From today's Times newspaper:

Jacobites survived first grenade
By Gillian Harris, Scotland Correspondent

ARCHAEOLOGISTS excavating a 17th century battlefield believe they have unearthed the first hand grenade used on British soil.
The large, iron fragment was uncovered by archaeologists from Glasgow University on the site where the Battle of Killiecrankie was fought in 1689

The discovery shows that hand grenades were used by English grenadiers during their ill-fated clash with Jacobite troops near Pitlochry, in Perthshire, almost 100 years earlier than historians previously thought.
The grenade was found close to two perfectly preserved lines of musket balls which pinpoint the exact formation of the troops on the day of the famous Jacobite victory.
Tony Pollard, one of the archaeologists, said: “We have discovered the first occasion that a hand grenade as we know it was thrown on British soil. The 17th century grenades were hollow, iron spheres, slightly bigger than a cricket ball and packed with gunpowder with a fuse on top — like a cartoon bomb. This was thrown and as the fuse burned down it ignited the powder inside. The explosion broke the metal casing into fragments, sending them flying through the air and causing death and mayhem to enemy troops.”
Dr Pollard, who was working with Neil Oliver for the BBC Two television series Two Men in a Trench when they made the discovery, said that the grenade appeared to have evolved from an earlier version which was fired out of cannons in siege situations during the English Civil War.
The Battle of Killiecrankie on July 27, 1689, was one of the bloodiest of its time. About 2,500 Jacobites, led by John Graham of Claverhouse, known as Bonnie Dundee, slaughtered more than 4,000 English redcoats under the command of General Hugh MacKay, who recorded in his diary that his men were only able to fire two rounds from their muskets before being overwhelmed by Highlanders charging downhill.
The grenade fragment was found close to where the government forces were positioned. According to Dr Pollard, the grenade was thrown uphill but may have rolled back towards the English troops (  ). “The grenade may also have gone off prematurely as there is evidence that fuses were temperamental. Several grenadiers in that era lost hands because of this,” he said.
Tests conducted on several musket balls found by the archaeologists showed that some had passed through the bodies of Jacobite troops before coming to rest on the slopes of the Pass of Killicrankie.
Two Men in a Trench will be broadcast on BBC Two on Thursday at 7pm.
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Steve
Fair play, I seen it on another web site and thought it was intresting reading