in the
County of Hainault in what is now Belgium, in June 1449; the duke did not take delivery of the Mons Meg until 1453. He gave the bombard to Scotland's King James II in 1457 as a sign of his support for the Scottish king, whose marriage he had helped negotiate. An alternative legend about its manufacture is that it was built by a local blacksmith for the siege of
Threave Castle in the
Stewartry of Kirkcudbright. According to this tale, which was lent credence by Sir Walter Scott, when King James arrived at Threave to besiege the
Earl of Douglas, the
Clan MacLellan presented him with this bombard. The first shot fired is said to have passed clean through the castle, severing the hand of
Margaret, Countess of Douglas, on the way. The gun was subsequently named after "Mollance", the lands given to the blacksmith for his service and "Meg", the name of his wife. Later historians have not taken this legend particularly seriously, not least because of the improbability that such a weapon could be forged by a village smith, as well as there being ample provenance showing its history. The cannon accepted stone
balls that weighed . In April 1497, John Mawer elder, one of the castle gunners, made new wheels for Mons Meg and the bombards. The cannon was drawn down the
Royal Mile to the sound of minstrels playing, placed on a new carriage or "cradle" and taken to assault
Norham Castle in August 1497.
Regent Albany brought Mons Meg to
Stirling Castle in August 1515 to threaten
Margaret Tudor, who kept her son
James V of Scotland in the castle. In early years the gun, like the other royal cannon, was painted with
red lead to keep it from rusting, which cost 30 shillings in June 1539. From the 1540s Meg was retired from service and was fired only on ceremonial occasions from Edinburgh Castle. When it was fired on 3 July 1558, soldiers were paid to find and retrieve the shot from
Wardie Muir, near the
Firth of Forth, a distance of two miles. The gun was fired on 30 October 1680 to celebrate a visit by
James, Duke of Albany and York (later King James VII), but the barrel burst. The cannon was left outside Foog's Gate at Edinburgh Castle. It was next taken, with other disused ordnance, to the
Tower of London in 1754, as a result of the disarming acts against
Jacobites aimed at removing weapons or spare cannon from the reach of rebellious folk.
Naming '' on display in
Ghent The gun is not called "Mons Meg" in any contemporary references until 1678. In 1489, she first appears in record as "Monss" and in the painter's account of 1539 she is called; "Monce in the castell", the only piece with an individual name. In 1650 she was noted as "Muckle Meg". "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 tested. McKenzie records that this class of artillery was known as a
murderer and Mons Meg was certainly described as such. Mons Meg was made in the town of Mons (now the Walloon French-speaking part of Belgium) or Bergen (in Dutch as in those days it was part of Flanders). Three cannons were founded: one resides in Edinburgh, one in the Flemish town of Ghent at the Friday Market, and one in France (but that one disappeared ages ago). The one in Ghent can be visited today, undamaged. The cannon is named "
Dulle Griet" which translates into "Mad Meg".
Evolution of the carriage of Mons Meg at
Edinburgh Castle in the 1680s, showing details of the carriage construction For a while in its early days, the gun sat on a plain box without any wheels. Evidently, when Mons Meg was removed from Edinburgh Castle in 1754, its carriage had long since rotted away. A contemporary account describes her as lying "on the ground" near the innermost gate to the castle. Presumably the Ordnance Board fabricated a new carriage after her arrival at the Tower. In 1835, after the return of Mons Meg to Edinburgh Castle, the London-made carriage rotted away too and fabrication of a cast-iron replacement was undertaken; the new carriage weighed three-and-a-half tons and cost £53. Mons Meg is now mounted on a reproduction of the carriage depicted in a carving of 1500 on a wall of Edinburgh Castle, built in 1934 at a cost of £178 and paid for by the
Lord Provost of Edinburgh. ==See also==