Henry VIII 1509-1547

Henry VII had been chiefly occupied in securing the permanence of his dynasty, and although sometimes drawn into action abroad, had avoided any serious entanglement in continental politics. His son’s policy was the reverse of this, and his reign presents a series of unsuccessful attempts to make England the centre round which European politics were to revolve. These views necessitated the maintenance and employment of an armed force, and although the army was still considered the effective weapon of offence the growing opinion that the navy was essentially the national arm ensured a proper solicitude being bestowed upon it, although its real predominance was not yet recognised; ‘when we would enlarge ourselves let it be that way we can and to which it seems the eternal Providence hath destined us,’ was, we are told, the argument of those who were opposed to an invasion of France by land. The use of such reasoning as this shows that the epoch of maritime expansion was not far distant.

But besides deduction from past experience there were other causes working to induce a natural and, it may be said, almost automatic increase in the navy of the crown. In the past centuries ‘our ancient adversary’ of France had been the only enemy really within touch, and no systematic attack by sea from France had been practicable for more than a hundred years. But the consolidation of that kingdom, and the accession of Francis I, a monarch by no means indifferent to the supremacy of the sea, one of whose first acts was to order the construction and fortification of the Port of Havre in 1516-17, and who built ships and brought round fleets from the Mediterranean to contest the command of the channel, necessarily compelled a corresponding activity on the English side. Another circumstance enforcing increased naval strength was the union of Brittany with the French crown. This event was regarded by contemporary Englishmen somewhat in the light that we should now look upon the domination of the coastlines of Holland and Belgium by Germany and France. The marriage of Anne of Brittany to Charles VIII, in December 1491, gave France its most valuable arsenals and ports, and the command of a race of fine seamen. Henry VII, perhaps recognising that the subjection of the province could only at most be deferred and not prevented, made but perfunctory efforts, either by war or diplomacy, to hinder it. Hitherto, except for the customary practice of piracy, the Breton ports had been neutral or friendly, and the Breton seamen indifferent to the dynastic or national quarrels of the two great powers. In the future the ports were to be the chief source of danger to English maritime supremacy, and the men the mainstay of the navy which carried on a prolonged and doubtful contest with England for more than a century.

With Spain, notwithstanding isolated ship and fleet actions occasionally occurring, warfare had never been serious or continuous, nor had the political interests of the two countries been of such a nature as to bring them into conflict. The union, however, under the sway of Charles V, of the Empire, of Spain, and of the Netherlands, altered, in view of the new attitude assumed by Henry VIII, the pre-existing situation, and here again, besides the Imperial troops, Spanish fleets had to be reckoned with. Although those fleets were never in reality so powerful as they appeared to contemporary observers, the necessities of Trans-Atlantic voyages and the practice of ocean navigation had given experience to officers and men and improved the build of the ships, so far at anyrate as size and apparent power were concerned. Accommodation had to be supplied for larger crews and for numerous passengers, but the science of shipbuilding was not sufficiently advanced to meet these requirements except by methods which gave bigness at the expense of seaworthiness. But whatever the actual combatant value of the Spanish navy, or its power of mobilisation at any required moment and place, it was a factor to be considered in the counsels of the Emperor’s possible enemies and was another reason for the strengthening of the English navy. That that navy occupied a strategically advantageous position on the line of communication between the peninsular and northern possessions of the Empire was a fact not likely to be forgotten by the advisers of either Henry or Charles.

In the north a comparatively long peace with Scotland, and the distractions caused by the Wars of the Roses, had enabled that power to extend its commerce and obtain a prosperity reflected in the existence of a navy, for the first and only time strong enough to attract the attention of foreign observers. In 1512 James IV had three agents in France especially retained to arrange a supply of naval stores and ships, and Lord Darcy informed Henry that the king of Scotland, who spent much of his time on board the ships, possessed some sixteen or twenty men-of-war. The Great Michael recently built, and perhaps the actual instigation of the Henry Grace à Dieu, was one of the wonders of the country and reputed to be the largest and strongest vessel yet launched in northern latitudes. That ‘Jack Tarrett, a Frenchman,’ was her shipwright pointed to the ever present danger of the old alliance between France and Scotland, a danger much intensified if Scotland was to take a place as a naval power.

Without, therefore, attributing to Henry VIII an exceptional foresight, the conditions were such as to compel an increase in the navy commensurate with the larger aims of the royal policy and the wider duties the execution of such a policy involved. The navy was not relatively larger than it had been under some of the preceding kings, notably Henry V, the main distinction being that under Henry VIII it was slowly tending towards its future position as a principal instrument of offence instead of acting as a mere auxiliary. This, again, was as much, or more, due to the changed circumstances of land warfare as to any definite intention. The English army was still a militia; the troops of France and the Empire were now standing armies, highly trained and veterans in war. For most of the western countries the age of feudal levies was over, but England had not yet clearly acknowledged the new era. The troops sent under the Marquis of Dorset in 1512 to invade Guienne, in conjunction with Ferdinand’s Spaniards, returned home en masse in defiance of their commander’s and of Henry’s orders and threats. ‘The world was breathless with astonishment at such a flagrant act of insubordination.’ An English army was not yet composed of ragged losels pressed from the gutter, but the ancient feudal tie which knit together knight and retainer was almost destroyed. Armies of this type could not possibly match themselves against the professional continental soldiers. But the country could not have afforded nor would it have permitted a permanent military force, therefore either its claims to exercise a powerful mediatory position were to be forsaken or that peculiar genius for the sea, which had hitherto been of secondary use but which had always been implicitly recognised as the especial heritage of the race, was to replace the mere ability to fight it shared with many other nations. But for the singular skill of the English archer the change would have come long before; improvements in artillery and musketry at last compelled it. The effects were not plainly seen till the reign of Elizabeth, but the militant history of Henry VIII is a series of steps—whether due to a sagacious recognition of the altered situation or to a mechanical compliance with it—towards an increase in the power and use of the Navy, and improvements in its administration, although, as the traditions of centuries are not lightly set aside, armies were still levied to fulfil their ancient rôle in France.

There was also another and personal element which doubtless had its influence. Henry was, if not a born sailor, at least something more than a yachtsman. He was continually inquiring about the merits of new ships, and requiring reports on their sailing qualities in a way that implied some technical knowledge, and showed a real interest beyond the political one in sea affairs. He is said to have been himself the designer of a new model. Sometimes he acted as an amateur master or pilot and dressed the character, of course in cloth of gold. On one occasion when present at the launch of a vessel he wore vest and breeches of cloth of gold, and scarlet hose, with a gold chain and whistle. This was a factor which helped the progress of events, but which could have had little influence had the royal inclination been contrary to the tendency of the time.

The following list of the men-of-war of the reign, has for convenience been thrown into a tabular form, which, however, gives it a fuller and more final appearance than it is intended to claim. The records are not sufficiently complete or detailed to enable the inquirer to be certain in all cases of the exact year of building, rebuilding or purchase, and a further element of uncertainty is introduced by the changes of name which occurred, and continuity of name in what may be supposed to be new ships, but of whose building there is no distinct evidence. The dates printed in heavier type may be taken as exact; the others can only be regarded as likely to be correct, and the tonnage varies at different times in nearly every ship. From the preceding reign came the Regent, Sovereign, Mary and John, (or Carvel of Ewe), Sweepstake and Mary Fortune.

Built Bought Rebuilt Prize Tonnage

Sovereign 1509 600

Peter Pomegranate 1509 1536 450

Mary Rose 1509 1536 500

Gabriel Royal 1509 700

Mary James 1509 1524 300

Mary George 1510 300

Lion 1511 120

Jennet Pyrwin 1511 70

John Baptist 1512 400

Great Nicholas 1512 400

Anne Gallant 1512 140

Dragon 1512 100

Christ 1512 300

Lizard 1512 120

Swallow 1512 1524 80

Kateryn Fortileza 1512 700

Great Bark 1512 400

Less Bark 1512 160

Kateryn Galley 1512 80

Rose Galley 1512

Henry Galley 1512

Lesser Barbara 1512 160

Great Barbara 1513 400

Black Bark 1513

Henry of Hampton 1513 120

Great Elizabeth 1514 900

Henry Grace à Dieu 1514 1540 1000

Mary Imperial 1515 1523 120

Mary Gloria 1517 300

Kateryn Plesaunce 1518 100

Trinity Henry 1519 80

Mary and John 1521

Mawdelyn of Deptford 1522 120

Great Zabra 1522 50

Lesser Zabra 1522 40

Fortune or Hulk 1522 160

Bark of Morlaix 1522 60

Mary Grace 1522

Bark of Boulogne 1522 80

Primrose 1523 1536 160

Minion 1523 180

New Bark 1523 200

Sweepstake 1523 65

John of Greenwich 1523 50

Mary Guildford 1524 160

Lion 1536 160

Mary Willoby 1536 160

Jennet 1539 200

Mathew 1539 600

Sweepstake 1539 300

Less Galley 1539 400

Great Galley 1539 500

Salamander 1544 300

Unicorn 1544 240

Pauncye 1544 450

Mary Hambro 1544 400

Jesus of Lubeck 1544 600

Struse of Dawske 1544 400

L’Artique 1544 100

Swallow 1544 240

Dragon 1544 140

Fawcon 1544 100

Galley Subtylle 1544 300

Marlion 1545 70

Mary Thomas 1545 100

Mary James 1545 120

Mary Odierne 1545 70

Hind 1545 80

Grand Mistress 1545 450

Anne Gallant 1545 400

Greyhound 1545 200

Saker 1545 60

Brigandine 1545 40

Less Pinnace 1545 60

Hare 1545 30

Roo 1545 80

Morian 1545 400

Galley Blancherd 1546

Christopher 1546 400

George 1546 60

Phœnix 1546 40

Antelope 1546 300

Tiger 1546 200

Bull 1546 200

Hart 1546 300

13 Rowbarges 1546 20

We are accustomed to the general statement that Henry VIII enlarged the navy, but the foregoing list shows a much more extensive increase than is implied by a general expression and, if so far as number is concerned it errs at all, it errs on the side of omission. A little indulgence in admitting names could have extended it considerably. No foreign purchased merchantman has been inserted without the authority of a definite statement, or unless it appears in lists later than the reign under consideration; but there are foreign ships omitted as only temporarily hired which may really have belonged to the crown. Other vessels which occur in almost indistinguishable fashion among men-of-war have been left out in view of the custom which frequently obtained of describing hired ships as king’s ships while they were in the royal service, and in some cases it has been found impossible to satisfactorily trace particular vessels. For instance, during the first half of the reign a ‘great galley’ of 600 or 800 tons, flits in a most puzzling way through some, but not the most reliable, of the papers. I take it to have been an indefinite designation applied at various times to various ships, but that opinion may be altogether wrong and it may be the actual name of a large vessel which has left no other indication of its existence. Again, the Earl of Southampton, for four years Admiral of England, bequeathed Henry his ‘great ship’ by his will dated September 1542. The Earl died in 1543, but which is the ship in question, or whether it appears at all in the foregoing list, cannot be determined.

Exclusive of the thirteen rowbarges, there are eighty-five vessels, and of these forty-six were built, twenty-six purchased, and thirteen were prizes. The periods of greatest activity synchronise with war with France 1512-14, war with France and Scotland 1522-5, with the possibility in 1539 of a general alliance on religious grounds against England, and with war against France and Scotland in 1544-6. But allowing for uncertainty of dates, possibility of omissions, and our almost entire ignorance of the repairs and rebuildings which must have been progressing uninterruptedly, there is no cessation of vigorous action throughout the reign. The existing dockyards could have hardly been equal to the demands on them for repairs alone, and this is doubtless one reason for the large number of ships purchased, a course which was also probably cheaper for the moment. All Henry’s foreign purchases seem to have been Italian or Hanseatic. During 1511-14 he hired several Spaniards and tried to buy some, but his desires were vain in face of the strict Spanish navigation laws. In 1513 the Spanish envoy, de Quiros, was instructed to inform the king that the sale of Spanish ships abroad was forbidden under heavy penalties, and that his government could not permit them to be sold even to Henry. In fact we find from another source that the sale of ships was forbidden to foreigners even though they were naturalised Spanish subjects, and as, from October 1502, a bounty of 100 maravedis a ton was given up to 1500 tons it is hardly surprising that their sale to aliens was sternly interdicted. In 1513 Knight wrote to Henry that the whole of a Spaniard’s goods had been confiscated for selling a carrack to him. Under these circumstances the king had to buy in the North German ports, and, judging from the small number of years most of them remained in the effective, many must have been built for the purpose of sale to him.

The vessel which has the chief place in popular memory is the Henry Grace à Dieu, but she probably differed little in size, form, or equipment, from others nearly as large. Her total cost, with the three small barques built with her, was £8708 5s 3d, but out of the 3739 tons of timber used 1987 cost nothing being presented by several peers, private persons, and religious bodies. According to the accounts she was constructed under the supervision of William Bond, but if a nearly contemporary letter may be trusted Brygandine, the clerk of the ships designed and built her. Bond’s connection with her may have been merely financial and confined to payments of money. Fifty-six tons of iron, 565 stones of oakum and 1711 lbs of flax were other items. She was a four-master and possibly a two-decker with fore, main and mizen top-gallant sails, but with only two sails on the other masts, and with two tops on each of the three principal masts. All ships but the very smallest had four masts, the two after ones being called, respectively, the main and bonaventure mizens. There was nothing exceptional in the Henry’s fittings, top-gallant sails being known to have been used in the previous reign, and, as at that time, the topmasts were not arranged for lowering. An equivalent to the ease given a labouring ship by striking the topmasts was obtained by lowering the fore and main yards to the level of the bulwarks. As most of the guns were carried in the poop and forecastle ships must have been ‘built loftie’ on the Spanish model and presented a squat and ungainly appearance. Vessels were now mostly carvel built, and those clench, or clinker, built, were regarded as too weak to stand the shock of collision when boarding was intended. Speaking of some foreign ships brought into Portsmouth, Suffolk wrote that some of them were ‘clenchers, both feeble, olde, and out of fashion,’ and therefore not to be taken up for service with the fleet.

Spritsails were now coming into more common use and, with the spanker on the bonaventure mizen or fourth mast and sometimes with another on the main mizen, served the purpose of the later fore-and-aft sails. Vessels were now, although still slowly and clumsily, able to work more closely to windward. There is one entry which runs ‘eight small masts at 6s 8d the pece ymploied in the Great Bark and other the Kynges shipps for steddying saills.’ It can only be said that there is no mention in the inventories, or any sign in the drawings of ships of this century, of what are now called studding sails.

An ordinary vessel appears to have been armed along the waist, in her forecastle of two or three tiers, and in her summer castle or poop, also divided into decks. For some of these ships we still have the armament:—

Great Elizabeth Single Serpentines Double Serpentines Slings Half Slings Stone Guns Murderers

Fo’c’stle { Upper Deck 2

{ Middle Deck 16

{ Nether Deck 12 8

Waist

Stern 2 1

Poop { Upper Deck 12 2

{ Middle Deck 41

{ Nether Deck 3 2 16 6

Great Barbara Falcons Single Serpentines Double Serpentines Slings Half Slings Stone Guns Murderers

Fo’c’stle { Upper Deck 7 2

{ Middle Deck

{ Nether Deck 7 2

Waist 6 2

Stern

Poop { Upper Deck 6

Middle Deck { 2 2

{ Nether Deck 4

Ships like the Henry, Sovereign, and Mary Rose carried also heavier pieces than these, the commencement of the change to fewer but more powerful guns, which progressed rapidly during the middle of the century. The Mary Rose had 79 guns (besides six in her tops), of which 33 were serpentines, 26 stone guns, and 10 murderers, but she also had five brass curtalls and five brass falcons. The Sovereign, when rebuilt in 1509, was given four whole and three half curtalls of brass, three culverins, two falcons, and eleven heavy iron guns among her 71 guns. The curtall, or curtow, was a heavy gun of some 3000 lbs., hitherto only used as a siege piece on land, and its transference to maritime use marks a revolution in ship armament which deserves attention. The Mary Rose and Sovereign were in 1509, the two most powerfully armed ships which had yet existed in the English navy, perhaps the most powerfully armed ships afloat anywhere that year, and it is curious to notice that the Peter Pomegranate built with them was fitted in the old style, with innumerable serpentines which could have been of little more effect than toy guns, appearing almost as though the contrast was an intentional experiment. At any rate with the heavier armaments of the Sovereign and Mary Rose, commences the long struggle between the attack and defence still going on, for hitherto there had been practically no attack so far as a ship’s sides were concerned.

The system was extended as the reign progressed, and in 1546, we find comparatively small ships like the Grand Mistress carrying two demi cannons and five culverins, the Swallow one demi cannon and two demi culverins, out of a total of eight heavy guns; the Anne Gallant four culverins, one curtall, and two demi culverins; the Greyhound one culverin, one demi culverin, and two cannons petro, besides their other smaller pieces. Even the Roo of 80 tons has two demi culverins and three cannons petro. To measure the full extent of the change we must compare these vessels with the Henry, of three or four times their tonnage, which in 1514, carried only one bombard, two culverins, six falcons and one curtow, in addition to 126 serpentines and 47 other guns of various but probably light weights, seeing that most of them were used with chambers.

To whom was this innovation due? It commenced with Henry’s accession, and if not owing to his direct initiative, he has the merit of recognising its value and persistently putting it into execution. But we know from other non-naval documents that he had some knowledge of artillery and took an active personal interest in such matters, and it may very well be that the improvement was his own. In any case it was one in which England took and kept the lead, and which gave the country an incalculable advantage in the contest with Spain during the close of the century.

From other papers we can ascertain with sufficient completeness the character of the weapons and stores for offensive purposes carried on board. There is a state paper of July 1513, coincident with the invasion of France which gives the following details:—

Soldiers Sailors Gunners Bows Bowstrings Sheaves of Arrows Bills Morrispikes Stakes Gunpowder Harness

Henry Grace à Dieu 400 260 40 2000 5000 4000 1500 1500 2000 5 lasts 500

Gabriel Royal 350 230 20 500 1500 1200 500 500 400 2 ” 300

Mary Rose 200 180 20 350 700 700 300 300 200 3 ” 220

Sovereign 400 260 40 500 1500 1200 500 500 500 2 ” 300

Kateryn Fortileza 300 210 40 350 700 700 300 300 200 3½ ” 220

Peter Pomegranate 150 130 20 300 600 600 250 250 200 8 brls 180

Great Nicholas 135 15 250 500 500 200 200 160 6 ” 160

Mary James 150 85 15 200 500 400 160 160 160 6 ” 130

Mary and John 100 100 200 500 400 160 160 160 6 ” 90

Great Bark 150 88 12 200 500 500 200 200 160 6 ” 130

John Baptist 150 135 15 250 500 500 200 200 160 6 ” 160

Lizard 60 32 8 80 200 160 60 60 50 3 ” 50

Jennet 10 44 6 60 150 120 50 50 50 3 ” 35

Swallow 20 46 4 60 150 120 50 50 40 3 ” 35

Sweepstake 66 4 60 150 120 50 50 40 3 ” 35

The reader will remark the small number of gunners allowed. The Sovereign had 70 or 80 pieces and the proportion here does not allow even one gunner to a piece on a broadside. Perhaps the soldiers manned the guns, but it is more likely that the seamen were beginning to take a combatant part instead of confining themselves to working the ship. Bows and arrows still formed an important part of the equipment, but although we have no similar list for shot the amount of powder shows the reliance now placed on artillery and musket fire. Incidentally, among remains of stores, we find ‘200 harquebus shot,’ 900 serpentine shot, 1350 iron ‘dyse,’ 8 darts for wildfire, to set the sails of an enemy’s ship on fire, and two chests of wildfire with quarrels. Also ‘300 small and grete dyse of iern,’ 420 stone and 1000 leaden shot, 120 shot of iron ‘with cross bars,’ 22 ‘pecks for to hew gonstones’ and 74 arrows of wildfire.

The well known picture of the embarkation of Henry VIII at Dover, on his way to the interview with Francis I in 1520, represents the Henry Grace à Dieu as the chief ship in the fleet. This was inherently improbable as the Henry drew too much water to enter either Dover or Calais harbours, but it can be proved to be incorrect from documentary evidence. The squadron consisted of the Great Bark, Less Bark, Kateryn Plesaunce, Mary and John, and two rowbarges. The interview was originally proposed for 1519 and a year previously on 22nd May 1518, the Kateryn Plesaunce was commenced for the express purpose of carrying the King and Queen across the Channel. She cost £323, 13s 9d, including the victualling and lodging expenses of the men working upon her, and required 80 tons of ballast. In none of the accounts relating to men-of-war are there any details of extrinsic decoration, if it existed, and even in the Kateryn, intended for a royal pleasure trip there is only one charge of ten shillings for painting and gilding the ‘collere.’ House carpenters were employed for ‘the makynge of cabons and embowynge of wyndows,’ and although the chief cabin was wainscoted and lighted by 112 feet of glass, the Queen’s own cabin was cheaply furnished with a dozen ‘joined stools’ at tenpence apiece.

The Kateryn was sometimes called a bark and sometimes a galley and this leads us to the question of the classification of the royal vessels. If we accept without inquiry that of the list of 5th January 1548, we find ships like the Anne Gallant, Unicorn, Salamander, Tiger, Hart, Antelope, Lion, Dragon, Jennet, Bull and Greyhound, described as galleys. But in Anthony’s list of 1546 the same vessels are called galleasses; obviously therefore the two words did not define particular types as rigidly as they do among naval archæologists to-day, or even as they did towards the end of the sixteenth century. The Kateryn galley of 1512 was a three masted vessel with bowsprit and fore and main topmasts, as was also the Rose another ‘galley’ of the early years of the reign. Both were supplied with oars—thirty—as was usual with small vessels long after this date when the name galley had fallen into disuse. Another, the Sweepstake (of Henry VII), had a mizen mast, and a sprit mast on the bowsprit, so that it may be assumed that she also was a three-master although elsewhere she is described as ‘the king’s rowbarge called the Sweepstake.’

In 1546 the Hart, Antelope, Tiger, and Bull are four-masted flush-decked ships, apparently pierced on a lower gun deck for nine pieces a side; the Anne Gallant and Grand Mistress four-masters, of 450 tons, with forecastle and poop, carrying guns on the upper and on a lower deck; the Greyhound, Lion, Jennett, and Dragon, are similar well-decked vessels with the addition of great stern and quarter galleries extending nearly the whole length of the poop and nearly one-third of the length of the vessel. The contradictions we have to face can be best exemplified by one example, the Greyhound, which in the 1548 list is called a galley, in a 1546 list said to be a copy of Anthony’s, a galleass, and in that portion of Anthony’s manuscript remaining in the Museum, a ship. This last authority, a series of original drawings, calls only the Greyhound, Lion, Jennett, and Dragon, ‘ships’ and the only point in which they seem to differ from the ordinary type is in the possession of the stern and quarter galleries. If these drawings are accurate, and they so far differ from each other as to lead us to suppose that they were intended to portray individual ships, it is impossible that any one of them can have been impelled by oars, although sweeps may have been occasionally and temporarily used for a particular purpose. They may have been worked from the gun-ports, in which case the Grand Mistress could only have used eight a side. The conclusion therefore is that the term galley did not imply an oared vessel of the Mediterranean type, such as we now associate with the word, but was applied first to light ships small enough to use sweeps when necessary, and later to an improved model, possibly built on finer lines than the heavy, slow moving hulks of the beginning of the reign, and expected to bear, to the ponderous 600 or 1000 ton battle ship, the same relation in speed that the real galley bore to a mediæval sailing vessel. A fleet formation of 1545 was of course based on that customary in an army and we have Van, Battle or main body, and Wing, arranged for. In that year some of the vessels just mentioned were not yet afloat, but the Salamander, Swallow, Unicorn, Jennett, Dragon, and Lion were included in the Battle. The Wing, composed of ‘galliasses and ships with ores,’ comprised among others, the Grand Mistress, Anne Gallant, and Greyhound. That they should have been classed with ‘the ships with ores,’ does not show that they were of the same order, but only that they were supposed to be sufficiently handy under sail to act with them.

There was therefore a certain number of ships, large and small, vaguely and uncertainly called galleys, possessing certain modifications on the normal type, and there is some reason to believe that the innovation, whatever may have been the particular change in form or structure, was due to Henry himself. He sometimes appears to have had his own designs carried out; a prize was to be altered ‘so as she now shall be made in every point as your Grace devised.’ In 1541 Chapuys wrote to the emperor:

‘The King has likewise sent to Italy for three shipwrights experienced in the art of constructing galleys, but I fancy that he will not make much use of their science as for some time back he has been building ships with oars according to a model of which he himself was the inventor.’

Chapuys must have been referring to the earlier Rose, Kateryn, and Swallow type, and possibly to others not now to be traced; but to the presence of the Italian shipwrights was undoubtedly owing the launch of the Galley Subtylle in 1544. ‘Subtylle’ was not an especial name, but was applied to a class more lightly built and quicker in movement than the ordinary galley. This was the only real galley built by him since it differed in no respect from the standard Mediterranean pattern, but in 1546 thirteen ‘rowbarges’ of twenty tons apiece were added to the Navy. These were rowing vessels, and unless intended for scouting or for towing and to give general assistance, it is difficult to see their utility as they were too small to engage with any chance of success. In the result they were sold within a year or two of Henry’s death. The sixteenth century galley service, such as it was, was forced on the English government by the action of Francis I in bringing his own and hired galleys round from the Mediterranean. It was always repugnant to the national temperament and soon languished when the exciting cause was removed. Although three or four galleys were carried on the navy list until 1629 the last years in which any served at sea were 1563 and 1586.

These various attempts at evolving a new type, which should combine the best points of the galley and the sailing vessel, show that Henry recognised at least some of the faults of the man-of-war of his day. He failed because the solution was not within the scientific knowledge of his time, and perhaps also because the work of the galley benches must have been abhorrent to the hereditary instincts and traditions of the English sailor. But he was the first English king who gave the Navy some of that forethought and effort at improvement that had hitherto been devoted wholly to the army. His experiments left so little visible trace in the one direction that in 1551 Barbaro could write to the Seigniory, ‘They do not use galleys by reason of the very great strength of the tides,’ but, in another, the drawings of the last ships launched, the four of 1546, one of which, the Tiger, is reproduced in the frontispiece—comparatively low in the water, little top-hamper, neat and workmanlike in appearance—show a very great advance on anything before afloat, and indicate a steady progression towards the modern type.

If we are to judge of the decoration of ships by the references to ornament in the naval accounts, we should have to conclude that it was entirely absent. Unquestionably it was to a certain extent present, since its absence would have been contrary to the instincts of humanity and the customs of every nation that has had a navy. But it could not have been as extensive as it afterwards became, nor have taken any very expensive form. The hulls were doubtless painted as in the previous reign, but the bows and stern seem to have been quite devoid of carving or gilding. The tops, which were large enough to hold heavy guns, were ornamented with ‘top-armours’ of red, yellow, green, or white kersies lined with canvas. The Sovereign had copper and gilt ornaments on the end of the bowsprit, and gilt crowns for the mast heads had been an embellishment used for centuries. The Unicorn and Salamander have representative figures on their beakheads, but as they were prizes no deduction can be drawn as to English custom. The English built ships have no figurehead, but the beakhead sometimes ends in a spur, implying the idea of ramming. This spur, however, points upward and is much too high to have been of any use for that purpose. The ships’ sides were still surrounded with pavesses, now only light wooden shields and decorations, but which were survivals of the real shields of knights and men-at-arms in ancient vessels, ranged round the sides of the ship until needed for fighting. A hundred years later the cloth weather protection round the oarsmen of a Mediterranean galley was still called the pavesade. These pavesses seem to have sometimes taken the place of bulwarks, not always present. In 1513 Sir Edward Echyngham, captain of a ship then at sea wrote that he had fallen in with three Frenchmen,

‘Then I comforted my folk and made them to harness, and because I had no rails upon my deck I coiled a cable round about the deck breast high, and likewise in the waist, and so hanged upon the cable mattresses, dagswayns, and such bedding as I had within board.’

The form of expression suggests that the absence of rails was unusual.

Of the rate of sailing attained by these ships and their weatherly qualities we know hardly anything. On 22nd March 1513 Sir Edward Howard wrote to Henry, evidently in answer to a royal command to make a report on the subject, describing the merits of the squadron he had been trying, apparently between the Girdler and the North Foreland. The Kateryn Fortileza sails very well; the Mary Rose is ‘your good ship, the flower I trow of all ships that ever sailed;’ the Sovereign, ‘the noblest ship of sail is this great ship at this hour that I trow be in Christendom.’ Some time, but not long, before 1525 the Sovereign was in very bad condition, and her repair was urged because ‘the form of which ship is so marvellously goodly that great pity it were she should die.’ Her name however does not subsequently occur and she was probably broken up. In 1522 Sir William Fitzwilliam related in a letter to the king that the Henry sailed as well or better than any ship in the fleet, that she could weather them all except the Mary Rose, and that she did not strain at her anchors when it was blowing hard. It seems rather late in the day for a trial of a vessel afloat in 1514, but some alterations may have been previously made rendering it advisable. Even when ill and near his end Henry evinced the same interest in the seagoing qualities of his ships, since we learn from a letter of 1546 that he had required to be informed whether ‘the new shalupe was hable to broke the sees.’

If carving, gilding, and painting were scant on these ships they shone bravely with flags and streamers. Those of the Peter Pomegranate were banners of St Katherine, St Edward, and St Peter, six of the arms of England in metal; of a Red Lion; four of the Rose and Pomegranate; two of ‘the castle,’ and eight streamers of St George. The Henry Grace à Dieu was furnished with two streamers for the main mast respectively 40 and 51 yards long, one for the foremast of 36 yards, and one for the mizen of 28 yards; there were also ten banners 3½ yards long, eighteen more 3 yards long, wrought with gold and silver and fringed with silk, ten flags of St George’s Cross, and seven banners of buckram, at a total cost of £67, 2s 8d. Banners mentioned in other papers were, of England, of Cornwall, of a rose of white and green, of a Dragon, of a Greyhound, of the Portcullis, of St George and the Dragon, of St Anne, of ‘white and green with the rose of gold crowned,’ of ‘murrey and blue with half rose and half pomegranate, with a crown of gold,’ and of ‘blue tewke with three crowns of gold.’ White and green were now the recognised Tudor colours, and there is some indication of their use in that sense in the reign of Henry VII; the Greyhound was the badge of that king, the Dragon of his son. The Portcullis referred to the control of the straits of Dover, the Pomegranate to Catherine of Aragon and Spain; the constant recurrence of the Rose as a badge and as a ship’s name needs no explanation. The banner with the representation of a saint upon it was a survival of the custom existing in earlier times, by which every ship was dedicated to a saint, under whose protection it was placed and whose name it usually bore.

Besides ornament flags had long served the more prosaic purpose of signalling. Even among merchantmen there seem to have been some recognised signals, as in 1517 the Mary of Penmark, driven into Calais by bad weather, hoisted ‘a flag in the top,’ for a pilot. This signal must therefore have long been common to at least two seafaring peoples. So far as the Royal Navy was concerned, we can only say that a flag ‘on the starboard buttock’ of the admiral’s ship called his captains to a council. But a system of day and night signalling had long been in existence in the Spanish service, and in view of the close connection between the two countries commercially, and the employment of Spanish ships and seamen by the crown, it would have been extraordinary had it not been known and used here. According to Fernandez de Navarrete a scheme of signals for day and night use was practised in 1430. In 1517 a flag half way up the main mast called the captains to the flagship; sight of land was announced by a flag in the maintop; a strange ship by one half way up the shrouds, and more than one strange sail by two flags placed vertically. A ship requiring assistance fired three guns, and sent a man to wave a flag in her top, while if the admiral’s ship showed a flag on her poop, every captain was to send a boat for orders. A code with guns and lights made the corresponding signals during darkness and fog.

The earliest set of regulations for the government of a fleet in this reign is contained in an undated paper entitled ‘A Book of Orders for the War by Se and Land,’ prepared by Thomas Audley by command of Henry. The articles relating to sea matters, and dealing with the management of a fleet may be thus summarised:—

1. No Captain shall go to windward of his Admiral. 2. Disobedient captains shall be put ashore. 3. No ship to ride in the wake of another. 4. If the enemy be met the weather-gage is to be obtained; only the Admiral shall engage the enemy’s Admiral, and every ship is, as nearly as possible to attack an opponent of equal strength. 5. Boarding not to be undertaken in the smoke, nor until the enemy’s deck had been cleared with small shot. 6. If a captured ship could not be held the principal officers were to be taken out of her, the vessel ‘boulged,’ and ‘the rest committed to the bottome of the sea for els they will turne upon you to your confusion.’ 7. When going into action the Admiral is to wear a flag at his fore and main, and the other ships at the mizen. 8. The Admiral shall not enter an enemy’s harbour, nor land men without calling a council.

From the last regulation it would appear that only limited authority was left to the admiral, and it was perhaps due to Sir Edward Howard’s actions of 1512 and 1513, the last of which, an attempt to cut out galleys, was a defeat, and cost Howard his life. From the second it seems that little disciplinary power was left in the admiral’s hands, and from the seventh that it was not customary to fly the colours at sea. It will be observed, from the methodical way in which the captains were directed to go into action, that the tendency was still strong to handle a fleet as troops and companies were handled ashore.

The next fleet orders show little alteration.

1. Every ship shall retain its place in the Van, Battle, and Wing, and every captain take his orders from the commander of his own division. 2. In action the Van shall attack the French Van, Admiral engage Admiral, and every captain a Frenchman of equal size. 3. The Wing shall always be to windward so that it may ‘the better beate off the gallies from the great ships.’ 4. The watchword at night to be ‘God save King Henry,’ when the other shall answer ‘Long to raigne over us.’

This fleet is the first recorded to have been opened into divisions, each section being distinguished by the position of a flag. The Lord Admiral flew the royal arms in the main top and the St George’s cross at the fore, while the other ships of the ‘battaill’ carried the St George at the main. The admiral commanding the Van wore the St George’s cross at the fore and main, and the rest of his command the same flag at the fore. The officer commanding the Wing flew the St George in both mizen tops and those under him in one.

The hour of the professional seamen had not yet come for either admirals or captains. Like most of Henry’s executive or administrative officers they were taken from among the men he saw daily round him at court. It would be unfair to suppose this the cause that the Navy did little during his reign, for the very existence of a powerful fleet is often reason enough why its services should not be needed. It was not until 1545 that the French made any real attempt to contest the command of the sea. In that year John Dudley, Lord Lisle, afterwards Duke of Northumberland, commanded the English forces, and, in a position where some of Sir Edward Howard’s bull like tactics might have been judicious, he failed to come aux prises with his adversary. If we may believe his own confessions he distrusted his powers and recognised his incapacity, but in after years, when the aggrandisement of his family was concerned, he showed no such hesitating modesty. On one occasion he wrote to Henry admitting his want of experience but expressing a hope that ‘the goodness of God’ would serve instead. On another, he said, ‘I do thynck I shuld have doon his Maiestie better service in some meaner office wherein to be directed and not to be a director.’ If honestly felt this frame of mind was hardly calculated to inspirit his subordinates.

Although the office of admiral as a commander of a fleet dates from the thirteenth century it was for long only a temporary appointment, obtaining its chief importance from the character of the person holding it. When several fleets were at sea and the principal command was vested in one person he became for the time, Admiral of England, laying down his title with his command. From the beginning of the fifteenth century this office of ‘Great Admiral of England, Ireland and Aquitaine’ became a permanent one, carrying with it the control of all the maritime strength of the crown, and being usually bestowed on a relative of the sovereign. The first of such patents is of 23rd Dec. 1406, and bears a resemblance, in the powers and privileges it confers, to the similar ones of the Admiralship of Castile, that can hardly be accidental. But as far as the navy was concerned his duties were purely militant, and there is no trace of his interference in administration.

The ‘Great Admiral’ also possessed jurisdictive functions, trying, by his deputy, all maritime causes, civil and criminal. The fees and perquisites attached to the exercise of these duties made the post valuable in the fifteenth century, but it does not appear to have ensured any especial political power to its holder during that troubled time.

Frequently it became a mere court title of honour; the Earl of Oxford was Great Admiral during the whole reign of Henry VII, but his name never occurs in naval affairs. In many instances, during the fifteenth century, the Admiral of England did not command at sea at all, but during the reign of Henry VIII the post became one of actual executive control, and, later, of administrative responsibility. The Lords Admirals of this reign were mostly men who, before or afterwards, held other important State or Household appointments and who had no expert knowledge of their duties. The Earl of Oxford was succeeded by Sir Edward Howard by Letters Patent of 15th August 1512; his brother, Lord Thomas Howard, son of the victor of Flodden, was appointed 4th May 1513; Henry, Duke of Richmond, illegitimate son of the King, 16th July 1525; William Fitzwilliam, Earl of Southampton, 16th August 1536; John, Lord Russell, 18th July 1540; and John Dudley, Lord Lisle, 27th January 1543. That most of these men had no experience whatever of the sea was not considered detrimental to their efficiency.

There were not many men-of-war lost during Henry’s reign, but both absolutely and relatively, seeing the little active service undergone by the Navy, the number is much larger than under Elizabeth. The Regent was burnt in action in 1512. In 1513 a ship commanded by Arthur Plantagenet, an illegitimate son of Edward IV, sank after striking on a rock in Bertheaume Bay, near Brest, but we are ignorant whether she was a man-of-war or a hired merchantman, probably, however, the latter. Sometime in or before 1514, a small vessel, name unknown, was wrecked at Rye, but a more important loss was that of the Great Elizabeth, in September 1514, at Sandgate, west of Calais, during the passage of the Princess Mary to France when 400 men were drowned. The Christ, freighted to the Mediterranean for trade, was, in 1515, captured by Barbary corsairs and all but thirty of those on board killed. Letters patent were issued, authorising a national subscription for their ransom. The next was that of the Anne Gallant, in August 1518, on the coast of Galicia while chartered by some London merchants on a trading voyage.

In 1545 several foreign hired fighting ships were wrecked by stress of weather, but the most remarkable loss of the reign was that of the Mary Rose which capsized off Brading on 20th July 1545, when getting under way. Ralegh says that her ports were only sixteen inches above the water line, and attributes the disaster to this circumstance. Beyond the fact that most of Ralegh’s observations on maritime matters, where not doubtful or unintelligible, can be shown to be incorrect, there is the great improbability that after at least fifty years’ experience of gun-ports they should have been cut so low since she had been rebuilt in or before 1536. Moreover Anthony’s drawings show them to have been pierced very much higher in other vessels. A contemporary writer, who obtained his account from an eye-witness, ascribed it to a different cause and makes no mention of the ports.

By the 1st August measures had been taken towards raising her and the persons who had undertaken the work desired,

‘Ffyrst ii of the gretest hulkes that may be gotten, more the hulk that rydeth withyn the havyn, Item iiii of the gretest hoys withyn the havyn, Item v of the gretest cables that may be had, Item x grete hawsers, Item x new capsteynes with xxᵗⁱ pulleyes, Item l pulleyes bownde with irone Item v doseyn balast basketts, Item xl lb of talowe, Item xxx Venyzian maryners and one Venyziane carpenter, Item lx Inglysshe maryners to attend upon them, Item a greate quantitie of cordage of all sortes, Item Symonds patrone and maister in the ffoyst doth aggree that all thynges must be had for the purpose aforeseid.’

It appears from this that cables were to be passed through her ports, or made fast to her, and that by means of the hulks she was to be bodily hauled up, a course from which rapid success was anticipated. On the 5th August, her yards and sails had been removed and ‘to her mastes there is tyed three cables with other ingens to wey her upp and on every side of her a hulk to sett her uppright.’ Two days later the officers at Portsmouth fully expected that she would be weighed within twenty-four hours, but on the 9th

‘Thitalians which had the doying for the wayeing of the Mary Roos have been with my Lord Chamberlayn and me to signifie unto us that after this sourt which they have followed, hithierto, they can by no meanes recover her for they have alredye broken her foremast ... and nowe they desyer to prove another waye which is to dragg her as she lyeth untill she come into shallowe ground and so to set her upright, and to this they axe vi days’ proof.’

The second way proved as fruitless as the first, but we read that 22 tuns of beer were consumed during the work, which must have made it appear an enjoyable summer outing to the men. Up to 30th June 1547, the whole amount expended in the various attempts was £402, 6s 8d and this may have included £57, 11s 5d to Peter Paul, an Italian, for the recovery of some of her guns, which was paid within the time for which the total was made up but appears in other papers. The last reference to the unfortunate ship is another payment of £50 to Peter Paul for recovering ordnance and then, after four years of effort, any further hope was foregone.

During the greater part of his reign, Henry like his predecessors, allowed merchants to charter men-of-war for trading voyages. In 1511, £200 was paid for the Mary and John by two merchants who hired her to go to the Baltic, a five months’ voyage, but out of this sum the king paid the wages of the crew and supplied flags and doubtless other stores. One reason for putting royal officers and men on board may have been to prevent the ship being used for piratical purposes. In the same year the Anne Gallant also went to the Baltic, and from there to Bordeaux before returning to London, and the Peter Pomegranate to Zealand; in 1515 Richard Gresham freighted the Mary George, and Richard Fermor the Christ, to the Mediterranean. For the Anne Gallant the crown received £300, and for the crew of the Peter 100 ‘jorgnets’ were provided. When the Anne Gallant was wrecked in 1518 the loss seems to have been submitted to arbitration, ‘for the copyinge of the byll of the grosse averies of the same Anne Gallant and the warde of the arbetrers theruppon made iiˢ,’ but there is no trace of the result. In 1524, the Minion and Mary Guildford were at Bordeaux, and in 1533, two other vessels. After that year there is no further instance known of Henry permitting his ships to be hired by private persons.

Convoys were provided by the government during war time. In 1513, the Royal Navy being fully occupied on service, £55 was paid to the owner of the Mawdelin of Hull for escorting a wool fleet to Calais, and there are other similar agreements. In the preceding year there was a guard of the herring fleet afloat, although we have no knowledge of its strength. In 1522 we have the first sign of an attempt to patrol the four seas, four vessels were stationed between the Thames and Rye, four others between Rye and the Channel Islands, and three are assigned to the somewhat unintelligible location of between the Channel Islands and the Tweed. Doubtless it was only a temporary measure, but it is important as showing that it was now understood that the Navy had a more continuous purpose than mere attack or defence in fleets.

Portsmouth dockyard, with the storehouses and workshops attached to it, and said to have been situated at that portion of the present yard known as the King’s Stairs, was the only one existing in 1509. The enlargement of the Navy necessitated a corresponding increase in the accommodation for building and repairs, and naturally the first references are to Portsmouth. In the first year of the reign there are payments for ‘the breaking up of the dockhead where the Regent lay—having put the said ship afloat out of the same dock into the haven of Portsmouth—making a scaffold with great masts for the sure setting on end of her main mast,’ and £1175, 14s 2d was expended there on the Sovereign. During the first war with France, additions were made to the establishment, and from a later paper we learn that five of these were brewhouses, the Lion, Rose, Dragon, White Hart and Anchor, while some ‘reparrynge and tylinge of the houses att the dokke,’ was also executed. In other respects the town was cared for, since in 1526, 675 pieces of ordnance were on the walls and in store, and in the same year £20 was spent on repairing the dock.

In 1523, however, the existing dock must have been much enlarged in view of the charges ‘for making a dock at Portsmouth for the king’s ship royal,’ the Henry Grace à Dieu. She was brought into the dock with much ceremony,

‘the same day that the King’s Ship Royal the Henry Grace à Dieu was had and brought into the dock at Portsmouth of and with gentlemen and yeomen dwelling about the country there which did their diligence and labour there in the helping of the said ship, and also with mariners and other labourers in all to the number by estimation of 1000 persons.’

These assistants consumed during their arduous labours through the day eight quarters of beef, forty-two dozen loaves of bread and four tuns of beer. The method of construction was still the same as under Henry VII, as there are payments for ‘digging of clay for the stopping up of the same dock head,’ and for breaking up these solid fabrics. The next event connected with the Portsmouth yard was the purchase of nine acres of land, in 1527, at twenty shillings an acre; this ground was surrounded by a ditch and hedge with gates at intervals. The dockyard however gradually sank in consideration during this reign. Woolwich and Deptford soon disputed supremacy with it, and the gradual formation of Chatham yard between 1560 and 1570 completed its decay. Its last year of importance was 1545, when the fleet collected there, and when its approaching neglect was so little anticipated that the chain across the mouth of the harbour was renewed and fresh improvements were contemplated. But from that year until the era of the Commonwealth it almost disappears from naval history.

Woolwich, commonly but erroneously called the Mother Dock, grew up round the Henry Grace à Dieu. The accounts show various amounts expended in the hire of houses and grounds there for purposes associated with the ship, and some of these were converted into permanent purchases. One such occurred in 1518 when the king bought a wharf and houses from Nicholas Partriche, an alderman of London, for £100, but the Longhouse, and perhaps others had been built in 1512. In 1546 the yard was again enlarged by the addition of docks and land belonging to Sir Edward Boughton, which were obtained by means of an exchange of property; these docks had been leased by the crown for at least seven years previously at £6, 13s 4d a year.

In connection with Woolwich we find a description of the office formalities necessary when a ship was moved from one place to another. In 1518 the Henry Grace à Dieu and the Gabriel Royal were brought from Barking creek, the first to Erith, and the second to Woolwich, and among the expenses incurred were payments

‘To John Dende scryvenor in Lombarde Strette for certen wrytyngs and bylls made by hym for the Kyngs lysences to my office, belongynge, that is to seye, for one warraunte made to Master Comely, the Kinges attorney, xiiᵈ, and for a letter to rygge the schippes viiiᵈ, and for a warraunte to have the schippes owt of Barkyn Creke, viiiᵈ, and for ii comyssions made to provide all things concernynge the same schippes, iiˢ, and for divers copyes of the same xviᵈ.’

It is doubtful however whether a dry dock existed at Woolwich at this time. In this particular instance there is a payment to John Barton, ‘marshman,’ for the making ‘of the Gabriel Rialls docke the sixteenth daye of Marche anno dicto in grett when the seid shipp most be browght apon blokks xxxˡⁱ’. Seventeen men were at work and this cannot refer to a dry dock which would have required more men and much more money; it seems to have been a graving place in which the vessel was shored upon blocks. But when the Henry was being built the charges include the travelling expenses of men from Southampton and Portsmouth ‘for the makynge of the dokkehede,’ and ‘to break up the dokhede.’

The formation of Deptford is usually assigned to 1517, when John Hopton, comptroller of the ships, undertook, for 600 marks, to ‘make and cast a pond’ in a meadow adjoining the storehouse, and to build

‘A good hable and suffycient hed for the same pond and also certyn hable sleysis through the which the water may have entre and course into the foresaid ponde as well at spryng tydes as at nepetydes.’

It was to be of sufficient size to take the Great Galley, Mary Rose, Great Bark, Less Bark, and Peter Pomegranate. There is some evidence that a pond with an inlet communicating with the river, was in existence in the thirteenth century, in which case Hopton only adapted and improved it. The storehouse can be traced back to 1513, but it is possible that the building hired at ‘Greenwich’ in 1485, by Henry VII was really at Deptford, seeing that Deptford Strand was sometimes called West Greenwich; if so its beginnings are older than Portsmouth. Even in 1513 there is a reference to ‘the howse at the dockhede,’ but in 1518, when the Great Nicholas was brought to Deptford for repair, there are charges for putting her into the dock, for ‘making the same dockhed,’ ‘for pylinge of the dockhede,’ and for ‘scouring out the dokk at the este ende of the Kyngis storehouse.’ There was also made ‘a myghty hegge of grete tesarde and tenets along the seid dockside and the retorne of the same;’ in the same year a wharf and two sheds were built. The use made of Deptford grew steadily until by the end of the reign it had become the most important yard. In 1546-7 more storehouses had to be hired at a cost of £17, 18s 8d for the year, while £1, 6s 8d covered the extra payments for the same purpose at Woolwich, and no such temporary augmentation was required at Portsmouth.

There seems at one time to have been intention to make Erith a permanent naval station. By Letters Patent of 12th January 1513-4, John Hopton was appointed ‘keeper of the new storehouses at Deptford and Erith for supplying the king’s ships.’ On 18th February £32 was paid to Robert Page of Erith for

‘The purches of a tenement with an orchard and gardeyn and othir appurtenaunces thereunto belonging, conteigning foure acres of ground, being and sett in the parish of Erith by us of hym bought upon the which ground we have newe edified and bilded a house called a storehouse for the saffe kepyng of our ordynaunce and habillamentes of warre belonging to our shippes.’

In 1521 the fittings, guns, and ground tackle of some of the ships were kept here, and shortly before that the sills of the doors had been raised ‘for the keepinge owt of the hye tydis for att every tyde affore ther was ii ffoote depe of water in the seide storrhowsse.’ At this date there were 88 bolts of canvas, 219 cables and hawsers, 27 masts, and 25 guns besides powder, pikes, bows and blocks in the house, which must have been of good size. We do not know the circumstances that led to its disuse, but long before the end of the reign Erith ceases to be mentioned in connection with naval affairs.

If we were to assume that the docks, so frequently spoken of in official papers, were all dry docks, we should have to conclude that there were nearly as many in existence then as now. There can, however, be no doubt that the term was applied indifferently to a complete dock with gates, to a graving place, and even to a temporary protection of timber, fitted round a ship afloat to protect it from the ice. At Erith, in 1512-13 there was ‘a new docke’ made, in which the Sovereign was placed and repaired, the dock and repairs together occupying only eight weeks. But in 1526 the construction of a dock at an estimated cost of £600 was suggested, so that it is certain that one did not exist there previously. In another instance John Barton and twenty-three marshmen were paid for two days’ work while they ‘cast and made a dock for the Grett Galey affore the towne of Depfforde Stronde for the suer keepinge of her ther owt of the ysse.’ Subsequently certain ships are said to have been brought ‘into their dock’ after they had been aground for breaming and floated again; in such a case it seems to have meant only a mooring place. At Portsmouth in 1528 a number of labourers were ‘working by tide for the making of a dock for the grounding of the Mary Rose, Peter Pomegranate, and John Baptist,’ which vessels were ‘wound aground by certain devices.’ These examples show clearly that the word when found in a sixteenth century paper, must be understood in a far wider sense than is customary to-day. Nevertheless there are references which seem to imply that there were other docks than those in the government yards. In 1513 men were engaged in ‘casting and closing the dockhede with tymber bord and balyste at Ratcliffe,’ and another one at Limehouse is also mentioned.

There was as yet no large resident population of shipwrights and others at the naval centres chosen by the government. For the Henry Grace à Dieu workers were brought from districts far afield. Plymouth, Dartmouth, Bere Regis, Exeter, Saltash, Bradford, Bristol, Southampton, Bodmin, Exmouth, Poole, Ipswich, Brightlingsea, Yarmouth, Hull, Beverley, York, and other places furnished contingents. Most of the men came from the south and west, but of single towns Dartmouth and Ipswich supplied the largest numbers. While travelling to and returning from the scene of their employment they received a halfpenny a mile, known as conduct money, for food and lodging, and the agents sent to press them were paid one shilling a day. Probably the call to the royal service was not unpopular as all classes of workmen were boarded and lodged in addition to their wages; under Henry VII they were victualled, but there is no mention of free lodging.

Shipwrights received from twopence to sixpence a day, sawyers, caulkers, and pumpmakers, twopence to fourpence, smiths twopence to sixpence, and labourers from twopence to fivepence. The staff at Portsmouth included a chip-bearer and a chip-gatherer at sevenpence a day, so that at this time ‘chips’ did not constitute the scandalous perquisite it afterwards became. Of the carpenters working on the Henry Grace à Dieu, 141 were supplied with ‘coats’ costing from two to five shillings each, but that was a nearly exceptional expenditure, although 164 were provided for the men building the Mary Rose and Peter Pomegranate. The cost of victualling averaged twopence halfpenny a day, and they were given bread, beef, beer, ling, cod, hake, herring, pease, and oatmeal. There were cooks to prepare their food and a ‘chamberlyn’ to make the beds which were bought or hired for their use; flockbeds and mattresses cost from 3s 4d to 5s, bolsters 1s and 1s 6d, sheets 2s to 3s, blankets 1s 4d, and coverlets 1s to 2s. Sometimes flock beds and mattresses were temporarily procured for twopence, and feather beds for threepence a week. The beds were made to hold two or three men, and in at least one instance ten men were packed into three beds. By 1545 wages seem to have risen somewhat, since at Deptford and Portsmouth that year the pay and victualling of all classes—carpenters, smiths, labourers, caulkers, and sawyers—came to ninepence a day.

The principal designers and master shipwrights were John Smyth, Robert Holborn, and Richard Bull, who were in 1548 granted pensions on the Exchequer of fourpence a day ‘in consideration of their long and good service, and that they should instruct others in their feats.’ James Baker, the only master shipwright whose reputation outlived his generation, is not mentioned among these men, but he is elsewhere spoken of as ‘skilful in ships,’ and he possessed a pension, also from the Exchequer, of eightpence a day. In the reign of James I he was still remembered and said to have been the first who adapted English ships to carry heavy guns, a survival which, whether exactly correct or not, testifies to an exceptional skill in his art. In 1546 Baker got into trouble by being in possession of some forbidden religious books, and it is likely that only his professional ability saved him. Henry ordered that he should be examined, but ‘His Maiestie thynketh you shall find him a very simple man, and therefore wold that without putting him in any great fear you should search of him as much as you may.’ Evidently the king knew him well, and had doubtless often discussed shipbuilding with him.

The famous Pett family who furnished a succession of celebrated shipbuilders between the reigns of Mary I and Mary II, were not yet prominent. In 1523 a Peter Pett is among the shipwrights, pressed from Essex and Suffolk, who were working at Portsmouth, and there is a yet earlier mention of a payment of £38, 1s 4d to a John Pett for caulking the Regent in 1499. A recent writer, in a Pett pedigree, gives Thomas Pett of Harwich as the father of the first well known Peter Pett who died in 1589. It is therefore possible, but scarcely probable, that this was the Peter Pett who was working in 1523 as a boy.

By the treaty of 1511, between Henry and Ferdinand, the former undertook to hold the Channel between the Thames and Ushant with 3000 men, of whom some 1600 were sailors and gunners. For the fleet of 1513, exclusive of the crews of 28 victualling ships, 2880 seamen were required; in 1514, during the month ending with 22nd May, there were 23 king’s ships, 21 hired merchantmen, and 15 victuallers in commission manned by 3982 seamen and 447 gunners, exclusive of the soldiers carried as well. When maritime action in force recommenced in 1545, it was estimated that 5000 men would be wanted which ‘wilbe some dyffycultie.’ Beyond this one expression there is no hint of any trouble having been experienced in procuring these men although the numbers were larger than those which Charles I, a century later, found it almost impossible to obtain. As the proportion allowed theoretically was two men to a ton the ships were much more heavily manned than in the seventeenth century, but in practice the crews do not usually work out at one man to a ton, even including soldiers.

Henry’s success was due in a great measure to the fact that the men were punctually paid and fairly well fed, two elementary incentives to loyal service neglected during the two succeeding centuries. In his first war of 1512 he entered into an agreement with the admiral, Sir Edward Howard, by which the latter, being supplied with ships, men, and money, had the whole administration placed in his hands, having to pay wages and find provisions and clothes. In every subsequent expedition the admiral’s duties were only executive. The rate of pay was five shillings a month, and at this it remained during nearly the whole reign, but in addition, a certain number of dead shares, or extra pays, the division of which is somewhat obscure, were allotted to each ship. They are first met with during the war with France in 1492, and, at that time, in connection with the pay of the soldiers serving on board the fleet. Subsequently the favour was extended to the maritime branch, and was perhaps intended to replace the ‘reward’ of sixpence a week in addition to their pay, which had been enjoyed by the seamen in preceding centuries. But if the dead shares were at any time divided among the sailors they speedily lost the privilege, and early in the reign we find the shares, reckoned at five shillings apiece, reserved for the officers. There are a few apparent exceptions, perhaps due to our ignorance of the exact sixteenth century meaning of the words used. The wages bill of the Katherine of London distinctly says that the dead shares are divided between ‘master and mariners,’ and there are some other similar cases, e.g. ‘168 dead shares to be divided among the mariners.’ But in the vast majority of references they are seen to be meant for the officers.

The number of course depended on the size of the ship, and for the Henry Grace à Dieu they were thus distributed:—Master —; master’s mate, 4; four pilots, 16; four quartermasters, 12; quartermaster’s mates, 4; boatswain, 3; boatswain’s mate, 1½; cockswain, 1½; cockswain’s mate, 1; master carpenter, 3; carpenter’s mate, 1½; under-carpenter, 1; two caulkers, 3; purser, 2; three stewards, 3; three cooks, 3; cook’s mates, 1½; two yeomen of the stryks, 2; their mates, 1; two yeomen of the ports, 2; their mates, 1. The officers’ pay was the same as that of the men, but they received in addition either these dead shares, reckoned at five shillings each, in the proportion shown here, or ‘rewards’ of so much a month. The Peter Pomegranate may be taken as a representative ship, as the Henry carried some officers unknown in the smaller vessels. In the Peter the master obtained one pound ten shillings a month of twenty-eight days; the master’s mate and quartermasters ten shillings; the boatswain twelve shillings and sixpence; master gunner, carpenter, purser, steward and cook, ten shillings, and gunners six shillings and eightpence. Surgeons were paid ten shillings and thirteen shillings and fourpence, and pilots twenty and thirty shillings a month, but neither were always carried. Within certain limits, however, officers’ wages vary considerably, depending on the number of dead shares allotted among them, which, again, was subject to the size of the ship, an indication of the commencing division into rates. But before Henry’s death the formula of pay ran ‘dead shares and rewards included’ for an average, exclusive of captains, of eight shillings a month all round, so that the old system was beginning to be discarded.

For many years of the reign some sort of uniform in the shape of ‘coats’ or ‘jackets’ was supplied to the men, but its exact character is nowhere described. When the Mary Rose and Peter Pomegranate were brought round from Portsmouth to the Thames thirty-five coats in green and white were provided, but as the cost was 6s 8d apiece these could only have been for the officers. Sir Edward Howard, by his agreement in 1512, had to furnish the sailors with them at 1s 8d each, and he appears to have charged for 1616 besides 1812 for the soldiers. Masters and pilots had sometimes coats of damask, every coat containing eight yards. In 1513, we find references to 1244 mariners’, gunners’, and servitors’, jackets, and to 638 coats of white and green cloth, 13 of white and green camlet, 4 of satin, and one of damask. Although indications of uniform for the men have been noticed under Edward IV and Henry VII, the provision was much more liberal when Henry ascended the throne. He had at first an overflowing treasury wherewith to minister to his love of display and carry out more completely a custom he may also have thought useful from the point of view of health and of making the men proud of the royal service. But the allusions to seamen’s clothes are few after the first years. The system appears to have lasted, although perhaps not continuously, until his death, since in 1545 the writer of an estimate of naval charges asks if 1800 seamen are to have coats at two shillings each.

Sick men appear to have been kept in pay if landed for that reason, because when Sir Thomas Wyndham proposed to send such members of his crew ashore, the council preferred that he should keep them on board as they would only be receiving pay uselessly on land and might not come back. Those discharged disabled from wounds sometimes received a gratuity; in 1513, sixty men of the Mary James sent home in that condition were given twopence a mile conduct money, the usual rate being a halfpenny a mile, and a gift of £20 among them.

Until 1545, there is no record of exceptional disease in fleets, but in September of that year the plague broke out in the English ships, although as the French were suffering even more and were eventually compelled by it to disband their fleet, it did not adversely affect the result of the operations. In August there were many men sick which was ascribed ‘to the great hete and the corrupcion of the victuall by reason of the disorder in the provision and the strayte and warm lying in the shippes.’ On the 28th August Lisle wrote to Paget that there was much illness, ‘those that be hole be veray unsightlie havyng not a ragg to hang uppon ther backes.’ On 3rd September, Lisle landed at Treport in Normandy, and sacked and burnt the town, and it is not until after that date that the word ‘plague’ is used and the terrible disease raged virulently. On 4th September there were 12,000 effective men, soldiers and sailors; on the 13th, 8488, so that in little more than a week 3512 ‘were sick, dead, or dismissed,’ By 11th September, Lisle was back at Portsmouth and wrote to the king that the ships were generally infected. Although the fleet was then broken up, it seems to have lingered on in the vessels kept in commission through the winter as there are references to it in the following April.

The captains of men-of-war were still usually military officers or courtiers who made no attempt to work the ship. They were for the most part, persons holding appointments in the household, but towards the end of the reign, the new feeling that the sea was as important as the land as a field of national effort had trained officers who were almost professional seamen. These men belonged to the class who would earlier have been content to command soldiers during a voyage, but who were now continuously occupied in commanding ships at sea or in attending to administrative details ashore. Nominally a captain’s pay was one shilling and sixpence a day, but there were frequently extra allowances. In 1513, Walter, Lord Ferrers, captain of the Sovereign received five shillings and two pence a day ‘by way of reward’ over and above his one shilling and sixpence, and Sir William Trevilian of the Gabriel Royal, three shillings and fourpence a day. On the other hand captains who happened to belong to the troop of ‘King’s Spears’ were paid ‘out of the King’s cofers’ and took nothing from the navy expenses. The King’s Spears were a troop of Horseguards, fifty in number, formed by Henry shortly after his accession. Each of them was attended by an archer, man-at-arms, and servant, ‘they and all their horses being trapped in cloth of gold, silver, or goldsmith’s work.’ Eventually want of money led to the disbandment of this force.

In 1545 the demand for captains exceeded the supply for the smaller ships, the circumstances perhaps promising neither fame nor prize money. The official total of men-of-war and armed merchantmen under Lisle’s command was 104 ships, the strongest fighting fleet as yet sent to sea. About some of these he wrote,

‘As concernynge the meane shippes I know noon other waye (I meane those that come out of the west parties and such of London, as were victuallers that want capitaignes) but to place them with meane men to be their capitaignes as serving men and yomen that be most mete for the purpose.’

‘Meane men’ here signifies those of moderate social status, and serving men the confidants or attendants of noblemen, and who were frequently gentlemen themselves.

In 1546 a Spaniard was retained as captain of the Galley Subtylle and a Venetian as its patron, or master, but as they were provided with an interpreter the crew must have been English. This is a further proof of the little experience native officers had of galley work; apparently the English captain of the preceding year had not been found efficient. Whether the crew were seamen or criminals is not quite certain; the term ‘forsathos’ is used but only in connection with the French prize, the Galley Blancherd, which was undoubtedly manned by prisoners, its original crew. In more ways than one this prize seems to have been a source of trouble to its captors. To keep the men in condition constant practice was essential, ‘Richard Brooke ... keptt me company as far as Gravesend to kepe the forsados in ure and breth as they must contynewally be otherwyse they wilbe shortly nothing worth.’ Most of the captives were Neapolitans, with the habits of their class, and Brooke desired new clothes ‘for all the said forsados who he saith are most insufferable without any manner of things to hang upon theym. So that I perceyve the same galley will be some chardge to His Maiestie contynewally, yf His Highnes do keep her styll with her suit of forsadoes as she ys now.’ Lisle urged that if the Blancherd was restored at the conclusion of the war the prisoners should be granted their liberty. Perhaps he may have thought it advisable to get rid of them on any terms, but the argument he pressed was that such a course would make the French chary, at any future time, of bringing their galleys near English ports or ships if the slaves on board knew that surrender meant freedom.

Yet another diplomatist, Dr William Knight, found ‘the ungodly manners of the seamen’ not to his liking, and so far as the scanty material permits us to judge, they appear to have been an unruly and disorderly race. Discipline in the modern sense was of course unknown, and such restraints as existed sat but lightly on both royal and merchant seamen. An undated paper, but which is probably earlier than 1530, discussing the causes of the decay of shipping, describes the men as ‘so unruly nowadays that ther ys no merchantman dare enterpryse to take apon hym the orderyng and governing of the said shippes.’ Even the government dealt with them gently, and when in 1513, the crew of a man-of-war were discontented with their captain, Sir Weston Browne, the Vice-Admiral was directed, if he could not pacify them, to replace Browne. Sometimes whole crews went ashore, and when the French attacked Dover in 1514, the king’s ships in harbour there lay uselessly at their anchors for want of men. One sailor, Edward Foster, was examined at Portsmouth in 1539, before the Mayor and two admiralty officials for saying that ‘if his blood and the King’s were both in a dish, there would be no difference between them, and that if the Great Turk would give a penny a day more he would serve him.’ One would like to know what happened to this matter-of-fact physiologist.

Regulations existed for the maintenance of order on board ship, and were ‘set in the mayne mast in parchement to be rid as occasion shall serve.’ A murderer was to be tied to the corpse and thrown overboard with it; to draw a weapon on the captain involved the loss of the right hand; the delinquent sleeping on watch for the fourth time was to be tied to the bowsprit with a biscuit, a can of beer, and a knife, and left to starve or cut himself down into the sea; a thief was to be ducked two fathoms under water, towed ashore at the stern of a boat, and dismissed. Only a boat from the flagship was to board a stranger to make inquiries, as the men ‘would pilfer thinges from oure nation as well of the kinges dere frends,’ but in a captured ship all plunder, except treasure, between the upper and lower decks was allotted to them. It is interesting, as showing Henry’s desire to avoid giving needless offence, to compare this order, about the manner in which strange ships were to be visited, with another issued at the end of the reign. It was still more impressively worded. Neutrals were to be ‘gently’ examined, and if no enemies’ goods found in them not to be harmed. And ‘the violation of our pleasure in this behaulf is of such importance as whosoever shalbe found culpable therein, we shall not faile so to look upon him as shall be to his demerits.’

In addition to regulations which, if not new as maritime customs, were new as a code of discipline we find that crews were now assigned stations on board ship, an essential towards smartness in work, but one which so far as we know had no previous existence. The station list—or one of them—of the Henry Grace à Dieu has come down to us, and although no similar paper exists for any other ship it cannot be supposed that an improvement in method and working, of which the advantages must at once have made themselves felt, could have failed to have been generally adopted. This list gives:—

• The forecastle 100 men; waist 120
• In the second deck for the main lifts, 20
• In the said deck for the trin and the dryngs, 20
• To the stryks of the mainsail, 8 principal men
• To the bonaventure top, 2
• The little top upon the fore top, 2
• For the boat 40; the cok, 20
• Main capstandard and main sheets, 80
• In the third deck to the topsail sheets, 40
• To the bonaventure and main mizen, 20
• To the helm, 4 men
• To the main top 12; to the fore top, 6; to the main mizen top, 6
• The little top upon the main top, 2
• The little top upon the main mizen top, 2
• The gellywatte, 10.

Notwithstanding these signs of orderly training the loss of the Mary Rose was attributed solely to the insubordination and disorder of those on board. Her captain, Sir George Carew, being hailed when matters looked serious answered that ‘he had a sort of knaves whom he could not rule.’ But these men had been chosen for the Vice-Admiral’s ship as especially good sailors and therefore ‘so maligned and disdained one the other that refusing to do that which they should do were careless to do that which was most needful and necessary and so contending in envy perished in frowardness.’

Until very recent times the victualling on board ship was a source of continual anxiety to the authorities, and of grumbling and vexation to the men; and even in the time of Henry VIII it appears to have given more trouble than any of the other details of administration. There was no victualling department until 1550, and either local men were employed at the ports where supplies were to be collected or others were sent from London to make the purchases. Commissions to provide provisions were given to persons attached to the household, or to highly placed officials with sufficient influence to obtain them. In 1496 John Redynge, clerk of the Spicery, was victualling both the land and sea forces on service. In July 1512, Sir Thomas Knyvet, Master of the Horse, was supplying the fleet and undertaking the responsibility of transport; in October, John Shurly, Cofferer of the Household, and John Heron, Supervisor of the London Customhouse. Between 1544-7 numerous agents were employed and were subject to no central control, unless a reference to the Lord Chamberlain, Lord St John, afterwards Marquis of Winchester, as ‘a chief victualler of the army at the seas’ may be held to imply his general superintendence.

In 1512 the cost of provisioning each man stood at one shilling and threepence a week. There were some complaints that year, but in 1513 Sir Edward Howard, like many a later admiral, was begging earnestly for stores, ‘let provision be made, for it is a well spent penny that saveth the pound.’ A captain, William Gonson, finding that he was running short, wrote to the Council that unless he received fresh supplies for his men, ‘I cannot keep them in order, for if we lack victuals and wages at anytime as well Spaniards as Englishmen shall murmur.’ That also was an experience many later captains were to find commonplace. Most of the victualling difficulties in subsequent reigns were due to want of money or to absolute knavery, but the embarrassments at this date seem to have been as much caused by lack of organisation due to want of experience in the supply of large fleets longer at sea than formerly. There is, however, a letter of Howard’s, belonging to 1512 or 1513, which shows that roguery was already at work: ‘they that receved ther proportion for ii monthes flesche cannot bryng about for v weekes for the barelles be full of salt, and when the peecis kepith the noumbre wher they shulde be peny peces they be scante halfpeny peces, and wher ii peces shulde make a messe iii will do but serve.’ Short measure was therefore a frequent experience. In April 1513 a convoy reached the fleet off Brest just in time, ‘for of ten days before there was no man in all the army that had but one meal a day and one drink.’ After Howard’s death, when the captains of the fleet returned to Dartmouth, and they were asked why they had come back, ‘they all replied for default of victuals not having three days allowance.’ The pursers, a class who move through naval history loaded with the maledictions of many generations of seamen, were already condemned. It is doubtless in connection with the return of the fleet that two officials wrote on the same day, ‘I fear that the pursers will deserve hanging for this matter,’ and ‘an outrageous lack on the part of the pursers.’ It may have been the experiences of 1512 and 1513 that led to an order in September of the latter year, of which there is no previous example that the vessels named for winter service should be provisioned for two months at the time. They were directed ‘to victual at Sandwich from two months to two months during four months.’ Although the regulation remained in force, Surrey complained in 1522 that some of his ships had only supplies for eight days instead of two months. In 1545 the French were said to carry two months’ stores.

Victualling stores and requisites were obtained by purveyance, and there was not consequently much eagerness displayed to sell to the crown. There is a proclamation of 1522 ordering, under penalty of £5, every one possessing casks to put them out of doors that the King’s purveyor might take them at ‘a reasonable price,’ one, that is to say, to be fixed by him. The prices paid for provisions, are, therefore, no absolute indication of the market rates, but the following are some for this period.

Biscuit (1512) 3s 6d and 5s a cwt.

Do. (1554) 7s 6d a cwt.

Salt beef (1512) £1, 11s a pipe

Do. (1544) £3, 12s a pipe

Beer (1512) 13s 4d a tun

Do. (1547) 16s and 21s a tun

Red Herring (1513) 5s the cade

Do. (1547) 9s 6d and 11s the cade

White Herring (1513) 10s a barrel

Do. (1547) 21s a barrel

By 1545 the rate had run up to eighteenpence a week per man, or perhaps more, and two months’ provisions were estimated to occupy 83 tons of space in 100 ton ship with a complement of 200 soldiers and sailors. A pound of biscuit and a gallon of beer a day were allowed to each man, and ‘200 pieces of flesh’ to every hundred men on four days of the week. Beer was the recognised right of the sailor, and the exigencies of warfare had to yield to his prerogative. After Surrey captured Morlaix in 1522, he announced his intention of going on a cruise and of not returning ‘as long as we have any beer, though in return we should drink water.’ Evidently it was considered out of the question to remain at sea without beer, and again when Lisle was off the French coast in 1545 he gave pointed expression to the fear that if the victuallers did not arrive ‘a good meynye of this fleet may happen to drynck water.’ The payments for provisions from September 1542 until the death of Henry in January 1547, amounted to £65,610 10s 4½d, and we can still trace the proceedings of the various agents at Sandwich, Lowestoft, Portsmouth, Yarmouth, and Southampton. ‘Necessary money,’ an allowance to the pursers for candles, wood, etc., was in operation according to the ‘old ordinance’ at the rate of twopence a man per month.

The increase in the navy and the additional work caused by the mobilisation of fleets necessitated an augmentation from the first on the administrative side of the department though no systematic and permanent change was made until the close of the reign. Brygandine remained clerk of the ships till about 1523; in that year he was granted a release—a customary proceeding—for all embezzlements or misdemeanours committed while in office, and this probably means that he resigned then or shortly afterwards. But although he had been the chief administrative officer, he was now by no means the only one even during his term of service, though it is not easy to define the exact duties and responsibilities of his associates. The fleets of 1513-14 carried a ‘Treasurer of the Army by Sea,’ in the person of Sir Thomas Wyndham, who was also allowed one shilling and fourpence a day for two clerks, and Brygandine had nothing to do with payments made for stores or wages in these ships.

In 1513 John Hopton, a gentleman usher of the chamber was given charge of the fleet conveying troops to Calais, and from that time until his death Hopton was closely connected with naval affairs. In 1514 he was made keeper of the storehouses at Erith and Deptford, with a fee of one shilling a day, and as such received under his charge the fittings of the ships dismantled and laid up that year; it has been noticed that he contracted for the work required for the formation or enlargement of the pond at Deptford in 1517. He was an owner of ships and sold at least one to the king, and, in the same year, he is called ‘clerk comptroller of the ships.’ His duties must have been mainly clerical and financial, for we have many separate series of payments made by him to Brygandine who seems to have retained the active direction of executive work, and certain passages in the records known as the Chapter House Books, seem to imply that they were written under his supervision. Hopton held a definite appointment, but there are others mentioned as employed in purchasing stores, travelling for certain purposes, or in charge of ordnance taken out of the ships, who can only have held temporary and subordinate situations. There were sometimes local clerks of the ships, as at Portsmouth when Thomas Spert was given ‘the rule of all the forsaid ships, maisters, and maryners with the advise of Brygandine.’ Here, however, the whole control was really in the hands of the customers of Southampton who were ordered to provide the money requisite, muster the men once a week, and exercise a general oversight. Again, in 1529, Edmund More, of whom nothing is known beyond this single reference, was acting as clerk of the ships at Portsmouth. When there was only one naval centre the clerk of the ships resided there, but after the foundation of Woolwich and Deptford his place was in London, and the local clerk represented the later Commissioner in charge of a dockyard.

Hopton died in or before July 1526, and had been succeeded from 1524 by William Gonson, also a gentleman usher of the king’s chamber, as keeper of the storehouses at Erith and Deptford. Although in 1523 Thomas Jermyn was the recognised Clerk of the Ships, and in 1533 Leonard Thoreton, Gonson, who also commanded ships at sea, soon became the dominant official. He is found equipping men-of-war, directing their movements and making payments for wages, victualling, and the purchase of necessaries, but notwithstanding the extent of his authority he does not seem to have held any titular rank. In 1538 Sir Thomas Spert was Clerk of the Ships, but appears to have had very little to do unless Gonson happened to be suffering from gout. Spert was followed by Edmund Water, another gentleman usher of the chamber, who held his office by patent, neither Jermyn, Thoreton nor Spert acted under Letters Patent, and in the absence of an enrolled appointment, they were doubtless considered merely acting officials.

Large payments to Gonson can be traced down to 1545. Then for the first time we have the titles of ‘Treasurer of the See,’ ‘Paymaster of the See,’ and ‘Treasurer of the See Maryne Causes’ as describing John Winter, who, however, died in less than a year. It was possibly the loss of William Gonson’s practised experience, and dissatisfaction with his successors, which helped to move Henry to make in 1546, the most important change in naval administration that had yet occurred. In one day the naval organisation was revolutionised. By Letters Patent of the 24th April 1546, Sir Thomas Clere was constituted Lieutenant of the Admiralty, with a fee of £100 a year, ten shillings a day for travelling expenses when engaged on the business of his office, £10 a year for boat hire and twentypence a day for two clerks; Robert Legge, ‘Treasourer of our maryne causes’ with 100 marks a year, six shillings and eightpence a day for travelling expenses, eight pounds a year for boat hire, and sixteenpence a day for two clerks; William Broke, ‘Comptroller of all our shippes,’ with £50 a year, four shillings a day for travelling expenses, eight pounds for boat hire, and sixteenpence a day for two clerks; Benjamin Gonson, ‘Surveyor of all our shippes,’ with £40 a year, the same travelling allowance and boat hire as the comptroller, but only eightpence a day for one clerk; Richard Howlett, Clerk of the Ships, with £33, 6s 8d a year, three shillings and fourpence a day travelling expenses, and six pounds for boat hire. William Holstock and Thomas Morley were granted annuities of one shilling a day without specific duties, but they were both employed in assisting the other officers. All these fees were paid from the Exchequer. By another patent of the same day, the supply of guns, powder, and other ordnance necessaries for the Navy was placed under the direction of Sir William Woodhouse, called ‘Master of the Ordnance of the ships,’ at a fee of 100 marks a year, six shillings and eightpence a day travelling expenses, eight pounds a year for boat hire, and two shillings and fourpence a day for three clerks. The stores were still kept at the central office in the Tower, and became separate from, if subordinate to, the old Ordnance Office, remaining so until 1589.

It would be of great interest to know exactly the motives moving Henry to the formation of—to use a later name—the Navy Board. Beyond discontent with the administration in 1545, the accessions of 1546 suggest that it was his intention to still further strengthen the Navy, and experience had doubtless shown that the old organisation was too inelastic for more than a limited number of ships acting within a restricted sphere. Hitherto fleets had carried troops, landed them, and returned home; or gone to sea, fought the enemy, and returned home; but now the era of long cruises was commencing, and the transition necessarily involved additional administrative work with which the clerk of the ships or the comptroller could not alone cope. Another subject of inquiry is the model on which the board was formed. It was not derived from any foreign power, for the organisation was then, and long afterwards, superior to and unlike, anything existing abroad. The similarity of many of the titles and of their corresponding duties suggests that it was copied from the constitution of the Ordnance Office, which Henry had also remoulded to suit the altered conditions of warfare. The Lieutenant of the Admiralty, acting under the Admiral of England, as the Lieutenant of the Ordnance acted under the Master General, was intended to be the most important member of the board. But after the death of Clere’s successor, Sir William Woodhouse, the post was not filled up and the Treasurership exercised by an expert official like Benjamin Gonson, or a great seaman like Hawkyns, speedily became the chief administrative office. Another cause of the Treasurer’s ascendancy is to be found in the fact that he had to be a man of some capital, able and willing to advance money to the crown. He was to have allowance for all moneys laid out if his books were signed ‘by two or three’ of the other officers. Originally this may only have been intended to apply to all moneys received from the Exchequer and expended by him, but the yearly accounts show that it soon became a normal condition for the crown to be indebted to him for advances.

Two other officers found their positions altered by the new development. The Lord Admiral had been till now only a combatant officer; from this date he interfered more or less frequently and directly in matters of administration for which he was nominally responsible. But while the members of the Navy Board were men of weight and reputation his action mainly took the course of agreeing with the advice given him. Under the new arrangement the Clerk of the Ships became a very subordinate officer. More than a century later Pepys claimed that the clerk possessed from former times a consultative and equal voice with the other officers. It would be difficult to disprove it, and it is true that the signature of the clerk appears sometimes—but only sometimes—attached to documents with those of his colleagues. In 1600, however, his duties are distinctly said to be confined to registering the resolutions of the board generally. At especially busy periods he shared the active work of superintendence but ordinarily only the Treasurer, Comptroller, and Surveyor, are found to be exercising authority, and the gradual alteration of his title from Clerk of the Ships to Clerk of the Acts is itself a sign that his functions had become purely secretarial.

Besides English vessels, Henry hired Spanish during the earlier years of his reign and Hanseatic during the later ones, England being on much more friendly terms with Spain in 1509 than in 1547. One or two ‘Arragoseys,’ i.e. Ragusans were in pay, that republic being a maritime power of some importance in the fifteenth century. The English ships taken up for the crown were mostly employed as victuallers and tenders, and were therefore not required to be large and do not afford any measure of the magnitude of the merchant navy. In April 1513 there were thirty-nine impressed of 2039 tons, and of these the largest was 140 tons; twenty-eight of them were serving as victuallers, one being usually attached to each of the largest men-of-war. The rate of hire was one shilling a ton per month, for both victuallers and fighting ships, and the wages, victualling, and dead shares were the same as on king’s ships; jackets were frequently provided for the crews as for men-of-war’s men. Another account gives a list of twenty-two English vessels of 3040 tons, and six Spanish of 1650 tons as having served. The Spaniards were manned by 289 Spanish and 181 English seamen, with 869 English soldiers and a majority of English officers. Henry had to pay a hiring rate of fifteenpence a ton for them, and 7s 1d a month to Spanish seamen, 4s 9d to gromets, and 2s 5d to pages, while the dead shares allotted to the foreigners were at six shillings each instead of the five shillings of the Englishmen. The difference of pay must have caused a great deal of jealousy but the king’s attempts to obtain Spaniards at the standard rate had failed. The Mary of Bilboa was taken up at fifteenpence-farthing and a half-farthing a month, terms which imply a good deal of higgling. In 1514 there were twenty-one hired fighting ships and fifteen victuallers engaged. The former measured 2770 tons, and included one of 300, one of 240, one of 200, and three of 160 tons.

In 1544 twenty-two foreign ships, now mostly Hanseatic, of 1465 tons were still obtaining fifteenpence a ton, and 379 men in them seven shillings and sixpence a month, while the English pay remained at five shillings, and thirty-five hired English vessels received their one shilling a ton. In the same year the expedition against Scotland required 117 transports of which London furnished 6, Calais 2, Amsterdam 1, Dordrecht 1, Antwerp 4, Hamburg 5, Lubeck 2, Ipswich 31, Yarmouth 31, Newcastle 6, Hull 6, and Lynn 4. English owners did not show themselves eager to send their ships to join the royal fleet and it was necessary to issue a circular letter in August 1545, to the mayors of the various ports which ran:—

‘Fforasmuch as I understand that dyvers and many of the adventurers that are appointed for Portsmouth ... do slacke and drawe back from the same being rather gyven to spoyle and robberye than otherwise to serve His Maiestie and making ther excuses for lack of necessaries do showe themselves not wyllynge to serve the kyng’s Maiestie according to their diewties’

they were ordered to go to Portsmouth immediately on pain of death. Their disinclination to be shackled by the discipline of a fleet can be understood when we find Lisle writing to Paget that ‘nother Spanyard, Portugell, nor Flemynge that cometh from by south but they be spoylid and robbid by our venturers.’ The successful privateering of 1544, when 300 French prizes were taken, was assuredly joyously remembered and similar good fortune hoped for. If there is no exaggeration in Stow’s account the event is remarkable as the first instance of our sweeping the Channel on an outbreak of war, and signifies the steady growth of a marine able to perform the work.

The materials for an estimate of the strength of the merchant navy are scanty, but we find in this reign a commencement of the plan largely extended under Elizabeth, of obtaining returns of the vessels belonging to various ports. Henry, moreover, followed the example of his father in granting a bounty on large ships. In 1520 an allowance of four shillings a ton was ordered on the customs due for the first voyage of the Bonaventure of London of 220 tons; in 1522 five shillings a ton on the Antony of Bristol, of 400 tons, because she was good for trading purposes and ‘also to doo unto us service in warre.’ The wording of the warrant rather implies, however, that the Antony was a purchase from a foreign owner. In 1521 four shillings a ton was paid on the John Baptist of Lynn of 200 tons, and in 1530 five shillings a ton on the John Evangelist of Topsham of 110 tons. If there was any rule regulating the apportionment of the bounty it is impossible to define it now. In 1544 there is a payment of five shillings a ton on the Mary James of Bristol of 160 tons ‘to corage othre our subgetts to like makyng of shippes.’ There were doubtless many more similar grants but which were not issued in a form which ensured their survival in the records.

In 1513 Bristol had nine vessels of 100 tons and upwards ready to join the royal fleet. Of these one was of 186 tons, one of 120, one of 130, three of 110 and three of 100 tons. It is significant of the little reliance that can be placed on statements of tonnage that, in another paper, the one of 186 tons is given as of 160, one of 110 as 140 and the one of 120 as of 100. In the case of merchantmen the discrepancies may perhaps be attributed to the fact that it was to the interest of the owner of a hired merchantman to measure his ship at as high a tonnage as possible, as he was paid by the ton, while the navy authorities acting in the interest of the crown desired to rate it as low as they could. In the case of men-of-war the tonnage, unless they had actually performed a trading voyage and stowed goods, could only have been by estimate, which would explain a difference of 100 or 150 tons in the supposed measurement of a large ship.

In 1528, there were 149 vessels engaged in the Iceland fishery all which, with the exception of 8 from London, belonged to the east coast ports. Yarmouth sent 30, Cley, Blakeney, and Cromer 30, and Dunwich, Walderswick, Southwold, and Covehithe 32. To the herring fishery in the North Sea went 222, of which the Cinque Ports sent 110 and the east coast the remainder. Trading to Scotland were 69 ships of which only 6 sailed from London. This return was used years afterwards to show the prosperous condition of these trades as compared with a later period when the number of vessels employed had greatly fallen off; except that it is endorsed in Cecil’s handwriting the date of the comparison is unknown. For 1533, there is a certificate of the ships returned from Iceland that year, 85 in number, of which 6, of from 50 to 100 tons, belonged to London; 10, of from 35 to 95 tons to Lynn; 14, of from 40 to 95 tons to Yarmouth; 7, of from 60 to 150 tons to Orwell haven; and 17, of from 30 to 90 tons to Wells and Blakeney. Unless they were trading vessels, used on occasion for the Iceland fishery, the average tonnage seems very high for North Sea fishing boats of that century. Nearly 700 sail were reputed to enter Calais harbour every year and ‘at the least’ 340 foreign herring boats also traded there. These figures point to a flourishing local trade round the coasts and in the fisheries, but there are only three returns relating to ships of larger size and they do not give particulars for more than a few ports;—

Tons
100 Tons
110 Tons
120 Tons
130 Tons
140 Tons
160

Minehead 1

Burton 1

Lynn 1

Cley 1 1

Yarmouth 6 1

Lowestoft 1 3

Aldborough 1

Hull 1 1 2 1 1

Newcastle 7 1 1

There were 99 other vessels of from 40 to 100 tons also sailing from these ports; but if the table were complete and included London, Bristol, Southampton, and Dartmouth—to name no others—we should infer a surprisingly large total from the 32 belonging to these towns. Foreign observers, men representing a maritime state like Venice, considered the sea strength of England much greater than would be assumed from the few sources of information we possess. In 1531, the Venetian representative reported that Henry could arm 150 sail; in 1551, Barbaro thought that the crown could fit out 1500 sail of which ‘100 decked’ and in 1554, Soranzo remarked that there were ‘great plenty of English sailors who are considered excellent for the navigation of the Atlantic.’ These Venetians paid especial attention to the English marine and in no instance do they write of it depreciatingly.

Commerce does not appear to have progressed in a ratio corresponding to its growth during the close of the fifteenth century. Trade had been then recovering the position lost through the unsettled political state previously existing, and had benefited under a king who made its expansion the keynote of his policy. Half a century had brought it relatively into line with that of other countries, and thenceforward its increase was no longer a question of regaining a standard already once attained, but of competition with other powers whose trade was marked out on definite lines. This accounts for the comparatively stationary condition of commerce under Henry, and until new factors came into play under different circumstances. According to Hakluyt voyages to the Levant were frequent until 1534 but then fell off. In that year Richard Gonson, son of William Gonson the naval official, undertook a Mediterranean trading voyage, which occupied a year, the usual time allowed for the passage out and home. In the same way English merchants traded with the Canaries and northern ports, but we have no details bearing on the extent of the traffic. William Hawkyns of Plymouth, father of Sir John Hawkyns, made three voyages, of which the last was in 1532, to Brazil and Guinea. From a remark, however, made by Chapuys, in a despatch to the emperor, voyages to Brazil could not have been uncommon.

In 1517 there is said to have been an exploring expedition sent out under the command of Thomas Spert, who had been master of the Henry Grace à Dieu and other ships, and who possessed Henry’s confidence then and afterwards. He was a yeoman of the crown, and by Letters Patent of 10th November 1514, enjoyed an annuity of £20 a year. In 1527 John Rut, another man-of-war officer, left England in June with two vessels for Newfoundland, one, the Mary Guildford, being a king’s ship. Rut returned in her without having effected anything; the other was lost at sea. Two other attempts at discovery are also assigned to this year. In 1536 Hore, with the Trinity and the Minion, reached Cape Breton Island, and a further voyage was intended in 1541. These enterprises show Henry’s desire to extend English commerce, and a further illustration of the fact is to be found in his endeavour in 1541 to obtain permission for some Englishmen to sail in the next Portuguese fleet for India, ‘to adventure there for providing this realm with spices.’

Doubtless the religious revolt had for the time an injurious influence on our trade, seeing that Englishmen were regarded as heretics by some of their best customers, and that the whole influence of the Roman Church was employed in Spain, and elsewhere, to the detriment of the country. The reaction born of intellectual freedom, and of the moral and material strength which was its natural product, did not make itself felt till later. Moreover as long as England acknowledged the Roman rule she was bound by the division of the new discoveries made by the Popes, a division which fatally hampered her attempts to share the riches of the golden West. When that dividing line was no longer recognised, and individual enterprise or greed had free play, the conditions which brought her into antagonism with other maritime powers were also those which stimulated the growth of national vigour and self reliance. In that sense the Reformation considered as a liberation from restraining ties, was an important factor in the development of English sea power.

There were two statutes, in 1532 and 1539, confirming the navigation act of 1490. In 1540 it was enacted that whoever should buy fish at sea from foreign fishermen to sell on shore, should be subjected to a fine of £10, a statute which seems to point to the commencing decay of the native fishing industry. The cable and hawser manufacture, long associated with Bridport, was protected by the parliament of 1529, and Henry is said to have expended immense sums in the endeavour to make Dover a safe harbour. Another act for the preservation of Plymouth, Dartmouth, Teignmouth, Falmouth, and Fowey havens, from the injury caused by the gravel brought down from the tin works, was passed in 1532. In 1513 a license for the formation of a guild, afterwards the Trinity Corporation, was granted for the ‘reformation of the navy lately much decayed by the admission of young men without experience, and of Scots, Flemings, and Frenchmen as lodesmen;‘ in 1536 the Trinity guild of Newcastle was founded. ‘Navy’ is here used in its original sense, meaning the shipping and seamen of the kingdom generally, and not the ‘King’s Navy Royal.’ During the sixteenth century the Trinity House had no connection with the Royal Navy; during the greater part of the seventeenth century, it had an occasional consultative, but no direct connection. It has never had any actual share in the administration of the Navy, nor that close association with it that, trading on the loss and destruction of its early documents, it has claimed.

Allied to the defence of the kingdom by sea was the protection of the seaboard by the forts or castles, on the south and east coasts, some of which still exist. The initial motive was the threatening political outlook of 1539 when a European coalition against England appeared probable. During the next few years upwards of £74,000, from the spoil of the suppression, was spent for this purpose, and this perhaps does not include £17,498 devoted to the fortifications of Hull. ‘A book of payments,’ made to the garrisons in 1540, enumerates seventeen of these defences, but more were afterwards built.

There is, of course, no chronological series of papers relating to the naval expenditure of the reign. Only isolated accounts for those years when active service was undertaken are to be found. The general disbursements for 1513 came to £699,000, and the naval expenses, from 4th March to 31st October, were £23,000, but this seems to have been almost entirely for wages and hire of ships, only £291, 17s 9½d having been spent on repairs, and neither victualling, ordnance stores, nor the cost of preparation being included. Detailed accounts were strictly kept although so few have survived. In one book it is stated that two copies of the accounts were to be made; one to be retained by the person charged with making payments, the other to be kept ‘in oure owne custodie for oure more perfytte rememberaunce in that behalf.’ The first kept as his acquittance by Sir John Daunce, is now in the Record Office, and bears Henry’s signature in numerous places, showing the close personal attention he gave to naval affairs. When William Gonson was acting as paymaster, he received between 21st August 1532 and 25th August 1533, £4169, 10s, from 16th December 1534 to 11th December 1535 £7093, 17s 9½d, and from 4th April 1536 to 29th June 1537, £3497, 3s 2d. As a whole, on these years, the crown was indebted, beyond the money paid out to Gonson, £1487, 12s 9d, and the expenditure was almost entirely for dockyard work and stores, although there must also have been the cost of ships in commission, not here entered.

During the years of warfare between 1544-7 the amounts expended became very large. Richard Knight, who describes himself as ‘servant’ of Lord St John, received between 12th February 1544-5 and 30th June 1547, £101,127, and of this £84,000 was devoted to seamen’s wages and victualling. Of the total sum £40,000 came from the Exchequer, £20,500 from the Court of Augmentation, £1600 benevolence money in Norfolk, and £8000 from the court of Wards and Liveries. Coincidently many thousands of pounds were paid through William Gonson, John Wynter, and his successor, Robert Legge, and doubtless through other persons. The new system of administration did not at first work altogether successfully as far as bookkeeping was concerned. From the following letter of Lisle’s we find that Sir William Paget, a Secretary of State, had written to him making inquiries, and he answers

‘You write unto me that the Tresawrer of thadmyralltie being called to accompt his reckoning is so illfavoridly mad that there semith a want of £2000 wich you cannot well se what is become of hit.’

and goes on to explain a series of transactions, but both Legge and Wynter appear to have been performing the duties of Treasurer which may be a reason for the entanglement of figures. It was stated that during 1544-5, the crown had expended £1,300,000, and the naval expenses from September 1542 to the end of the reign are fully detailed in a later paper.

Cordage, timber, and other stores, £45,230 18 8

Coat and conduct money, 2,415 13 2

Wages of seamen, soldiers, shipwrights, dockyards, etc., 127,846 10 7

Victualling, 65,610 10 4½

Ordnance and ammunition, 19,276 13 10½

Furniture of ships, 1582 14 7

Hire of docks, storehouses, riding and posting charges, 502 4 6

Great stress has been laid on the prevalence of piracy in the sixteenth century as the chief school of English seamanship. Of course it was practised during this reign to an extent that would now be thought monstrous, but it did not attain the proportions of a few years later, nor were English seamen dependent on its development for a knowledge of their art. When religious and political motives impelled them to a guerilla warfare, they became pirates because they were already good seamen, with the training of centuries behind them, and the sea was their natural field of action. The succession of conflicts between France and the Empire induced an internecine maritime war between those powers, in the shape of privateering, which sometimes smouldered but never died out. Convoys for the Spanish American fleets were instituted in 1522 on account of the depredations of French privateers. The despatches of the Imperial ministers show that France, during the reign of Henry and his immediate successors, was, much more than England, a source of injury to Spanish trade. The success of French privateering, together with the voyages for purposes of discovery and settlement, of Verazzani in 1523, of the brothers Parmentier in 1529, of Jacques Cartier and Roberval in 1534 and 1549, of Villegagnon 1555, of Bois-le-Compte in 1556, of Jean de Ribaut in 1562, and of René de Laudonnière in 1564, a succession of efforts which only closed with the outbreak of the wars of religion, seemed to point to France rather than to England as destined to challenge Spanish maritime supremacy. In 1551 France sent a fleet of 160 sail to Scotland, and it is doubtful whether England could have collected one of equal strength to act at a similar distance.

Englishmen, however, joined in the game to a sufficient extent even now. In 1540 the Emperor was informed that a Spaniard, with gold and amber on board, had been seized by two English ships, and a few such successful and profitable incidents must have acted as a strong incentive to ventures which promised large profits on a moderate outlay. There was very little police of the seas, nor could the guardians themselves be trusted in face of temptation. In 1532 some captains sent out on this service plundered Flemish merchantmen they met. As early as 1515 a commission of Oyer and Terminer was issued to the Earl of Surrey and two others to hear and decide piratical offences; in one case eighteen soldiers serving on a man-of-war stole a boat with the intention of seizing a ship at sea. The French had, during the first quarter of the century, a reputation for fair play, and Wolsey in 1526, wrote to Henry that ‘though many English have been taken at sea by the French, they have always made full restitution,’ but when the Scotch began to interfere in the trade, proceedings became embittered by competition. By 1532 the narrow seas were said to be full of Scotch privateers and the customary ransom of prisoners was twenty shillings for a sailor and forty for a master. Both Spaniards and Frenchmen attacked each other in English ports, which, until 1539, were mostly unarmed and plunder was openly sold in the coast towns. That from a Portuguese ship was purchased by the mayor and others of Cork, and in 1537 the owners had been for three years vainly endeavouring to obtain redress.

Ordinary merchantmen, sailing with cargo, took advantage of any favourable chance without necessarily acting on a premeditated plan. One vessel, crossing the Channel, met three Bretons and it then occurred to the owner and master that they had lost £60 by Breton pirates and could obtain no redress. Not to lose the opportunity they captured one and sold the cargo at Penryn. Piracy had not yet taken the savage character with which a few more years were to see it imbued; the theological bitterness was as yet wanting. Cases of bloodshed were very rare, and so far at any rate as Englishmen were concerned, the pirate was also sometimes a respectable tradesman on shore. In 1543 the prisons were said to be full of pirates and the Council adopted the plan of requiring sureties before issuing letters of marque. The port towns flourished, at least some of them, then and long afterwards far more on the traffic with pirates, who visited them and sold the proceeds of robbery to the inhabitants, than by legitimate trade. Consequently no victim could rely on obtaining assistance even from the civic authorities. A French ship was ransacked in Plymouth Roads in August 1546—peace with France had been signed on 7th June—notwithstanding her captain’s appeal for help in the town, which seems to imply that the work was very leisurely and thoroughly done. The Council ordered that unless the goods were recovered and the pirates captured the inhabitants of Plymouth were to be made pecuniarily liable for the damage. The wording of the Council order suggests that the Frenchman was boarded from the town, in which case the refusal of the mayor to interfere is still more significant.

Only one statute relating to piracy was passed by Henry. Before 1535 offenders frequently escaped because, if they did not confess, it was necessary to prove the crime by the evidence of disinterested witnesses and this was usually an impossibility. A fresh act therefore rendered them liable to be tried before a jury under the same conditions as ordinary criminals.

Soon after Henry’s accession he gave large orders for ordnance to foreign makers, chiefly at Mechlin, but the guns so obtained seem to have been for land service. There is only one paper which gives us the weight of the ship serpentine as used in 1513, and here it works out at 261¼ lbs. exclusive of the chamber or loading piece which weighed 41 lbs.; the chamber contained the powder only, not the shot. These were made by Cornelius Johnson ‘the king’s iron gunmaker,’ and who was one of the twelve gunners attached to the Tower with a fee of sixpence a day; as king’s gunmaker he also received eightpence a day. The sling, one of the heavier ship guns, weighed with its two chambers 8½ cwt. and 27 lbs., and there were also half and quarter slings; but there does not appear to have been any standard weight for these or other guns. The serpentines bought in Flanders, for field use, weighed from 1060 lbs. to 1160 lbs. each. Guns were mounted on two or four-wheeled carriages, or, sometimes, on ‘scaffolds’ of timber; leaden shot and ‘dyse’ of iron were used with serpentines and iron shot with curtalls. In one instance 200 iron dice weighed 36 lbs., and they seem to have usually been one and a half inch square. The Artillery Garden at Houndsditch was granted for practice with ‘great and small ordinance,’ and persons with such English names as Herbert, Walker, and Tyler are noticed as gunfounders early in the reign, although, according to Stow, cast iron guns were not made in England till 1543. Some writers assert that they were used in Spain in the fourteenth century; if so it is probable that they were made here before the date given by Stow.

Serpentine powder cost from £4, 13s 4d to £6, 13s 4d and ‘bombdyne’ £5 a last; corn powder tenpence a pound. Serpentine was a fine weak powder and probably midway in strength between bombdyne and corn. During 1512-13, 51 lasts, 12 barrels, 12 lbs. were used at sea, and 37 lasts during the succeeding year. For saltpetre we were dependent on importation, and between 1509-12 there are two contracts for quantities costing £3622, at sixpence a pound, with John Cavalcanti and other Italian merchants who were the usual purveyors, but gunpowder was made at home. Shot, whether of stone or iron, were called gunstones, round shot of iron costing £4, 10s to £5, 10s a ton, and of stone 13s 4d a hundred. Cross bar shot were in common use, e.g. ‘gun stones of iron with cross bars of iron in them.’ There are ‘ballez of wyldfyre with hoks of yron,’ and ‘bolts of wyldfyre’ both, like the arrows of wildfire, to set the enemy on fire. ‘Tampons’ were wads, sometimes of wood, and not the tompions now known: 16,000 were bought for the Henry Grace à Dieu at ten and twenty shillings the thousand. From an entry ‘for two sheepskins to stop the mouths of the guns,’ we may infer that they were stuffed into the muzzles, or tied over them. Sheepskins were also used for gun sponges, and ‘cartouche’ or cartridge cases were made of canvas.

In 1536 there were only 39 lasts, 11 barrels of powder in the Tower, 33,000 livery arrows, ‘decayed,’ all the bows in the same condition, and the morrispikes wormeaten. But the construction of the forts round the coastline in 1539-40, and the events that followed, gave an impetus to the demand for war material.

In 1546 the Council querulously complained that ‘the general rule is whenever the King’s Maiestie shuld bye al is dere and skase, and whenever he shuld sel al is plentye and good chepe,’ an experience not confined to sovereigns. Stores such as timber, pitch, tar, oakum, ironwork, etc., necessary for building or repairs were mostly obtained from tradesmen at or near the dockyard towns. One reason for the adoption of Portsmouth is perhaps to be found in its nearness to Bere Forest and the New Forest, but nearly everything but timber, if not to be obtained at Southampton, had to be sent from London. Naval officials, like Gonson, sold necessaries to the crown, while acting as its representatives, and such transactions appear in the accounts as quite legitimate and customary. About 1522 oak timber from Bere was costing one shilling a ton rough and unhewed, one and eightpence seasoned, and three and fourpence ready squared. Ash was one shilling and beech sixpence. Carriage cost twopence a ton per mile, and the work of felling and preparing the wood was performed by the king’s shipwrights who were sent into the forests for that purpose. Iron was £4 to £5, 10s a ton, the Spanish being of a better quality than the English and costing the higher price. Cables were used up to seventeen inches in circumference, ordinarily described as Dantzic, but sometimes from Lynn and Bridport, and bought of both English and foreign merchants. The price averaged about £12 a ton. The establishments did not, in 1515, possess any means of weighing cordage delivered, and there is a charge of 3s 4d for scales ‘hyrede of a belle ffundere dwellynge at Hondise Diche,’ and sent down to Deptford to weigh purchased cables. The following are the prices of miscellaneous requisites:—

Canvas { Olron (1515), 14s 4d and 15s a bolt

{ do. (1518), 10s a bolt

{ Vitery (1515), £4, 13s 4d the balet

{ Poldavys (1515), 18s a bolt

Hemp (1523), 9s per cwt.

Lead (1513), 6s per cwt.

Rosin (1523), 10s per cwt.

Do. (1544), 8s per cwt.

Raw Tallow (1523), 6s per cwt.

Purified Tallow (1523), 9s per cwt.

Tallow (1544), 7s and 10s per cwt.

Flax (1513), 8s per cwt.

Do. (1523), 10s and 12s per cwt.

Oakum (1523), 8s to 14s per cwt.

Pitch (1514), 4s a barrel

Do. (1523), 6s a barrel

Do. (1544), 8s a barrel

It is of course beyond the scope of this work to enter into the vexed question of Henry’s merits or demerits as a ruler, in its widest sense. But the arming of his kingdom was an important part of the office of a sixteenth century king, and the views on which it was planned, and the way in which it was carried out, must form a weighty element in the final judgment of his fitness for his post. So far as the Navy is concerned there is little but unqualified praise to be awarded to Henry. That his action was due to a settled policy and not the product of a momentary vanity or desire for display is shown by the fact that it commenced with his accession and was still progressing at his decease. For almost thirty-eight years nearly every year marked some advance in construction or administration, some plan calculated to make the Navy a more effective fighting instrument. So far as numbers went he made it the most powerful navy in the world, remembering the limited radius within which it was called upon to act. He revolutionised its armament and improved its fighting and sailing qualities, he himself inventing or adapting a type thought fit for the narrow seas. He enlarged the one dockyard he found existing and formed two others in positions so suitable for their purpose that they remained in use as long as the system of wooden ships they were built in connection with. Regulations for the manœuvring of fleets and the discipline of their crews were due to him. He discarded the one mediæval officer of the crown and organised an administration so broadly planned that, in an extended form, it remains in existence to-day. He built forts for the defence of the coasts, a measure that might now be criticised as showing ignorance of the strategical use of a fleet, but a criticism which is inapplicable to the middle of the sixteenth century when the Navy had yet to fight its way not only to supremacy but to equality. It may be said that events pointed to, and almost enforced, the new direction given to national endeavour and the new value attached to the naval arm. Allowing due weight to the altered conditions the fact remains that Henry accepted them and carried out the innovations they involved with an energy and thoroughness akin to genius. The maritime systems of France and Spain, whether in details of shipbuilding or the larger methods of administration, remained unchanging and inelastic, ignoring the mutations of a century remarkable for activity and progress. Spain tried to hold the command of the sea in the sixteenth century with an organisation little altered from that found sufficient in the previous one. Circumstances brought England into conflict with her and not with France, and she had to pay for her blunder of pride or sluggishness with the ruin of her empire.

In these changes history gives no sign of there being any extraneous influence acting through the king. Ministers might come and go but the work of naval extension, done under his personal supervision and direction, went on methodically and unceasingly. He trod a path that some of his predecessors had indicated but none had entered. The errors he committed were those inevitable to a new scheme, a plan which was not an enlargement but a reconstruction, and in which he was a pioneer. His mistakes were those of the scientific ignorance and feudal spirit of his age; his successes were of a much higher order and informed with the statesmanship of a later time.