Crossbows were banned in 1508 to promote and increase the use of the longbow. With the invention of the musket in 1520, the fate of the bow in Britain was just about sealed. In 1588, , and in 1595 all bows were ordered to be replaced by muskets. The last battle in which English archers were used was the battle at Tipper Muir in 1644. 

There are two references to use of the longbow in America by the English: 1) Raleigh was told to equip 150 of his expected 800 men with longbows. Did he send longbowmen to Roanoke? 2) After the 1622 attack, 400 longbows with 800 sheaves of arrows (a sheaf has 24 arrows) were to be sent to Jamestown. The leaders of the colony, however, directed that the weapons be sent to Bermuda and stored there within easy sailing distance of the colony. It was feared that if longbows fell into the hands of the Powhatans they would learn English technological secrets and improve their bows, making them more deadly.

By the late 15th century the matchlock was a subsidiary of the crossbow and by 1550 it had supplanted it as the main weapon on European battlefields and in the New World. It held its predominance until the 1620's, and by the fourth quarter of the 17th century it had virtually disappeared from use.

Matchlock terminology is confusing because it was known by three separate terms: 1) harquebus or arquebus, 2) caliver and, 3) musket.

The harquebus or arquebus was the most used firearm in the mid-16th century. During the 16th century, it was synonymous with the caliver, which meant that they were small match lock muskets NOT requiring the use of a rest to support the weight of the gun. In the 17th century, the term harquebus was used to identify a wheel lock firearm.

The musket was the largest matchlock requiring the use of a rest to support its weight of 20 pounds. It is believed the Duke of Alba introduced the matchlock musket into Spanish service in the mid- 16th century. By the 17th century, the English matchlock musket weighed 16 pounds and was 10 gauge. (Gauge is the diameter of a gun barrel as determined by the number of lead balls in a pound that exactly fit the barrel.) Its point blank range was 30 yards.

All matchlocks were based on the same firing principle; a matchcord (a loosely braided cord of hemp or flax soaked in a salt petre solution, allowed to dry, which burned at a slow rate of four to five inches an hour), held by a serpentine, a metal lock or arm, attached to a sear (inside the lock plate) which was attached to the trigger bar (which was later changed to a true trigger). Upward pressure on the trigger bar, or pulling the trigger, acted through the sear to depress the serpentine/matchcord onto the flashpan causing the ignition process. A light spring attached to the lock plate forced the serpentine back to its original position away from the flashpan. For safety, the flashpan was covered by a hinged plate which was pulled back from the flashpan by the firer prior to pulling the trigger.

The loading procedure was slow. The rate of fire was two times a minute, and it required great caution because the lighted match was always in close proximity to the powder.

WHEEL LOCKS

Wheel locks were sometimes called firelocks or harquebuses. They were developed around 1520, but their complexity and cost kept them from being widely used, especially in America.

The wheel lock had a superior ignition system to the matchlock. Its ignition system worked much like a modern cigarette lighter. A rough-edged steel wheel (which was wound with a key) was released by pulling the trigger, causing the wheel's edges to strike a piece of pyrite held in a separate metal arm called a dog head. The dog head/pyrite had been placed on top of the cover to the flashpan, the cover automatically opening with the pulling of the trigger. The contact of the wheel's edges with the pyrite started the ignition process. Loss of the key made the weapon useless.

Two complete and six fragmentary wheel locks have been discovered at Jamestown.

FLINTLOCKS

The flintlock was first developed in France in the early 17th century. Its ignition system proved more reliable than the matchlock and wheel lock. In addition, it was less complicated, safer, and less expensive to produce and maintain. Its principle was the same as starting a fire, striking flint on steel. Any weapon which used this ignition system was a flintlock. Today, six distinct types of flintlocks are recognized. However, in the 17th century these distinctions were not used. The classifications are: 1) snaphaunce, 2) English lock, 3) dog lock, 4) Scandinavian snaplock, 5) miquelet lock and, 6) the true flintlock. These terms merely denote revolutionary stages of development and/or regional differences.

SNAPHAUNCE--the flint was held in a vise on one end of the cock while the other end of the cock pivoted on the lock plate. When the trigger was pulled, it swung the flint bearing end of the cock in an arc to strike the steel called the battery. The battery was mounted on a separate pivoting metal arm opposite the cock. The flashpan was below the battery and was covered by a pan, which was either physically moved or automatically opened with the pulling of the trigger to expose the flashpan to the sparks created by the flint hitting the battery. The only safety on the weapon was the pivoting away of the battery from the flashpan. At Jamestown, one lock without a battery, one lock plate and three batteries have been found. Snaphaunces are the least found flintlock artifacts in America.

ENGLISH LOCK WITH ITS VARIANT THE DOG LOCK--the principle innovation was the forging of the steel and pan cover into one piece called the hammer or battery or frizzen. (Frizzen is more of an 18th c. term.) When hit by the flint held in the cock, the hammer would kick backwards away from the cock exposing the pan. The safety device was the half-cock position for the cock. The English lock achieved this with a notch in the tumbler inside the lock plate while the dog lock was a catch on the outside of the lock plate which held the cock in a half cock position. At Jamestown, one complete English lock and one complete dog lock have been found in addition to numerous cocks, most being of the dog lock variety.

MIQUELET--A mid-16th century Spanish innovation with the main spring on the outside of the lock plate. This saw very little use in America and only one has been found at Jamestown.

SCANDINAVIAN SNAPLOCK--Its distinctive characteristics are that some had a separate steel (hammer) and pan cover, while some had a frizzen of one piece. These were used by the Swedes while settling the Delaware River Valley in 1638.

TRUE FLINTLOCK--was developed in France between 1610-1615. Its innovation was the development of the sear inside the lock plate to move vertically to engage notches in a tumbler in order to hold the cock in a half- cock and/or full- cock position(s). It supplanted the dog lock by the third quarter of the 17th century and was probably introduced to America by 1660.

EVOLUTION OF FIREARMS AT JAMESTOWN:

1607--matchlocks with some wheel locks and snaphaunces.

1609--John Smith reports 300 muskets [matchlocks], snaphaunces and firelocks [wheel locks] at Jamestown.

1611--Martiall Lawes--all musketeers must carry muskets and officers, including sergeants and corporals, must carry snaphaunces or firelocks.

1624-25--1,089 firearms listed as being in the colony, of which only 47 are matchlocks.

1676--accounts relate that everyone is using flint arms and no matchlocks are being used. The use of the matchlock was not abandoned in Europe until the early 1700's. The conditions in the New World dictated the use of a more sophisticated firearm.

Between the twelfth and the eighteenth centuries, guns spread from China to western Asia, to Europe, and then around the world. They advanced from primitive experiments to precision technology. Warriors were forced to revise their strategies, sometimes adapting ancient battle formations to the new weaponry, while defenders had to find new ways to fortify outposts and cities.

Lighting the fire of discovery

Light a fire on a patch of dirt that has sulfur in it and you get a sizzling, popping reaction. Somebody whose name is lost to history noticed this a long time ago in China, an observation that led other Chinese to experiment with putting concentrated sulfur together with charcoal. By the ninth century AD, another genius added potassium nitrate crystals (saltpeter). Burn that mixture and you get sparkly effects that made a nice backdrop to formal ceremonies. Taoist monks played with these chemicals until they had fireworks.

Over time, pyrotechnicians (fireworks makers) also realized that their mixture, gunpowder, could make stuff fly - dangerous stuff. Soldiers noticed this, too. By the twelfth century, the armies of the Sung Dynasty added metal grenades to their arsenal. China pioneered fragmentation bombs, whose casings shattered into deadly shrapnel. Within another hundred years, Chinese factories made hundreds of military rockets and bombs, some filled with poisons, such as arsenic, that released on impact. Others were packed with tar and oil, designed to start fires. The Chinese also built early guns, metal barrels packed with gunpowder, which shot out a rock or a metal ball.

Spreading explosive news

News spread west along the ancient trade route, the Silk Road (which winds along a natural corridor between China's rugged mountains and extends all the way to the Mediterranean Sea). The Arabs got primitive firearms by the late thirteenth century. In 1267,the recipe for gunpowder turned up in Europe, in the hands of English scientist Roger Bacon.

Less than a century later, European armies began using crude cannons. Archers with longbows, not their innovative comrades who were trying out noisy, stinky little firepots, decided the 1346 battle of Crécy (in the Hundred Years' War between France and England), but the primitive cannon was a sign of things to come. The early European cannon was called a firepot because it was pot- shaped. It propelled an arrow (yes, an arrow) with impressive force, but little reliability, and no accuracy.

Craftsmen who until then made church bells were the earliest European gunmakers. Often they melted down bells to make cannons. Soon the gunmakers found out that a tubular barrel worked better, and that it should propel a metal shot. You could knock down a castle gate that way, or level a house.

Bringing in the big guns

By the early sixteenth century, the Italian writer Niccolo Machiavelli observed, "No wall exists, however thick, that artillery cannot destroy in a few days."

Guns were already big, although some of the biggest didn't work so well. In the early fifteenth century some weighed 1,500 pounds and discharged balls 30 inches in diameter. How did anybody back then make a cast-metal barrel that big? At first, it wasn't cast, but pieced together out of forged iron staves, like the curved boards used to form a pickle barrel. Iron hoops held the staves together - temporarily anyway.