Dilandu wrote:But the heretics were doing it. Somehow, they must be loading the accursed things from the breech end, like their damned infantry’s rifles!
Hm. Technically, the early bombards were breechloaders; so, the concept of breech-loading guns would not be something really surprizing. The main problems was the durability and reliability; up until the middle XIX century, the avaliable metal and technology simply was unable to build reliable breechloading gun of great calibre. But the concept was very well-known, so the surprise seems a bit too... surprising.
In Real Life you may well be right, but is there any textual evidence for breech-loading bombards on Safehold? If not, then they obviously didn't follow that track. What happened in RL doesn't necessarily happen on Safehold, as your complaints about the absence of Monitors shows.