time himself, it should be further increased by the presence of the Lieutenant-General of the Ordnance, the Comptroller-General, the Principal Engineer, the Master-Gunner of England and his Clerks, the Chief Firemaster and his Mate, the Keepers and Makers of the Royal Tents and their Assistants. Exclusive of these, whose presence was conditional, the following was the personnel of

      The reader will observe that in this train the Master-General is not included, even in the contingency of the King's accompanying it himself. Lord Dartmouth had another duty to perform. He had been appointed Admiral of the Fleet which was to engage, if possible, the immense number of vessels which accompanied William to England. The winds fought against Dartmouth. First, he was kept at the mouth of the Thames by the same east winds that wafted the enemy to their landing-place at Torbay; and when, at last, able with a fair wind to follow down the Channel in pursuit, just as he reached Portsmouth, the wind changed: he had to run into that harbour, and his opportunity was lost – an opportunity, too, which might have reversed the whole story of the Revolution, for there was more loyalty to the King in the navy than in the army, – a loyalty which was whetted, as Macaulay well points out, by old grudges between the English and Dutch seamen; and there was in James's Admiral an ability and an integrity which cannot be doubted. Had the engagement taken place, and the King's fleet been successful, it does not require much experience of the world's history to say that the Revolution would have been postponed for years, if not for ever, for it is marvellous how loyal waverers become to the side which has the first success. Nor is this the first or only case on which a kingdom, or something equally valuable, has hung upon a change of wind. How history would have to be re-written had James Watt but lived two centuries earlier than he did!

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