┌ Fire Arrows, &c. ┌ Hand ────────────────────────────────────│ Grenades, Incend. and │ └ Explos. │ │ Automatic ───────────────────────────────[ Rockets, War │ │ ┌ Charge ───────────────────────[ Gunpowder │ │ │ │ ┌ Darts, &tc. │ │ │ ┌ Stone │ │ │ Round │ Iron │ Cannon ─ │ ┌ Shock ─│ Shot │ Bronze │ │ │ │ └ Lead │ │ │ │ Case │ │ │ └ Sharapnel │ │ │ │ └ Projectiles ─│ ┌ Hot Shot AMMUNITION ─│ │ Incendiary ────│ Fireballs │ │ │ Shell │ │ └ Carcasses │ │ ┌ │ └ Explosive ─────│ Fireballs │ └ Shell │ │ ┌ Hot Wires │ │ Priming Powder │ │ Matches, Slow and Quick │ Igniters ────────────────────────│ Portfires │ │ ┌ Tubes │ │ Fuzes │ Time │ │ │ Percussion │ └ └ Concussion │ ┌ └ Signals ─────────────────────────────────│ Rockets └ Fixed Lights
The system of attaching incendiaries to arrows, lances, &c., survived the introduction of gunpowder and died a lingering death. In November 1588 the Government ordered the purchase of “20 Slurr Bows at 25s. each, and 20 doz. of firework arrows for the said slurr bows at 5s. the doz.”[380] From a list of naval stores for the year 1599, it would appear that fire-arrows were discharged from long-bows as well as slur-bows:—
“Slurbowe arrowes with firewoorkes, 184; inde 19 without firewoorkes. Longbowe arrowes with firewoorkes, 4 shef. 1 arr.”[381]
Hansard gives a plate of an English archer, 1250, with _spicula ignita_, or arrow tipped with wildfire.[382] Sir R. W. Payne-Gallwey gives a sketch of a slur-bow. It is a cross-bow, with a barrel and a single string which works in two slits cut in the sides of the barrel.[383]
Fire-lances were used, perhaps for the last time, at the first siege of Bristol, 1643. There, Prince Rupert tells us, “Captain Clerk, Ancient Hodgkinson, and some others running in upon (the Royalists) with fire-pikes, neither men nor horses were able to endure it. The fire-pikes did the feat.”[384]
Fire-arrows had a longer spell of existence, and were used by the Chinese against the French in 1860.[385]
Incendiary hand grenades are of great antiquity. We have seen that earthenware grenades were used at the siege of Salonika,[386] 904. Towards the end of the thirteenth century Hassan er-Rammah describes grenades made of bark, papyrus, or glass—materials well adapted to break up on impact and scatter about their burning contents.[387] They were used at the passage of the Lys in 1382:—“Adonc vinrent arbalêtriers et gens de pied avant; et si en y avait aucuns qui jetait de bombardes portatives et qui traioient grands quarriaulx empennés de fer,” &c.[388] By a common figure of speech Froissart calls the grenade a bombard, just as the author of the “Avowing of Arthur” calls a shot a gun:—