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Atienza, Spanish, c. 1640-50

Length 55 in (139.6 cm), barrel 41.25 in (104.8 cm), calibre .31 in, length of chargers 3.75 in (9.5 cm)

Iron barrel and lock, and wooden stock with mounts partly of brass but mainly of iron, decorated with engraving and piercing, the butt-plate of tortoiseshell. Pressing the trigger forward releases a catch combined with the backsight - which is chiselled as a wolf's head - and allows the barrel to be broken downwards for the insertion of steel chargers (in effect, cartridges), each with its own frizzle and pan. The barrel is struck on top with a gold- (?brass) inlaid maker's mark comprising a castellated tower framing the surname 'ATIENZA', and the face of the breech is engraved with an unidentified Spanish coat of arms. Accompanied by a leather satchel on a shoulder-strap, embroidered with coloured poppies and pomegranates, and containing five spare chargers (making six in all).

Though Atienza was clearly a maker of distinction, nothing is known about him apart from the fact that his signature is recorded on two other guns, of which one is an ordinary single-shot muzzle-loader from the old Saxon royal armoury, now in the Historisches Museum, Dresden, and the other a breech-loader, closely similar to the Boughton gun, in the Musée de l'Armée, Paris. The latter bears the arms of King Philip IV of Spain (reigned 1621-65) and the combined monogram of himself and his first wife Isabelle de Bourbon, who died in 1644, so it must be earlier than the latter date.

An early eighteenth-century gun by Lewis Barber, working on a similar system and with a similar pouch of chargers, also at Boughton, may have been based on the Spanish piece. They are both listed in the 1801 Boughton inventory (the chargers separately): '12 Steel chargers for 2 jointed Muskets'; '1 Jointed Barrel ditto [fowling piece] (for the Chargers) 1 Spanish ditto'. The 1836 inventory includes only the entry '10 Steel chargers for 2 jointed Muskets'.

PROVENANCE The gun may have come to Boughton with a group of firearms bearing the crest of John, 2nd Duke of Argyll (1678 - 1743), since he was appointed ambassador to Spain and commander of the English forces there in 1711.