In the very beginning before artillery became organised the manufacture of guns was a pretty haphazard business. Each maker would produce a gun designed according to his personal whim or fancy. No attempt was made to standardise during the 14^th century. When the King went to war he hired both the gun and its maker who manned it in action. Thus the first Master Gunners were master smiths or master founders; they were not soldiers but civilian tradesmen.

Master Gunners christened individual pieces with names (mostly female) which reflected their efficiency or otherwise, such as Lioness or Lazy Girl, or after the place of manufacture, eg Mons. The Meg part of Mons Meg was added in the 16^th century. The scots called her Mounts or Mounce and were very proud of her because she was bigger than any gun the English had. A saying common in Scotland in her time was '...the devill shoote Mounts up your arse', the meaning of which is clear. We shall see more of her in the chapter on carriages to follow. By the early 1400s there had evolved types of pieces most of which were named after fabulous beasts or birds of prey, chief of which in descending order of size and calibre were: basilisk (8.75 inches), cannon (6 - 8.5), culverin (4.5 - 5.5), saker (around 3.5), minion (3.25), falcon (2.5) and falconets (around 2 inches). But there were variations within these types in both size and calibre. For example there were three sakers, a larger (8-pr), an ordinary (6-pr) and a smaller (5-pr). Where a gun seemed to belong to a certain type but was a bit odd it was called a bastard. And there were bastards in most types! Besides those types quoted above there existed a host of others, eg slings, murtherers, flankers, shrimps, orgues, aspics, sparrows, etc details of which have long been lost.

That the situation in battle was chaotic must be the understatement of all time. Not only were there large numbers of guns in either army of greatly differing calibres, such technicalities as tolerances in dimension were quite unknown. Thus the supply of ammunition must have created the father of all headaches! Not until the 17^th century did things really improve with the designation of ordnance being placed on a sounder footing. We shall look at this aspect in a later chapter.