by Nick Nutter

Created on: June 19, 2008

In Casemates Square, Gibraltar, there is a most unusual weapon, a cannon with a barrel pointing towards the ground. Visitors stand and wonder how the cannon ball was prevented from rolling out before the cannon could be fired. In fact the innovative part of this cannon is the carriage that allows the gun to be depressed, the ball was held in place by the wad that was pushed up the barrel after the ball as was common practice with all muzzle loaders. The cannon is a renovated example of Lieutenant Koehler's famous Depression Gun designed in 1782 at the height of the Great Siege.

The need for such extraordinary weapons illustrates the importance of Gibraltar; incumbents went to great lengths to retain this chunk of rock strategically placed to guard the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea. In the 500 years between 1309 and 1809 Gibraltar has been besieged fourteen times, surely a record of its own.

The first siege was in 1309. King Ferdinand IV of Castile was besieging Algeciras and charged Alonso Perez de Guzman, or Guzman el Bueno, with the task of taking Gibraltar from the Moors. Guzman accomplished this after a siege lasting one month.

The second in 1316 was an unsuccessful attempt to retake the rock for the Muslims by Caid Yahya.

In 1333 a Marinid army that had invaded Muslim Spain led by Abd al-Malik took Gibraltar after a siege lasting 5 months.

This was swiftly followed by the fourth siege when, in the same year, 1333, Alfonso XI of Castile attempted to take Gibraltar for Christian Spain with the aid of a fleet. He was attacked by Nasrids from Granada and the result was a truce.

In 1350 Alfonso XI tried again. On this occasion the Black Death decimated his army, including him.

The sixth siege in 1374 saw Gibraltar taken from the Marinids by the Nasrids of the Taifa of Granada.

In 1436 Enrique de Guzman, Count of Niebla unsuccessfully assaulted Gibraltar.

Castilian forces did not retake the Rock until the eighth siege in 1462.
Five years later, in 1467, Gibraltar was again besieged, this time for 16 months by the Duke of Medina Sidonia who was part of a nobility revolt against the monarch. He was granted Lordship of Gibraltar, a position the family held until 1501 when Gibraltar was ceded back to the crown.
In 1506 following a quarrel with Philip I of Castile, the Duke of Medina Sidonia attempted to take Gibraltar back. He failed and it was following this occasion that Gibraltar was awarded the title Most Loyal City'.

Gibraltar then stayed in Spanish hands for almost

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