Roaring Meg was the name of several powerful cannons used in the 17th century. It is not to be confused with Mons Meg, a medieval bombard preserved at Edinburgh Castle.
Roaring Meg was the name of several powerful cannons used in the 17th century. It is not to be confused with Mons Meg, a medieval bombard preserved at Edinburgh Castle.
Roaring Meg was a mortar cast in 1646 for the siege of Goodrich Castle. [1] With a 15.5-inch (390 mm) barrel diameter and firing a 2 long cwt (220 lb; 100 kg) hollow ball filled with gunpowder, Roaring Meg was the largest mortar of the English Civil War. The weapon and its ammunition is believed to have been manufactured near Lydbrook at Howbrook furnace and forge whose then owner, John Browne, is known to have supplied weapons to the Parliamentarians. [2]
It was instrumental in the capture of Goodrich Castle in 1646 by Sir Thomas Fairfax. [3] During the siege the Roundhead commander, Colonel Birch, was so excited with his new weapon he personally fired the last 19 balls. [3] Following Roaring Meg's success at Goodrich, it was subsequently deployed at the bombardment of Raglan Castle. Roaring Meg is preserved by Herefordshire Council and has been on display at Goodrich Castle since 2004. [4]
Roaring Meg was also the name of a cannon used earlier in the war by the Cavalier Earl of Northampton's Regiment. [5]
Another Roaring Meg protected the Irish city of Derry during the siege of 1689. [6] One of several cannon given to Derry by the City of London in the aftermath of the earlier siege of 1641, Roaring Meg became famous for "the loudness of her voice", which was said to bring cheer to the townspeople and terror to the besiegers. An inscription upon its barrel, which fired shot weighing eighteen pounds, indicates that it was cast in 1642 and that it was the gift of the Fishmongers' Company. [7] It remains in place on top of the city walls, and was still used to fire ceremonial salutes into the 19th century.
A tributary of the River Beane is called the Roaring Meg, a rock band and a retail park in Stevenage have been named after this.
A blonde beer brewed by the Springhead brewery in Sutton on Trent takes its name from the cannon.
Alluded to by Monty Python with the double entendre, "The whole garrison banged Roaring Meg and shot their balls into the French"
Artillery are ranged weapons that launch munitions far beyond the range and power of infantry firearms. Early artillery development focused on the ability to breach defensive walls and fortifications during sieges, and led to heavy, fairly immobile siege engines. As technology improved, lighter, more mobile field artillery cannons developed for battlefield use. This development continues today; modern self-propelled artillery vehicles are highly mobile weapons of great versatility generally providing the largest share of an army's total firepower.
A cannon is a large-caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder during the late 19th century. Cannons vary in gauge, effective range, mobility, rate of fire, angle of fire and firepower; different forms of cannon combine and balance these attributes in varying degrees, depending on their intended use on the battlefield. A cannon is a type of heavy artillery weapon.
The howitzer is an artillery weapon that falls between cannon and a mortar. With their long-range capabilities, howitzers can be used to great effect in a battery formation with other artillery pieces, such as long-barreled guns, mortars, and rocket artillery.
A mortar is usually a simple, lightweight, man-portable, muzzle-loaded weapon, consisting of a smooth-bore metal tube fixed to a base plate with a lightweight bipod mount and a sight. Mortars launch explosive shells in high-arching ballistic trajectories. Mortars are typically used as indirect fire weapons for close fire support with a variety of ammunition.
The double-barreled cannon is an American Civil War-era experimental weapon and is now a modern landmark located in Athens, Georgia. While originally built for warfare, the cannon never saw battle. It is part of the Downtown Athens Historic District, in the National Register of Historic Places.
Goodrich is a village in south Herefordshire, England close to Gloucestershire and the Forest of Dean, situated near the River Wye at grid reference SO574193. It is known for its Norman and mediaeval castle built with Old Red Sandstone.
The formal definition of large-calibre artillery used by the United Nations Register of Conventional Arms (UNROCA) is "guns, howitzers, artillery pieces, combining the characteristics of a gun, howitzer, mortar, or multiple-launch rocket system, capable of engaging surface targets by delivering primarily indirect fire, with a calibre of 75 millimetres and above". This definition, shared by the Arms Trade Treaty and the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, is updated from an earlier definition in United Nations General Assembly Resolution 46/36L, which set a threshold of 100mm. Several grammatical changes were made to that latter in 1992 and the threshold was lowered in 2003 to yield the current definition, as endorsed by UN General Assembly Resolution 58/54.
Early thermal weapons, which used heat or burning action to destroy or damage enemy personnel, fortifications or territories, were employed in warfare during the classical and medieval periods.
A volley gun is a gun with multiple single-shot barrels that volley fired simultaneously or sequentially in quick succession. Although capable of unleashing intense firepower, volley guns differ from modern machine guns in that they lack autoloading and automatic fire mechanisms, and therefore their volume of fire is limited by the number of barrels bundled together.
The hand cannon, also known as the gonne or handgonne, is the first true firearm and the successor of the fire lance. It is the oldest type of small arms as well as the most mechanically simple form of metal barrel firearms. Unlike matchlock firearms it requires direct manual external ignition through a touch hole without any form of firing mechanism. It may also be considered a forerunner of the handgun. The hand cannon was widely used in China from the 13th century onward and later throughout Eurasia in the 14th century. In 15th century Europe, the hand cannon evolved to become the matchlock arquebus, which became the first firearm to have a trigger.
Mons Meg is a medieval bombard in the collection of the Royal Armouries, on loan to Historic Environment Scotland and located at Edinburgh Castle in Scotland. It has a barrel diameter of 20 inches (510 mm) making it one of the largest cannons in the world by calibre.
Sir Henry Lingen, Lord of Sutton, Lingen and Stoke Edith, was a Royalist military commander in Herefordshire during the English Civil War, and later a member of parliament. He was the son of Edward Lingen and Blanche Bodenham. He fathered 2 sons, Henry and William and 7 daughters, Elizabeth, Joan, Blanch, Mary (Dobbyns), Cecilia, Frances (Unett), and Alice (Herring). Both sons died without issue but the daughters left considerable posterity.
The bombard is a type of cannon or mortar which was used throughout the Middle Ages and the early modern period. Bombards were mainly large calibre, muzzle-loading artillery pieces used during sieges to shoot round stone projectiles at the walls of enemy fortifications, enabling troops to break in. Most bombards were made of iron and used gunpowder to launch the projectiles. There are many examples of bombards, including Mons Meg, the Dardanelles Gun, and the handheld bombard.
Goodrich Castle is a Norman medieval castle ruin north of the village of Goodrich in Herefordshire, England, controlling a key location between Monmouth and Ross-on-Wye. It was praised by William Wordsworth as the "noblest ruin in Herefordshire" and is considered by historian Adrian Pettifer to be the "most splendid in the county, and one of the best examples of English military architecture".
Gunpowder artillery in the Middle Ages primarily consisted of the introduction of the cannon, large tubular firearms designed to fire a heavy projectile over a long distance. Guns, bombs, rockets and cannons were first invented in China during the Han and Song dynasties and then later spread to Europe and the Middle East during the period.
The history of cannons spans several hundred years from the 12th century to modern times. The cannon first appeared in China sometime during the 12th and 13th centuries. It was most likely developed in parallel or as an evolution of an earlier gunpowder weapon called the fire lance. The result was a projectile weapon in the shape of a cylinder that fired projectiles using the explosive pressure of gunpowder. Cannons were used for warfare by the late 13th century in the Yuan dynasty and spread throughout Eurasia in the 14th century. During the Middle Ages, large and small cannons were developed for siege and field battles. The cannon replaced prior siege weapons such as the trebuchet. After the Middle Ages, most large cannons were abandoned in favor of greater numbers of lighter, more maneuverable field artillery. New defensive fortifications such as bastions and star forts were designed specifically to better withstand artillery sieges. Cannons transformed naval warfare with its deadly firepower, allowing vessels to destroy each other from long range. As rifling became more commonplace, the accuracy of the cannon was significantly improved, and they became deadlier than ever, especially to infantry. In World War I, a considerable majority of all deaths were caused by cannons; they were also used widely in World War II. Most modern cannons are similar to those used in the Second World War, including autocannons—with the exception of naval guns, which are now significantly smaller in caliber.
Artillery began to be used in France in the 14th century. The first depiction of a cannon in Europe appeared in Walter de Milemete's 1326 De nobilitatibus, sapientiis, et prudentiis regum. Small rudimentary weapons such as the pot-de-fer or the portable bâton à feu were introduced. At this early stage, cannon would fire either stone balls or metal pellets.
Derry's walls were originally built by the Irish Society between 1613 and 1619, under the supervision of the London builder and architect Peter Benson. They were built with the intention of protecting the Scottish and English planters that had moved to Ulster as part of the Plantation of Ulster that had been established by James I. It was a direct consequence of the previous settlement being destroyed by Irish chieftain Cahir O'Doherty during O'Doherty's rebellion. As a result of the building of the city's defences by the Irish Society, which was a consortium of livery companies based out of the City of London, the city was officially renamed Londonderry in the 1613 royal charter. This is what has subsequently led to the naming dispute for the city and county of Derry/Londonderry.
