According to another account the first English cast-iron guns were made at Buxted, in Sussex, by one Ralph Hogge in 1543. Peter Bawd, the French founder, was an assistant who had come to this country to teach him the method. But it seems that his connection with Hogge was not of long duration; for, “John Johnson, covenant servant to the said P. Bawd, succeeded and exceeded his master in this his art of casting ordnance, making them cleaner and to better proportion. And his son, Thomas Johnson, a special workman, in and before the year 1595 made 42 cast pieces of great ordnance of iron, for the Earl of Cumberland, weighing 6000 pounds, or three tons a-piece.”[48]
The advance made in the power of King Henry’s sea ordnance is unmistakably shown from trustworthy documents. There is a continuous progress during the reign, and ships which were rebuilt subsequently carried an armament entirely different from that which they originally had. The _Sovereign_, for instance, built about the year 1488, originally carried one hundred and eighty guns, mostly small serpentines. As rebuilt in A.D. 1509 she carried an armament which included four curtalls, three demi-curtalls, three culverins, two falcons, and eleven heavy iron guns. From an inventory of the armament of the _Henry Grace à Dieu_, of 1514, it appears[49] that that historic ship was then armed with a miscellaneous collection of pieces, comprising 122 iron serpentines, 12 “grete yron gonnes of oone makyng and bygnes,” 12 ditto “that come owt of fflaunders,” all with separate chambers; 2 “grete Spanish peces of yron of oone sorte,” with chambers; 18 “stone gonnes apon Trotill wheles,” with chambers; “ffawcons of Brasse apon Trotill wheles”; one “grete bumberde of Brasse apon iiij trotill wheles”; two “grete culverynes of Brasse apon unshodd wheles”; as well as a “grete curtalle of Brasse upon iiij wheles,” a sling, vice pieces, and serpentines of brass on wheels shod with iron. Rebuilt at a later date the _Henry_ carried a different armament, which included brass cannons, demi-cannons, culverins, demi-culverins, sakers, and cannon-periers.
The transition of armament is plainly marked for us in the case of the _Mary Rose_, rebuilt in 1536, which nine years later came to an untimely end off Brading. At the time of her oversetting she carried, in fact, both types of ordnance. In the Rotunda at Woolwich are to be seen some of the guns recovered from her wreck: a built-up wrought-iron breech-loading stone-throwing gun on its baulk-of-timber carriage, identical in character with a serpentine illustrated in Napoleon III’s _Études sur l’Artillerie_ as having been taken by the Swiss from Charles the Bold in A.D. 1476; and a bronze cannon royal (with John Owen’s name on it), demi-cannon, culverin, and culverin-bastard, all of them finished specimens of the founder’s art, and of an offensive, instead of a merely defensive, value. “The system,” says Mr. Oppenheim of this growth of artillery armament, “was extended as the reign progressed, and in 1546 we find comparatively small ships like the _Grand Mistress_ carrying two demi-cannon and five culverins, the _Swallow_ one demi-cannon and two demi-culverins, out of a total of eight heavy guns; the _Anne Galant_ four culverins, one curtall, and two demi-culverins,” etc. etc.
