SHIPS AND MEN. ENGLISH PORTS
The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries witnessed great developments in
English shipbuilding. In the former the feeble, untrustworthy vessels of
the Middle Ages were improved and strengthened until they were
sufficiently sound for regular voyages to all the waters of Europe, the
Mediterranean included; and in the latter an ocean-going type was
evolved, capable of keeping the sea for weeks and months at a stretch,
and of making such voyages as those of Drake and Cavendish, which
constituted an astonishing advance on anything that had previously been
possible.
At the commencement of this improvement in shipping England lagged far
behind her competitors. The Venetians were regularly voyaging to the
North Sea for at least two centuries before there was any established
English trade to the Mediterranean. The Portuguese had commercial posts
on the Guinea coast a hundred years before Wyndham sailed the first
English vessel there; and their successive advances on the route to
India, spread over a long period of years and culminating in Vasco da
Gama’s arrival at Calicut in 1498, gave them a long start in the
acquisition of the experience necessary to the advance of shipbuilding.
Yet by the end of the sixteenth century the positions were reversed, and
English ships were excelled by none in durability and handiness and
general efficiency for the purposes for which they were designed.
It would seem that this rapid advance in excellence was largely due to
the interest in the navy displayed by Tudor governments. The development
of the warship preceded in most respects that of the merchantman; and,
owing to the peculiar conditions of the time, every merchantman which
was to be of use for anything beyond mere coasting had to be provided
with some fighting gear. For distant voyages in fact, such as those to
the Mediterranean, merchants preferred to charter a man-of-war from the
State whenever one was available. Throughout the period in question
England was exposed to constant wars or threatenings of war with France
or Spain, with the result that the improvement of fighting-ships was
vigorously pressed. The fleet became a leading care of the State to an
extent never before dreamed of; and the mercantile marine, fostered by a
system of bounties, shared in the general enlightenment, and steadily
extended the scope of its activities to the accompaniment of an
unprecedented advance in the construction of ships and the study of all
things pertaining to shipping.
Mediaeval vessels fall largely into two classes: the long, low and
narrow galley; and the short, broad, almost basin-shaped sailing-ship,
propelled usually by a single square sail. In northern waters the
galley, common until the twelfth century, gradually gave place to the
sailing-ship, on which all progress was concentrated, so that by the
close of the Middle Ages the oared vessel was practically extinct
outside the Mediterranean. In that sea, however, natural conditions were
more favourable to the galley, which survived side by side with the
sailing-vessel and which, although costing more in working expenses, was
preferred for its swiftness and reliability.
In England the first great improvement of the mediaeval sailing-ship
consisted in fitting two or more masts in place of the one which had
hitherto been considered sufficient. The exact date of this advance is
unknown, but it probably occurred before the beginning of the fifteenth
century, when the increasing frequency of voyages to Bordeaux and
Iceland began to demand more navigable vessels for their safe
accomplishment. A natural concomitant of this change was an increase of
length and a modification of the extreme basin-shape of the
single-masted cogs, which were only suited for short, fair-wind trips
across the narrow seas to France or Flanders. At some time also in the
same century occurred the introduction of the lateen sail in place of
the square sail on the aftermost mast of the ship. This device doubtless
came from the Mediterranean, where small craft were fitted exclusively
with such sails.
A modification in the shape of the hull, which was destined to be of
long enduring influence, was due to the needs of warfare. In early
vessels there was no raised poop or forecastle, but the deck ran in
unbroken sweep from prow to stern, at which extremities the timbers of
the side curved upwards to a point. For fighting purposes it became
customary to fit such ships with raised platforms or castles, built on
temporarily at either end, and occupied by archers, slingers, and
stone-throwing engines. The latter, from such a high vantage-point,
could do great execution on an enemy’s decks and could, moreover, assist
in repelling boarders from the waist of their own vessel. The efficacy
of the new departure was speedily proved, and it became permanently
incorporated into the design. Ships were now built with a strong square
forecastle and ‘summercastle’, as the after-edifice was named, as
integral parts of the structure. The additional weight thus placed at
either end necessitated an increase of length to avoid excessive
pitching. The pitching motion was nevertheless very severe, as was
proved when a full-sized model of Columbus’s caravel, the _Santa Maria_,
was sailed across the Atlantic in 1893.[303]
In a late fifteenth-century manuscript in the British Museum,[304] the
author of which died in 1491, there are numerous illustrations of ships
which may be taken as representing the state of marine construction at
the opening of the Tudor period. On folio 5 is a drawing of a
sailing-ship, probably the type of vessel with which the longer voyages,
such as those to Bordeaux or Spain, were made. She has a platform-shaped
forecastle, not of excessive height, and a long poop sloping upwards
towards the stern. The masts are three in number, the foremast being
very short and the mainmast twice its height. Each of these is intended
to carry one square sail, although the mainsail only is shown. The
mizen-mast is short and carries one lateen sail. There is a bowsprit but
no sprit-sail such as was afterwards used. None of the drawings in this
manuscript shows any signs of a sprit-sail yard on the bowsprit; and it
is possible that they had not been introduced at that date, although
they were in use before the close of the century. The same may be said
of top-sails and topmasts; they occur nowhere in these drawings, but
they were certainly fitted to warships built for Henry VII not long
after his accession. The drawing on f. 5 has been frequently reproduced,
but generally so badly as to make it appear that the ship has only two
masts instead of three.
On f. 25 of the same manuscript is a very clear drawing showing a large
ship in harbour with sails furled. This vessel has a short, high
forecastle and a long poop rising in two tiers. The bowsprit and
foremast are short. The mainmast is high and very thick, while there are
two mizen-masts each with a yard for a lateen sail. When two mizen-masts
were fitted to a ship the foremost was called the main mizen and the
aftermost the bonaventure mizen. This is the earliest drawing showing a
four-masted ship which has been met with. On the other side of the sheet
(f. 25b) the same vessel is shown in a storm at sea. There are guns on
deck in the waist and a row of oval openings in the poop and forecastle
which are evidently intended for ports for smaller pieces. On f. 18b is
a representation of a sea fight, one ship engaging two others at close
quarters. Long-bows, cross-bows, spears, and stones are the principal
weapons used; and marksmen are placed in the tops to sweep the enemy’s
decks. The mainmasts, and occasionally the other masts, of ships of the
time were fitted with circular tops for fighting and look-out purposes,
and large enough for two or three men to stand in. At a later period
small guns were mounted in them. All the vessels in this manuscript show
an immense advance on the old mediaeval cog, and indicate the great
improvements which had been going on during the fifteenth century.
[Illustration:
WARSHIP, _c._ 1485.
From Cott. MS. Jul. E. iv. 6, f. 25.
]
As was natural during a period of more extended voyages, the size of
merchant ships tended to increase. Nine vessels trading between England
and Spain in the time of Henry VII, of which the tonnage is mentioned in
the State papers, show an average of 142 tons, the largest being 220
tons. The Italians generally built their ships larger than this, and,
although we read that in 1488 there was no ship of 1,000 tons in Venice,
the reference seems to imply that ships of that size were by no means
unknown. The statements as to tonnage must, however, be taken as of very
loose application, the same ship being sometimes given as 50 per cent.
or more larger than at others. The _Henry Grace à Dieu_, for example,
Henry VIII’s great warship, varies between 1,000 and 1,500 tons, and the
_Mary Rose_, which was of 400 tons when built, is described as of 600
three years later. In English ships the unit of measurement was the tun
of Bordeaux wine, which contained 252 gallons and occupied about 60
cubic feet of space.[305] When there was a question of hiring
merchantmen for war purposes, for which payment was made by the ton, the
owner’s estimate was apt to differ considerably from that of the
government. In the French war of 1512–13 the navy lists contain numbers
of merchantmen whose tonnage varies so astonishingly as to suggest that
their hulls were capable of inflation and deflation like balloons.
The cost of building ships was very low in comparison with modern
figures, although it rose rapidly with the influx of gold from America
in the sixteenth century. Two small warships, the _Mary Fortune_ and the
_Sweepstake_, were built for Henry VII at a cost of £110 and £120
respectively.[306] At the opening of Henry VIII’s reign the _Mary Rose_,
400 tons, and the _Peter Pomegranate_, 300, together cost £1,016 fully
equipped for sea;[307] while the _Henry Grace à Dieu_, the largest ship
of her time, cost £8,708 in 1514.[308] Privately owned ships were
chartered by the State at 3_d._ per ton per week.
A French manuscript of 1519[309] affords some information as to the
shipping of that date. It is a translation in French of Caesar’s wars,
to illustrate which a large map of France is provided as a frontispiece.
Following the contemporary custom, the cartographer has inserted
drawings of ships in the surrounding seas. One of these, placed near the
mouth of the Garonne, represents a large merchantman. She has a curved
stem and rounded, swelling bows, shaped like a bellying sail and
surmounted by a flat, platform-shaped forecastle which overhangs the
water. The waist has greater freeboard than that of a warship, and the
poop is small and square. No guns are visible, and the hull is evidently
designed for stability and carrying capacity rather than speed and
fighting convenience. There are three pole masts, each with a round top
and one square sail. There are no topmasts and no bowsprit. Three other
sailing-ships are shown on the same map. Their hulls are of the same
type as the one already described, but they have only one mast each. As
this was a work dealing with ancient history it is probable that the
artist purposely drew the oldest-fashioned craft he was acquainted with.
He had some archaeological instinct, as is evident from the semi-Roman
costumes which appear in other illustrations; and he recognized that it
would be inappropriate to place guns in the ships, not one of which
possesses them. If this view is correct the manuscript is interesting as
providing one of the many lost connecting links between the mediaeval
and modern types of sailing-ship.
Robert Thorne’s map of 1527, appended to his book to Dr. Lee, bears a
spirited drawing of a sailing-vessel approximating more to the
man-of-war type. She has a square, overhanging forecastle, a low waist,
and a high, narrow poop. The fore and main masts are lofty, and are each
provided with top-sails, while the short mizen has one lateen sail. It
is not apparent whether this was intended to represent an English or
Spanish vessel. Thorne was an Englishman, but the drawing was made at
Seville and is placed in a part of the ocean to which no English ship
had then penetrated.
One more example of the none too numerous drawings of merchantmen may be
quoted. In a _Book of Hydrography_ designed in 1542 by a Frenchman, John
Rotz, for Henry VIII,[310] occur numerous beautifully painted maps
embracing all parts of the world. On one, representing the North
Atlantic, a merchant vessel is seen near the coast of Portugal. The
hull, evidently built for carrying capacity, is on very full lines, and
the fore and after castles are small in proportion. The mainmast carries
two sails, but the fore and mizen masts have only one each, that on the
latter being a lateen. There is a bowsprit but no sprit-sail. This may
possibly represent a Portuguese carrack of the type with which they
voyaged to the East Indies. Such vessels were subsequently developed to
(for that time) an enormous size. One captured by the English in 1592,
named the _Madre de Dios_, was of 1,600 tons burden.
The facts considered above serve to indicate that, although little is
known with exactitude about the merchant vessels of early Tudor times,
it is at least certain that they were by no means identical in design
with the warships. The latter, as will be seen, mounted large numbers of
guns—over 100 in many cases—and this fact influenced their design to an
extent quite unnecessary in trading craft, which were far less heavily
armed. The principal features in the development of the latter from
their mediaeval prototypes were: increasing length, relatively small
size of the ‘castles’, and an increasing number of sails and spars,
together with the introduction of topmasts.
The ship’s boats were usually three in number, the ‘great boat’, the
long-boat, and the skiff or jolly-boat. They were probably carried on
deck in the waist, and must have been hoisted by tackles from the
yard-arms, since davits were not then used for the purpose. The great
boat was often towed. Hakluyt gives an account of a voyage to the
Mediterranean by the _Matthew Gonson_ in 1535, as narrated by one of the
crew. He says that they towed their great boat all the way from Chios to
the Straits of Gibraltar, implying that she was then hoisted aboard. As
this boat was big enough to carry ten tuns of water it is difficult to
imagine how it was done.
[Illustration: 1]
[Illustration:
2
TWO MERCHANTMEN.
1. From Robert Thorne’s map, 1527. 2. From
Harl. MS. 6205, date 1519.
]
Although, as we have seen, four-masted ships were known long before the
end of the fifteenth century, the merchantman of Tudor times was usually
equipped with three. In short vessels the masts were rigged in a
fan-shape, the foremast inclining forwards, the mainmast upright, and
the mizen raking towards the rear so as to give greater distance between
the sails. The latter tended to increase in number, the use of top-sails
and sprit-sails beneath the bowsprit becoming common in the reign of
Henry VII. An additional spar, projecting from the stern of the ship in
the same manner as the bowsprit from the bow, and named the ‘outligger’,
was fitted to receive the sheet of the lateen sail on the mizenmast.
With top-sails, topmasts were introduced, but the latter were fixtures
in the sixteenth century and not strikeable at sea. To diminish rolling
in heavy weather it was customary to lower the main- and fore-yards down
to the deck, as is depicted in various drawings. Top-gallant-masts and
sails were fitted to warships—the _Henry Grace à Dieu_ had them on three
of her four masts—but it does not appear that any merchant ship had them
until a much later date. Although there is some evidence that reefing
was known in very early times, it was not extensively practised at the
period in question. The purpose of reefing is to reduce the sail area in
high winds, but among Tudor seamen a contrary device was favoured. The
sails were cut smaller than the maximum size possible, and were
lengthened in light winds by lacing to their lower borders additional
pieces called bonnets. As many as three bonnets were sometimes supplied
for one sail,[311] but two was the more usual number. They were applied
to the main- and fore-sails and also to top-sails.[312] Jibs and
stay-sails, and fore-and-aft rigging generally, were entirely unknown at
this time, the nearest approach to any such thing being the lateen. In
consequence it was much harder than at present to make headway against
contrary winds, as an example of which the difficulty invariably
experienced by English traders in getting away from the Guinea coast may
be cited. The shape of the hulls was such as to offer great resistance
to the wind, and the leeway must have been excessive. Towards the middle
of the century, when the size of the forecastle had somewhat diminished,
it would seem that it was possible to heave the ship to without showing
any sail at all: Sir Hugh Willoughby’s journal, describing the gale
encountered off the Norwegian coast, says, ‘... the wind increasing so
sore that we were not able to bear any sail, but took them in, and lay a
drift, to the end to let the storm over pass’.
More distant voyages demanded a long-overdue improvement in the science
of navigation. The finding of latitude was rendered a comparatively
simple matter by the successive inventions of the astrolabe, the
cross-staff, and the quadrant.[313] The astrolabe, which came into use
prior to the age of the great discoveries, remained in favour throughout
the sixteenth century, being described by Martin Cortes in his _Breve
Compendio de la Sphera_ in 1556. An astrolabe which was used by Sir
Francis Drake is preserved in the museum at Greenwich. Cortes’s
astrolabe consisted of a metal ring, of which 90 degrees were graduated,
and a metal pointer turning on a pin in the centre. The pointer had
aperture sights at either end, and when moved until the sun could be
seen through both apertures it indicated his elevation above the horizon
in degrees on the graduated part of the ring.[314] The cross-staff was
invented early in the sixteenth century, but never entirely superseded
the astrolabe until both were rendered obsolete by the quadrant, an
invention of John Davis at the end of the same century. With these
instruments latitude was ascertainable with fair accuracy; in skilful
hands the error was usually less than one degree. The same could not be
said about longitude, in which huge errors were unavoidable by any
method then known. Longitude remained then and long afterwards an
insoluble problem, and many charts of the time made no effort to
indicate it.
Of contemporary foreign vessels the most interesting is the caravel, as
being the type with which Columbus made his great voyages across the
Atlantic, and which had a considerable influence on the design of the
Tudor man-of-war. The caravel, which the Spaniards found most suitable
for their early ocean navigations, had little in common with the short,
broad merchantmen of the narrow seas. It was built with a high, tapering
poop, a low waist, and a high, overhanging forecastle, rectangular in
plan, and serving to break the force of a head sea. The high castles and
general handiness of design rendered it an efficient fighting vessel,
and it was probable, as Mr. Oppenheim has pointed out, that it was for
this reason that Henry VII was eager to employ such craft in preference
to English-built ships on the rare occasions when he needed to mobilize
a naval force.[315] But the caravel, probably as lacking sufficient
cargo capacity, did not find favour with English shipbuilders, and as
late as 1552 was still distinctively a foreign type. In that year the
London merchants who sent out Thomas Wyndham on a trading voyage to
Barbary bought a Portuguese caravel of 60 tons to form part of his
squadron. The inhabitants of the Canary Isles, recognizing from a
distance that she was not an English ship, made an attack on the
expedition as they concluded that she had been wrongfully acquired.
The carrack, unlike the caravel, is not an easily identifiable type, and
the word seems to have been applied to any large and bulky vessel. In
one navy list the _Henry Grace à Dieu_ appears as the ‘Imperyall (or
Gret) Carrick’,[316] but this is exceptional, and the term was generally
used only of foreign ships. In its particular application, if it can be
said to have had one, it signified first the trading-ships of
Genoa,[317] which ceased to come to England after the fifteenth century,
and afterwards the great East Indiamen of the Portuguese. The act
granting tonnage and poundage in 1485 provides that if an Englishman
ship his goods in a ‘carryke or galley’ he shall pay the same duties as
a foreigner. The carracks in this case meant Genoese, and the galleys
Venetian, vessels.
[Illustration:
1 & 2
TWO CARRACKS.
1. From Royal MS. 20. E. ix. 2. From
Add. MS. 5415. A. 7.
]
Another non-English ship was the hulk, the large, clumsy merchantman of
the Hanse towns. William Towerson, sailing for Guinea in January 1558,
captured two ‘hulks of Dantzick’ in the Bay of Biscay. They made no
attempt at resistance against his three vessels, and were released as
not worth keeping by reason of their poor sailing qualities: ‘they
sailed so ill that, having all their sails abroad, we kept them company
only with our foresails, and without any topsails abroad, so that in
every two days sailing they would have hindered us more than one’—which
seems to argue that the Germans built their ships solely with an eye to
capacity. Henry VIII hired several hulks from the Hansa for use against
the French in 1545. His fighting instructions for an anticipated action
in that year directed that they should be placed in the front line and
used to break up the order of the enemy before the onset of the
men-of-war in the second line.[318]
Turning to warships, we find ourselves on much surer ground. Detailed
inventories exist of several of the crack ships of Henry VII and Henry
VIII, and carefully executed drawings of the same period are
numerous.[319] In the evolution of the warship the paramount factor was
the rapid development of artillery. The guns mounted in ships were at
first small and of little penetrative power. Consequently it was
essential to place them where they could do the greatest execution on an
enemy’s decks and against his rigging. The tactical idea in the use of
the gun was mainly to employ it in the same way as the long-bow and the
cross-bow; to kill the enemy’s crew rather than to sink his ship. Hence
we find in the warships of Henry VII large numbers of ‘serpentines’,
small guns weighing about three hundredweight and throwing a half-pound
ball, grouped in the castles of the ship, which were built very high to
accommodate them in two or three tiers. At the same time a few heavier
guns, throwing stone balls, were placed in the waist. These were too low
down to reach the greater part of the hostile deck at close quarters,
and must therefore have been fired at the hull. The collective weight of
all these guns was very great and, to secure stability and structural
strength, the ship’s sides had to be sloped inwards from the water-line
so that the weight should be more centrally carried. This ‘tumblehome’
in high-built ships was so great that the width of the deck on poop and
forecastle was often less than half the width at the water-line. It
served another purpose in rendering boarding more difficult, for, even
if two vessels were touching at the water-line, their decks were
necessarily several feet apart. The most easily accessible part was the
waist, which was defended by nettings and by guns placed in the castles
on purpose to sweep it with ‘hail shot’, the forerunner of grape and
canister.
The armament of the _Sovereign_, built in 1488, was as follows:[320] In
the forecastle, above deck, 16 serpentines, and below deck, 24; in the
poop, 20 serpentines; in the ‘somercastle’ (apparently a quarter-deck,
one stage lower than the poop), above deck, 25 serpentines, below deck,
21 together with 11 stone guns; in the waist, 20 stone guns; in the
stern, over the rudder, 4 serpentines. Total, 110 serpentines and 31
stone guns. The _Regent_, built about the same time, was most likely a
larger vessel, as she carried 225 guns. In her case their distribution
is not known.
Although Henry VII had these two first-class warships built, he did not
maintain a large navy, and at his death there were apparently only seven
royal ships.[321] His successor, bent on a more adventurous foreign
policy, began to strengthen the fleet from the very commencement of his
reign. The _Mary Rose_ and the _Peter Pomegranate_ were built in 1510,
and the _Henry Grace à Dieu_ was laid down at the end of 1512 to replace
the _Regent_, burnt in action off Brest earlier in that year.
An incident which took place in April 1513 probably had a great effect
on the armament of the _Henry Grace à Dieu_. The English fleet was
blockading the French in Brest and seeking in vain for some means of
bringing the enemy to action. As a reinforcement a squadron of six
French galleys was ordered round from the Mediterranean under the
command of a brave and able officer named Prégent de Bidoux. Three of
these galleys, according to contemporary letters, were armed with one
heavy gun each, obtained from the Venetians, and of such a size as had
never before been seen in France. It was asserted that a single shot
from such a gun would be sufficient to send any ship to the bottom. The
boast was soon, to a great extent, substantiated. Arriving off Brest on
April 22, Prégent made a bold dash through the blockading fleet and
succeeding in getting into Blanc Sablons Bay. In the process his
formidable guns sank one English ship outright and crippled another,
striking her through in seven places so that there was great difficulty
in keeping her afloat. This was a minimum estimate of the damage, as
admitted by the English themselves; a neutral account stated that two
ships were sunk, and Prégent himself claimed to have destroyed four
large ships and two transports, which was certainly a gross
exaggeration.[322]
The construction of the _Henry Grace à Dieu_ could not at this date have
been at a very advanced stage, since she was not ready for sea until
June 1514; and it is fair to assume that the demonstration of the
effectiveness of a few heavy guns provided by the above action was
responsible for the mounting of several such in the _Henry_. Be that as
it may, the tendency was henceforward to reduce the number of light
pieces carried in the upper works of a ship and to transfer the weight
of armament to a hard-hitting battery placed on the level of the waist
and in a fighting deck below the waist. The _Henry Grace à Dieu_ is the
first ship known to have been provided with a tier of guns below the
main deck. She was armed in 1514 with 136 small guns, and the following
heavier pieces, the exact dimensions of some of which are not
ascertainable: stone guns, 4; ‘great pieces of iron of one making and
bigness,’ 12; ‘great iron guns of one sort that come out of Flanders,’
4; ‘great Spanish pieces of iron of one sort,’ 2; stone guns on wheels,
18; miscellaneous large guns, 4; great brass culverins, 2; a great brass
bombard on four wheels; and a great brass curtall on four wheels: total,
48 heavy guns.[323] It is doubtful whether the stone guns should be
ranked as heavy weapons. They were evidently larger than serpentines, to
judge from their position in the _Sovereign’s_ armament already
described; but it is unlikely that they were identical with the ‘canon
petro’ of the latter half of the century, which fired a 26 lb. shot.
They were probably in 1514 medium-sized pieces, and if we deduct them
from the above total, the undoubtedly heavy guns of the _Henry_ numbered
26. The culverin was of 5½ inches calibre, and threw an 18 lb. ball;
according to a paper of 1513 the weight of the shot fired by the curtall
was 60 lb., while the missile of the bombard was of 260 lb. and required
a charge of 80 lb. of powder.[324] It is somewhat hard to believe that
the _Henry_ ever used such a gun at sea; and in another list of almost
the same date the bombard is omitted.[325] By the end of the reign the
_Henry_ had been re-armed, her heavy guns then numbering 19, and
consisting of 4 cannon, 3 demi-cannon, 4 culverins, 2 demi-culverins, 2
cannon-petro, and 4 sakers.[326] The weight of shot ranged from 60 lb.
for the cannon down to 6 lb. for the saker.
The same policy of reducing the number of guns, increasing their weight,
and carrying them lower, was pursued in the case of other ships built
during the reign, with the consequence that the excessive height of the
castles was no longer necessary; and after 1540 several vessels were
built practically flush-decked. These ships, which varied from 150 to
300 tons, were described as galleys, but the word was not intended in
its usual sense. They were fully-rigged sailing-ships and, although they
may have been occasionally assisted by the use of sweeps, it was not
their principal means of propulsion. They probably owed the name to
their speed and handiness as compared with the high-built,
older-fashioned vessels. An illustration[327] of one of them, the
_Tiger_, built in 1546, appears as the frontispiece of Oppenheim’s
_Administration of the Royal Navy_. She carries about twenty large guns,
of which fourteen are placed on the broadsides below the main deck. The
king himself was greatly interested in the efforts made to improve
warships. The following extract from a letter of Chapuys, an eminently
reliable authority, demonstrates his responsibility for the innovation
just described:
‘The King has sent to Italy for three shipwrights experienced in the
art of constructing galleys, but I fancy 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 is the inventor.’[328]
The smaller examples of this class were known as ‘rowbarges’. They did
good service against the French galleys in the war of 1544–6, and were
used for policing the Channel in times of peace. They are thus described
by Martin du Bellay, a contemporary French writer:
‘Il y a une espèce de navires particulières dont usoyent noz ennemis,
en forme plus longue que ronde, et plus estroitte beaucoup que les
gallères, pour mieux se régir et commander aux courantes, qui sont
ordinaires en ceste mer; à quoy les hommes sont si duits, qu’avec ces
vaisseaux ils contendent de vitesse avec les gallères, et les nomment
remberges.’
In the larger ships the type of hull gradually developed into that
familiar in numerous pictures of the Armada period: low forecastle, very
little higher than the waist, and moderately high poop, the guns being
mounted on the main deck and in one or more fighting decks below it.
This build, although increased in size, remained substantially unaltered
in its main proportions until the middle of the eighteenth century.
Although the hulls of ships were undergoing great modifications, the
style of rigging warships remained practically unchanged during the
period under review. The _Sovereign_ of 1488 had four masts, the fore
and main having topmasts and top-sails, and the mizen and bonaventure
mizen being rigged with one lateen sail each. A sprit-sail was carried
under the bowsprit. The _Sovereign_ was in all respects an excellent
ship, and probably in advance of the general standard of her time. As
late as 1525, when her timbers were old and rotten, the authorities were
recommended to have her rebuilt because ‘the form of this ship is so
marvellous goodly that great pity it were she should die’.[329]
Apparently the advice was not carried out, for she disappears from view
about this time. The _Henry Grace à Dieu_ carried topmasts and
topgallantmasts and three sails on the fore-, main-, and mizen-masts,
and a topmast and two sails on the bonaventure mizen; also a sprit-sail
under the bowsprit, which, for practical purposes, was a fifth
mast.[330] But the _Henry_ was exceptional in most respects, and the
rigging of the _Sovereign_ became the standard type for
sixteenth-century warships.
The great picture at Hampton Court depicting the embarkation of Henry
VIII at Dover in 1520 shows the _Henry_ and several warships of the
time, but the technical accuracy of the artist is open to great doubt.
Five ships appear on a large scale, and their hulls are all so
suspiciously alike that they suggest the idea that they were all drawn
from the same original. The only differences are in a few minor details
of carving and colouring. Two of the ships carry four masts and the
remainder three; and it is noticeable that not a single lateen sail is
shown in the whole fleet, the mizen-masts having square sails like the
fore and main. This is almost certainly incorrect.[331] Such guns as can
be seen are arranged in precisely the same way in every case, and the
whole picture gives the impression that the artist was drawing
conventional ships without much study of the real thing, and was
concentrating his care on the numerous gorgeously dressed individuals
who are seen on the decks and in the foreground.
[Illustration:
THE _HENRY GRACE À DIEU_.
From a MS. at Magdalene College, Cambridge.
]
The fighting record of the _Henry Grace à Dieu_ is not particularly
brilliant. She was completed just too late to take part in the war of
1512–14. In 1522 war was again declared against France, and she was sent
to sea in the fleet commanded by Sir William Fitz-William. He reported
that she sailed as well and rather better than any ship in the fleet,
weathering them all save the _Mary Rose_; and, although it was only the
beginning of June, he went on to talk about laying her up for the
winter. She was evidently something of a nuisance, and the admiral was
anxious to be rid of her. There had been so much boasting about this
marvellous ship that the French were certain to make her the especial
object of their attacks, and the king would have been furious if she had
been lost. On June 8 she lost her bowsprit, foremast, and maintopmast in
a gale in the Downs, and a week later was brought round to Portsmouth to
be laid up. Special precautions were to be taken against a French raid;
two barks were kept scouting round the Isle of Wight, assisted by an
elaborate system of beacons, sentinels, &c. Later on 1,000 marks were
spent on a dock and fortifications for the _Henry_ at Portsmouth, and it
does not appear that she went to sea in 1523, after which year the war
was virtually over.[332] In 1526, when laid up at Northfleet, it was
reported that she was costing £200 a year in wages alone, and more than
that in cables, hawsers, and other stores, and that a dock would have to
be built at a cost of £600.[333] The next war was that of 1544–6. In the
former year the naval operations were unimportant, and the _Henry_ took
no part in them; but in 1545 an immense French fleet was collected in
the Channel, and for a time England lost the command of the sea. The
English fleet was concentrated at Portsmouth, the _Henry Grace à Dieu_
being the flagship. The king was dining on board when, on July 19, the
approach of the French was signalled. Indecisive fighting at long range
took place, and the French then withdrew. Another cannonade, with the
like result, took place off the Sussex coast on August 15, and with this
the war services of the _Henry_ concluded. She was accidentally burnt at
Deptford in 1553. Her career was typical of those of most of the large
fighting ships of the time. All of them, both English and French, were
considered too valuable to be committed to a decisive action, or to be
sent to sea in any but the finest weather; and such exploits as were
performed went to the credit of lighter and more easily handled craft.
In the wars of this period the French galleys on more than one occasion
proved exceedingly useful to their side; but all attempts to popularize
this type of vessel in England were failures. As has been explained, the
numerous craft so described in the navy lists were for the most part not
true galleys, but light sailing ships. In 1544, however, a galley was
constructed on Mediterranean lines and named the _Galley Subtile_ or
_Row Galley_. She was of 200 tons, carried a crew of 250, and mounted 31
guns.[334] A drawing in the British Museum shows her fitted with a
pointed beak or ram, and one mast with a huge lateen sail. She served on
the Scottish coast in 1544, when Edinburgh was sacked, and in the
actions against the French in the following year.
Artillery in the sixteenth century was in a state of transition.
Originally, after first rudimentary experiments with wood, ropes, and
leather, guns were built up by binding longitudinal strips of metal into
cylindrical form with numerous metal rings, on the principle of the
construction of a cask. Guns made in this way were mounted in Henry
VII’s warships, and the system continued in vogue until the latter half
of the century. At the same time cast-brass and cast-iron guns were
beginning to be made abroad; many of them were imported into England,
and they were used in forts and ships side by side with the built-up
guns.
Practically all the larger pieces for sea use were loaded at the breach.
The method consisted in having a detachable section, from one to two
feet long, called the chamber, which was taken off the remainder of the
barrel to be loaded. When charged with powder the chamber was replaced
at the rear end of the barrel and fixed in position by a wooden wedge
hammered in between it and a projection on the carriage of the gun, the
shot having been previously placed in the barrel itself. The gun was
then fired by means of a linstock and priming powder scattered over the
touch hole. Three chambers were supplied with each gun in the time of
Henry VII, but the number was afterwards reduced to two. The indistinct
accounts of naval encounters give the impression that the rate of fire
was not nearly so rapid as might have been expected, and the
breech-loading system was rapidly displaced by muzzle-loaders towards
the end of the sixteenth century. A large built-up breech-loader,
recovered by divers in 1836 from the wreck of the _Mary Rose_ (1545), is
to be seen at the United Services Museum in Whitehall.
Guns of cast brass were said by ancient authorities not to have been
made in England until 1521, nor cast iron until 1543, but these dates
are probably much too late. In 1516 payment of £33 6_s._ 8_d._ was made
to John Rutter of London ‘for hurts and damages by him sustained in a
tenement to him belonging, wherein the King’s great gun called the
Basiliscus was cast’.[335] If a great gun could be cast in England in
1516 it is reasonable to suppose that some experience had first been
gained in casting smaller ones. The wrought guns of this period were
embedded in solid elm carriages and fastened down by iron rings; but
several cast metal examples exist which were fitted with trunnions in
the modern fashion.
During the war of 1512–14 the Government purchased large numbers of guns
at home and abroad. Humphrey Walker, an English gun-maker, supplied
fifty pieces in 1512. The principal foreign place of manufacture was
Mechlin, where Hans Popenruyter turned out heavy weapons in great
quantities. He delivered twenty-four curtalls weighing about 1¼ tons
each in 1512, also twenty-four serpentines averaging about ½ ton. The
individual guns were all of slightly different weights and were all
named with such appellations as The Sun Arising, Virago, Mermaid, Rat,
Snake, Dragon, &c.[336] The heavier weapons were for land service, and
assisted at the sieges of Tournay and Terouenne in 1513.
A paper of 1513[337] gives some interesting information about the
various classes of guns in use: A minion fired an 8 lb. shot; a lizard,
a 12 lb. ditto, with 14 lb. of powder; culverins, ‘novemburghs’, and
apostles were 20-pounders; while a curtall fired a 60 lb. and a bombard
a 260 lb. missile. The latter could only be fired five times a day,
presumably on account of over-heating. The rates of fire of the others
were very slow, none of them exceeding forty times a day. The powder was
largely purchased abroad, although some was made in England; it cost
3½_d._ or 4_d._ a pound, and was of very poor quality. A Venetian
description of England in 1557 mentions that there were then 600 iron
and 250 brass guns in the Tower.[338] Since the private ownership of
cannon was not encouraged, this fact goes far to explain the non-success
of all rebellions against the Tudor throne.
The crews both of warships and merchantmen were much more numerous in
proportion to the size of the ship than they have since become. Many
improvements tending to greater manageability were then unthought of. On
long voyages also, allowance had to be made for serious sickness and
mortality, which was almost invariably experienced. The _Matthew Gonson_
of 300 tons, which voyaged to the Levant in 1535, carried 100 men, and
it was recorded as remarkable that only one died. On tropical voyages,
such as those to Guinea in the reign of Mary, it sometimes happened that
more than half the crew never returned. Overcrowding and poorness of the
victuals were partly responsible. The food supplied in English warships
consisted only of biscuit, beef, fish, and beer, and it is unlikely that
merchantmen were better found. A French victualling list, however, is
somewhat more varied, including biscuit, fresh bread, flour, cider,
beer, wine, salt and fresh flesh, mutton, bacon, butter, peas, fish, and
verjuice.[339] The wages in 1512 were as follows: Admiral, 10_s._ per
day; captain, 18_d._ per day; lodesman (pilot), 20_s._ per month;
sailors, 5_s._ per month and 5_s._ worth of victuals.[340] The
subordinate officers were paid the same as the sailors and, in addition,
divided among themselves a number of ‘deadshares’ proportionate to the
size of the ship. In merchant vessels private trading by all members of
the crew, at any rate on long voyages, was a recognized custom, and they
were allowed a certain amount of space in the hold for their goods. It
is referred to in the charter granted by Henry VII to the Bristol
syndicate in 1501, in the accounts of the Guinea voyages, and in the
instructions to Sir Hugh Willoughby in 1553.
A large trading-ship was commanded by a captain, appointed by the
merchants owning the cargo, and having general control over the conduct
of the voyage, the ports of call, dates of sailing, &c, and by the
master, who navigated the ship and controlled the crew. The captain was
not necessarily a professional seaman, as the master, of course,
invariably was. The composition of the crews in a well-found merchant
fleet is illustrated by Hakluyt’s account of Willoughby’s expedition. In
addition to the officers above mentioned, the _Edward Bonaventure_, the
largest ship, carried a master’s mate, a minister, a master gunner and
his mate, two gunners, a surgeon, a boatswain and his mate, four
quartermasters, a steward and his mate, a cook, a cooper and a
carpenter, together with twenty-one sailors. Most merchantmen also
carried a purser. The _Matthew Gonson_, in the voyage already referred
to, had six gunners and four trumpeters. The officers of the Tudor
merchant service were recruited from the more educated seamen, or from
boys who went to sea as ‘gromals’ or pages, the equivalent of the modern
apprentice. Sebastian Cabot’s instructions for the North-East voyage
enjoin that the boys are ‘to be brought up according to the laudable
order and use of the sea, as well in learning of navigation, as in
exercising of that which to them appertaineth’. The seamen were by no
means the most illiterate class of men in the community. Several
distinguished men, such as William Borough, rose from the forecastle;
and the numerous relations in Hakluyt by persons in inferior positions
indicate a comparatively high standard of education among seafaring men.
There were no official certificates or examinations, and a man had to
depend for advancement on the reputation he acquired among his fellows.
Consequently it was easier for able men to come by their own than in the
days of paper qualifications. The level of theoretical knowledge was
not, however, very high; and in this respect England was inferior to
foreign nations, which largely accounts for her comparative failure in
exploration during the first half of the sixteenth century.
The subject of discipline in merchantmen is somewhat puzzling. The
master of a ship had apparently no statutory control over his crew; his
powers of discipline must have been largely those inherent in the
cunning of his own right hand. Certain customary punishments, such as
putting in irons, seem to have been recognized; one of Willoughby’s men
was ‘for pickerie ducked at the yard’s arm and so discharged’ before the
expedition cleared the English coast. But insubordination was common on
long voyages, and often forced the captain and master to change their
plans and forgo occasions of profit. Even in the navy things were
sometimes no better. William Knight, writing in 1512 of the expedition
to Spain, complains of ‘the ungodly manners’ of the seamen, who robbed
the king’s victual while the soldiers were sea-sick.[341] The loss of
the _Mary Rose_ in 1545 was undoubtedly due to the state of anarchy
prevailing on board. Her captain, when told of the danger arising from
the open ports on the lee side, remarked that he had a set of rascals he
could not rule; the ports were left open, and the sea poured in and sank
the ship.
Piracy, the bane of European waters, flourished exceedingly during this
period of constant struggle among the western powers. After the peace
between England and France in 1514, a joint attempt was made by the two
countries to put a stop to it. In 1517 it was arranged that a commission
of three or four suitable persons should sit at Calais to hear French
complaints, and that a similar court should hear English grievances at
Boulogne. Judgement was to go against all persons who should neglect to
appear when summoned.[342] Some attempt was made to put the above into
practice, but anything short of an international arrangement was
foredoomed to failure, for, when hard pressed, the freebooters changed
their flag—French pirates pretended to be Scots, and vice versa—and it
was impossible to obtain any redress. The general state of public
opinion also rendered it improbable that port officials would be very
eager to do justice on their own countrymen in behalf of foreigners.
In England piracies were judged by the Admiralty Court, the tribunal
consisting of the Lord High Admiral or his representative, the Master of
the Rolls, and another judge, proceedings being opened at the place
nearest to that at which the offence took place.[343] An Act of 1536
strengthened the hands of the court, permitting it to pass sentence of
death, and depriving pirates of benefit of clergy.
The evil increased as time went on, and during the war of 1544–6 assumed
gigantic proportions. Privateers, under pretext of cruising against the
enemy, snapped up any neutral vessels of value, and the signing of peace
did very little to repress their activities. The weakness of the
Government in the next reign encouraged them to greater audacity, and
the Lord Admiral Seymour was accused of abetting them. The Act of
Attainder by which he was condemned to death[344] stated that he had
‘maintained, aided, and comforted sundry pirates, and taken to his own
use the goods pyratuslye taken against the laws’. It was not until long
afterwards that the Narrow Seas became reasonably safe, for the French
wars of religion, the revolt of the Netherlands, and the Anglo-Spanish
war continued to produce hordes of privateers throughout the remainder
of the sixteenth century.
During the period 1485–1558 the principal seaports after London were
Southampton and Bristol. The customs receipts at Newcastle and Boston
were both in excess of those at Bristol, but, as they were mainly
derived from the extortionate duties on wool, none of which product was
exported by the western city, they over-represent the true volume of
traffic at those ports. Throughout the whole of this period the tendency
was for London to increase its business at the expense of the other
ports, many of which steadily decayed in importance although the volume
of the country’s total trade was increasing. Since the duties continued
practically unchanged, the sums paid at the various ports afford, when
certain allowances have been made, a fair means of estimating their
trade.
The growth of London as a port is illustrated by the following figures:
during the first five years of Henry VII the average annual customs
payments, exclusive of wool duties, amounted to £7,274; during the last
five years of the same reign, £12,359; and during the years 1533–8, the
last such period in which, for various reasons,[345] a just comparison
can be made, £17,962. In half a century, then, the general trade of
London was considerably more than doubled. The wool duties show a steady
decline, due, not to a smaller output, but to the increase of the home
manufacture of cloth which left less raw material available for export.
The wool averages for the same three periods were £10,515, £7,206, and
£4,217.[346]
Southampton suffered great misfortunes owing to changing conditions.
During the latter part of the fifteenth century the town enjoyed great
prosperity as the sole English port to be visited by the Flanders
galleys of Venice and the great carracks of Genoa, bringing valuable
cargoes of eastern goods, and departing with their holds full of English
wool. As time went on this traffic almost entirely ceased, and
Southampton, unlike London, failed to benefit by the growth of the North
Sea trade. Consequently, after enjoying a maximum period of prosperity
in the closing years of Henry VII, during which time she bade fair to
rival London, the southern seaport experienced a steady and
irretrievable decay under his successor. The average receipts at
Southampton for 1485–90 were £5,449; for 1504–9, £10,341; and for
1533–8, £3,232. The quantity of wool exported by the Staple from
Southampton was very small, and does not appreciably affect the above
figures.
So serious had the distress of Southampton become that in 1530 an Act of
Parliament[347] was obtained for the purpose of releasing the town from
certain dues to the Crown which it found itself unable to continue
paying. The preamble sets forth the cause of its decline, attributing it
to the cessation of the ‘petie custom of merchandise which of old time
was accustomed to be levied of the goods of strangers repairing thither
in carreckis of Jeane (Genoa), laden with Jean woade; and in gallies of
Florence and Venyse laden with spicis; and now by the time of many years
past since that Tolowes (Toulouse) woade hath been usually brought into
this realm, and that the King of Portugal took the trade of spices from
the Venyzians at Calacowte, few or no such carreckis, galeis ne other
shippis have repaired unto our said town with woad or spices, nor be
like to repair hereafter’. The trade of Southampton, it was stated, had
also suffered from the wars with France. Many persons of substance had
forsaken the town, and others were preparing to follow. The melancholy
state of affairs here described is borne out by the figures and may be
taken as correct; unlike the majority of such preambles, which were very
prone to wail about ‘change and decay’, and must be received with
caution.
Although the great state galleys came no more to England, occasional
Venetian merchantmen still continued to make the voyage through the
Straits of Gibraltar, more especially after the restriction of the wool
export by the overland route in the reign of Mary. In order to help
Southampton as much as possible it was ordered that they were to
discharge cargoes exclusively at that town. This was opposed by the
London merchants, but the privilege of Southampton was successfully
upheld. In 1558 the Council further commanded that all malmseys brought
to England were to be unloaded there, under penalty of 20_s._ per
butt.[348]
Bristol, whose trade lay principally in the direction of Bordeaux and
the Peninsula, missed a great opportunity in not persevering with the
explorations of the Cabots and their obscure successors in the time of
Henry VII. Unlike many lost chances, it presented itself once again, and
the days of the town’s greatest prosperity came when trade with America
was opened up in the following century. During the early Tudor period
Bristol fairly maintained its position without experiencing any such
fluctuations of fortune as those which assailed Southampton. The average
customs receipts for the first and last five years of Henry VII and for
the period 1533–8 were respectively £1,175, £1,051, and £1,306. At the
commencement of this time Bristol exported considerable quantities of
corn to Spain, but as sheep-farming developed the price of food in
England increased, and the export had to be restricted. An Act of 1543
permitted it only under certain conditions.[349]
In the Middle Ages a Staple had existed at Bristol; but, although it
continued to elect mayors and officials, it had become entirely
unimportant by the middle of the fifteenth century.[350] The trade of
Bristol, in fact, became free to all individuals, notwithstanding
various attempts to form a close corporation to the exclusion of
outsiders. In 1500 one such company was formed with Hugh Elyot, the
Newfoundland pioneer, as one of its members, but it failed to prosper.
Again, in 1552, a charter was obtained incorporating a Bristol Society
of Merchant Venturers, to the exclusion of non-members from the use of
the port. Being unaccompanied by penalties it proved useless. In 1566
confirmation was obtained, and the monopoly was backed up by an Act of
Parliament; but owing to great opposition the scheme was dropped in
1571.[351] On many occasions Bristol displayed a progressive spirit; it
was natural, therefore, that an attempt to impose mediaeval restrictions
on its enterprise should be successfully resisted.
Of the other seaports, Exeter and Dartmouth, closely approaching Bristol
in importance, and Plymouth and Fowey, with about half its volume of
trade, remained fairly steady in their returns. Poole, sharing to some
extent the misfortunes of Southampton, declined. Hull, Ipswich,
Newcastle, and Boston, all of which depended mainly for their revenues
on the dwindling export of wool, show a more or less serious falling-off
in their customs receipts, although, since the cloth export was on the
increase, it is probable that their total bulk of shipping was
undiminished. It must be remembered that the duties on exported cloth
were nothing like so heavy as those on raw wool. It is certain, however,
that the enormous increase of London’s business was partially at the
expense of the prosperity of the smaller ports. As merchant vessels grew
in tonnage and draught they naturally resorted more and more to the
safer harbours, and many of the minor havens dwindled to the status of
mere fishing villages. An Elizabethan document[352] gives a list of all
the seaports of the country by counties; seventeen are enumerated in
Sussex alone, where it would be difficult at the present day to find
more than half a dozen. The same tendency has extinguished numerous east
coast seaports.
-----
Footnote 303:
See _Ancient and Modern Ships_, by Sir G. C. V. Holmes, for an account
of this model.
Footnote 304:
_Cotton MSS._, Jul., E iv. 6.
Footnote 305:
Oppenheim, _Administration of the Navy_, p. 30.
Footnote 306:
Ibid., _Naval Accounts and Inventories_, Introd., p. xxvii.
Footnote 307:
_R. O., Warrants for Issues_, 1 Hen. VIII, No. 121.
Footnote 308:
Oppenheim, _Administration of Royal Navy_, p. 53.
Footnote 309:
_Harl. MSS._, 6205.
Footnote 310:
_Royal MSS._, 20 E ix.
Footnote 311:
Inventory of the _Sovereign_: Oppenheim, _Naval Accounts and
Inventories_, p. 210.
Footnote 312:
Robert Thorne’s drawing, 1527, shows a bonnet on main-topsail.
Footnote 313:
For information on this subject see Laird Clowes, _History of the
Navy_, i, chap. xiii.
Footnote 314:
For detailed description of method of making and using an astrolabe,
see Cortes, _Breve Compendio de la Sphera y de la Arte de Navegar_,
chap. viii.
Footnote 315:
_Naval Accounts and Inventories_, Introductions, p. xxi.
Footnote 316:
_Letters and Papers_, i, No. 3591.
Footnote 317:
In Laird Clowes’s _History of the Navy_, i. 413, there is an
illustration of a Genoese carrack from a drawing said to have been
made in 1452; but it has every appearance of being at least a century
later in date.
Footnote 318:
_Cal. of Le Fleming MSS._, p. 8.
Footnote 319:
See Oppenheim’s _Naval Accounts and Inventories of Henry VII_;
inventory of the _Henry Grace à Dieu_ in the same author’s
_Administration of the Navy_; drawings of warships in _Add. MSS._,
22047; _Archaeologia_, vi. 208; Volpe’s picture at Hampton Court, &c.
Footnote 320:
_Naval Accounts and Inventories_, pp. 216–17. The armament here given
is that mounted in 1497 when the ship was chartered for a voyage to
the Levant by some merchants of London.
Footnote 321:
_Administration of the Royal Navy_, p. 35.
Footnote 322:
A. Spont, _Letters and Papers relating to the French War_, 1512–13,
pp. 51, 52, 133, 140, 146. This work is a collection from all sources
of original documents concerning the war.
As far as can be traced, this is the first occasion on which a ship is
recorded to have been sunk by gun fire.
Footnote 323:
Chapter House Book xiii, printed in _Administration of the Royal
Navy_, pp. 372–81.
Footnote 324:
_Letters and Papers_, i, No. 5108.
Footnote 325:
Ibid., No. 4968.
Footnote 326:
Pepysian MS. printed in _Archaeologia_, vi. 216.
Footnote 327:
From _Add. MSS._, 22047.
Footnote 328:
_Spanish Cal._ vi, part i, p. 342. July 1541.
Footnote 329:
_Letters and Papers_, iv, No. 1714.
Footnote 330:
Inventory.
Footnote 331:
A careful reading of the available inventories supports the idea that
square sails were not at this period carried on the mizen-masts. The
sails on fore and main are described as fitted with two sheets, while
those on the mizen had but one.
Footnote 332:
_Letters and Papers_, iii, Nos. 2302, 2308, 2320, 2355. &c.
Footnote 333:
Ibid., iv, No. 2635.
Footnote 334:
Laird Clowes, _Royal Navy_, i. 421.
Footnote 335:
_Letters and Papers_, ii. 1472.
Footnote 336:
_Letters and Papers_, i, p. 464.
Footnote 337:
Ibid., p. 716.
Footnote 338:
_Venetian Cal._ vi, App. No. 171.
Footnote 339:
Spont, p. 179.
Footnote 340:
_Letters and Papers_, i, p. 344.
Footnote 341:
_Letters and Papers_, i, p. 362.
Footnote 342:
Ibid., ii, No. 3520.
Footnote 343:
R. G. Marsden, _Select Pleas in Court of Admiralty_, Introd., p. lvi.
The Admiralty Court had other duties: ‘All contracts made abroad,
bills of exchange (which at this period were for the most part drawn
or payable abroad), commercial agencies abroad, charter parties,
insurance, average, freight, non-delivery of or damage to cargo,
negligent navigation by masters, mariners or pilots, breach of
warranty of seaworthiness, and other provisions contained in charter
parties; in short, every kind of shipping business was dealt with by
the Admiralty Court’ (Ibid., p. lxvii).
Footnote 344:
2 and 3 Ed. VI, c. 18.
Footnote 345:
The free trade policy of 1539–46, the troubles with the Hansa under
Edward VI and Mary, and the rapid rise of prices during the same two
reigns.
Footnote 346:
The customs returns for the period are given _in extenso_ in Schanz,
_Englische Handelspolitik_, ii. 37–156.
Footnote 347:
22 Hen. VIII, c. 20.
Footnote 348:
_Acts of the Privy Council_, vi. 39 and 325; _Venetian Cal._ vi, No.
554.
Footnote 349:
34 & 35 Hen. VIII, c. 9.
Footnote 350:
J. Latimer, _History of the Merchant Venturers’ Society of Bristol_,
p. 15.
Footnote 351:
_Bristol Charters_ (1909), by the same author, pp. 142–7.
Footnote 352:
_Lansdowne MSS._, 170, f. 281.