Mons Meg

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Mons Meg

Mons Meg is a large bombard now located at Edinburgh Castle, Scotland. There are conflicting theories about its origins, but it appears from Philip III, the Duke of Burgundy's accounts that it was made to his order around 1449 and sent as a gift 8 years later to James II of Scotland, with other artillery supplies.

The gun was manufactured by the Duke's artillery maker Jehan Cambier, and was successfully tested at Mons, Hainaut, Wallonia, in June 1449; however, the Duke did not take delivery of the Mons Meg until 1453. Desiring to "interfere in British affairs"^{[citation needed]}, the Duke decided to help the Scots against the English.

A conflicting theory, based on limited evidence, suggests it was constructed in order to aid James II in the 1452 siege of Threave Castle in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright, when the Clan MacLellan used it to batter the castle.

The 22" (56 cm) caliber cannon accepted balls that weighed about 180 kg (396 lb); the Mons Meg could only be fired 8-10 times a day due to the tremendous heat generated by the powder charge required. It has been suggested that Meg was one of the Armaments on James IV's Carrack, the Great Michael, making that the ship with the largest caliber gun in history.

From the 1540s Meg was retired from active service and was fired only on ceremonial occasions from Edinburgh Castle, from where shot could be found up to two miles distant. The gun was last fired in 1681 to celebrate the birthday of James Duke of Albany and Yorklater James VII of Scotland and II of England, when the Barrel exploded and it was left outside Foog's Gate at Edinburgh Castle. It was taken as a souvenir to the Tower of London in 1754. It was returned to the Castle in 1829 and sits outside St. Margaret's Chapel.

"Mons Meg was a large old-fashioned piece of ordnance, a great favourite with the Scottish common people; she was fabricated at Mons, in Flanders, in the reign of James IV. or V. of Scotland. This gun figures frequently in the public accounts of the time, where we find charges for grease, to grease Meg’s mouth withal (to increase, as every schoolboy knows, the loudness of the report), ribands to deck her carriage, and pipes to play before her when she was brought from the Castle to accompany the Scottish army on any distant expedition. After the Union, there was much popular apprehension that the Regalia of Scotland, and the subordinate Palladium, Mons Meg, would be carried to England to complete the odious surrender of national independence. The Regalia, sequestered from the sight of the public, were generally supposed to have been abstracted in this manner. As for Mons Meg, she remained in the Castle of Edinburgh, till, by order of the Board of Ordnance, she was actually removed to Woolwich about 1757. The Regalia, by his Majesty’s special command, have been brought forth from their place of concealment in 1818, and exposed to the view of the people, by whom they must be looked upon with deep associations; and, in this very winter of 1828–9, Mons Meg has been restored to the country, where that, which in every other place or situation was a mere mass of rusty iron, becomes once more a curious monument of antiquity" Notes to Rob Roy, Sir Walter Scott.

The gun is never called "Mons Meg" in any contemporary references until the 17th century. The "Meg" may either be a reference to Margaret of Denmark, Queen of James III of Scotland, or simply an alliteration, while Mons was one of the locations where the cannon was originally tested.