CHAPTER I

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES

Minor punctuation errors repaired.

Inconsistent spelling of proper names has been retained.

Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold text by ~tildes~.

In this book, English and British ships' names are in small caps,

other vessels' names in italics. In the plain text version, small capped

ships' names only have been marked by =equal signs=. All other small

caps have been changed to all caps or lower case as appropriate.

p. 340 "which Cornelius de With had in vain" replaced with

"which Cornelius de Witt had in vain"

A SHORT HISTORY

OF THE

ROYAL NAVY

1217 TO 1688

BY

DAVID HANNAY

METHUEN & CO.

36 ESSEX STREET, W.C.

LONDON

1898

PREFACE

It has been my endeavour in this book to give a popular, but clear

and not inaccurate, account of the growth, and services, of the Royal

Navy. I have not attempted a general maritime history of England. This,

which would include the rise and extension of commerce, discovery, much

scientific matter and much legislation, would be the life-work of a

Gibbon or a Hume. Such a task would be far beyond my powers, even if

circumstances, which need not be specified, did not refuse me command

of the time needed for so great an undertaking.

I am not unconscious that a landsman deals with sea affairs at a

certain risk. He has, in Southey's phrase, to walk among sea-terms

"as a cat does in a china pantry." He is liable to discover, from the

criticism of a sailor, that he has made a fleet sail within two points

of the wind--a disaster which it was once my lot to undergo. Perhaps

only long professional experience will save a writer from such errors.

If, as is only too probable, there are some in this book, I can but beg

for the favourable consideration of the friendly reader.

The present volume ends at that dividing line in our history, the

Revolution of 1688. Another will give the history of the great struggle

with France and her dependent allies, which began in 1689, and ended

only when the time of great naval wars was over--for at any rate the

larger part of a century, if not for ever. The main subject of the

present volume, apart from the formation of the naval service, is the

less known, but not less important, and assuredly not less arduous,

struggle with Holland.

I have made it the rule to adopt the accepted spelling of names--to

write Monk, not Monck; Raleigh, not Ralegh; Hawkins, not Hawkyns.

Matthew Arnold once gave it as his reason for not adopting a reformed

system of spelling classical names, that he would not pass his life in

a wilderness of pedantry in order that his children might attain to an

orthographical Canaan. That Hawkins used a "y" where we use "i" in his

name, as in other words, therein following the custom of his time, does

not seem to me to be any reason for departing from the practice of the

language as it is to-day.

DAVID HANNAY.

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

Introduction--The Mediæval Navy 1

I. The Navy of the Tudors till the Accession of Elizabeth 33

II. Reign of Elizabeth to the Defeat of the Armada 73

III. From the Armada to the Death of the Queen 116

IV. James I. and Charles I. 146

V. The Navy in the Civil War 180

VI. The First Years of the Commonwealth 195

VII. The First Dutch War 230

VIII. The Latter Half of the War 256

IX. The Protectorate 276

X. The Navy under Charles II. 299

XI. The Second Dutch War to the Four Days' Battle 334

XII. From the Four Days' Battle till the End of the War 364

XIII. The Algerine Pirates and the Third Dutch War 398

XIV. The Last Years of the Stuart Dynasty 444

Index 465

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE ROYAL NAVY

INTRODUCTION

THE MEDIÆVAL NAVY

AUTHORITIES.--Sir Nicholas Harris Nicolas has made an exhaustive

collection of all the evidence as to the history of the Royal Navy in

the Middle Ages, in the only two volumes published of his _History

of the Royal Navy from the Earliest Times to the Wars of the French

Revolution_. It is the basis of this Introduction. Captain Burrows'

_Cinque Ports_, in the Historical Towns Series, supplements Sir H.

Nicolas.

A glance at a globe turned so as to bring the British Isles directly

under the eye will at once reveal the most effective of all the

material causes which have made them the seat of the great naval power

among nations. It is the unrivalled advantage of their position. They

lie between the Old World and the New, with free access to the great

ocean, surrounded by seas, which, though stormy, are not unmanageable.

Their coasts are never blocked by ice. No long intervals of calm varied

by mere puffs of wind reduce sailing ships to immobility, and limit

their size by imposing on them the necessity of relying on the oar.

Steam has freed maritime war and commerce from dependence on the wind,

but the naval power of England was created during the ages of the

sailing ship. Steam, too, has only made the benefit of free access

to the ocean if possible more valuable. It is commonly said that an

island is peculiarly fitted to be the seat of a naval power, and no

doubt freedom from the perpetual risk of invasion by land is a material

advantage. Immunity from that danger has saved us from the necessity

for expending our resources on armies, which crippled Holland,

exhausted Spain, and has hampered France. But it must be remembered

that the great maritime powers of antiquity and the Middle Ages were

on the mainland round the Mediterranean, not on the islands. Again, it

is clear that if, in the place of Ireland, there lay to the immediate

west of us any great bulk of territory too strong to be conquered, too

alien to be absorbed, our insular position would not have saved us from

being much confined, if not wholly shut in. But to the west of us lies

the Atlantic Ocean, the beginning of the road which leads to wealth and

empire all over the world. No power can block our way thither while we

exercise even equal strength on water.

Before full advantage could be taken of our position, three conditions

had to be fulfilled. These islands had to become the seat of an

organised State, and to cease from being merely the field in which

hostile races were fighting for the mastery. The weapon of sea-power,

which is the seaworthy and sea-keeping ship, had to be created. The New

World had to be opened to the enterprise of the Old, and the globe to

be explored. Ages passed before these conditions were fulfilled.

The maritime history of the country divides itself into three periods.

First, there are the ages during which the people was being formed and

the weapon forged. This may be said to extend from the first beginnings

to the accession of the House of Tudor. At that date, when, be it

noted, the Portuguese were exploring the sea route round Africa to the

east, and Columbus was leading Spain to America, there was still much

to be done in the work of consolidation within, and in the perfecting

of the ship; but a vessel had been made which could sail the world

round, and in the British Isles it had come to this, that England was

predominant, and that for her fellow-islanders the choice was between

conquest at her hands, or union on honourable terms. The second period

stretches from the accession of the House of Tudor to the close of the

seventeenth century, when superiority of power at sea had been fully

won. The third, beginning with the Revolution, lasts until our own

time. It includes the two hundred years or so during which England,

having now united to herself, or conquered, all rivals within these

islands, has exercised the power she had won.

A complete history of the maritime power of England would be a vast

subject, for it must include the whole story of the growth of her

commerce, and her commercial or fiscal legislation. The object of

this book is more modest. It is merely to describe in the main lines,

and without professing to enter into detail, the growth and action of

the Royal Navy--the armed force by which England has protected her

commerce, has made her strength felt in the strife of nations, and has

first secured, and then defended, her dominions beyond the sea.

The first of the three periods just spoken of may be passed over

rapidly. In the earlier ages there was neither the organised State

which could wield a navy, nor the ships for it to use. From the days

of Julius Cæsar to those of William of Normandy, no invader found

effectual resistance for long on water when he was about invading

this country. Our own Teutonic fathers, who were raiding on the coast

long before they began their permanent settlements, the generals of

the Roman emperors who had rebellions to suppress, the "hornets," as

Simeon of Durham called them, who swarmed out of Scandinavia, and the

Conqueror himself, landed as they pleased, with rare and doubtful

exceptions. There was no State so rich and so fully organised as to

be able to maintain a permanent navy. How fully this was the case was

shown in the fateful year 1066. Harold was undisputed king in England.

The House of Godwin was familiar with the use of ships, and possessed

not a few. Yet within a few months England was twice invaded from over

sea. Harold must have known that the most effectual of all ways of

protecting his crown was by preventing the landing of an enemy. But he

was compelled to disband his land and sea forces on the Nativity of St.

Mary, for want of provisions. No organisation capable of meeting the

cost of a permanent navy existed. The ships, too, were but large open

boats, seaworthy enough, and even capable of making long voyages, but,

when full of fighting men, they could not be stored with provisions,

and they could not give cover to their crews. So there could be no

blockade, no long months of watching spent at sea, without which a

navy can never be used except as a mere means of transport. Hence

for centuries it is always the same story. The invader runs into an

estuary, or on to an open beach, and marches inland, seizing horses.

A battle on land decides whether he is or is not to succeed in his

purpose, whether of mere plunder or settlement. The Conqueror himself

made so little use of his ships, except to cross the Channel, that he

could not prevent the Danish king from hanging on the eastern coast for

months.

With the beginning of the thirteenth century there came a great

change. The conflict of races was over, State and people were formed

in England. On the throne there was a man nearly as able as he was

wicked, and he had every motive to make use of his ships to forestall

invasions. With King John begins, strictly speaking, the naval history

of this country. His predecessors since the Conqueror were masters

of both sides of the Channel, and had no need of their fleets except

for transport. They might take English ships and seamen with them on

their expeditions as far as Syria. Under their powerful rule commerce

had increased, and a seafaring class had been formed. But John is the

first king of England who effectually used his navy to stop invasion.

By 1213 his Continental dominions had been torn from him. Philip

Augustus, King of the French, was preparing an invasion, and John well

knew that an invader would find friends among his vassals. Being richer

and better armed, if not wiser, than Harold, he struck first. A fleet

of English ships, under the command of John's half-brother, William

Longsword, Earl of Salisbury, crossed to Damme, where the ships of the

French king were collected, and burned them. The scheme of invasion

broke down completely for that time. John's reign ended in anarchy. His

rebellious barons brought in a son of the French king, and set him up

as sovereign. But the death of the wicked king removed the one valid

excuse for the rebellion. The country rallied round his infant son and

against the invader. Within four years the ships of England were again

used with decisive effect to crush an invasion.

In 1217 Prince Louis and his allies, the barons, had been defeated at

the battle of Lincoln, and, being now hemmed in between their enemies

and the sea, were in urgent need of reinforcements from abroad. Stores

and men were collected for them in Normandy. Eighty ships, besides

smaller vessels, are said to have been brought together at Calais,

under the command of Eustace the Monk. This man was one of the many

mercenary fighters of the time, and had once been in the employment of

King John. With this force he put to sea, running before a southerly

wind. His intention was to round the North Foreland, and carry his

convoy up the Thames to London, which was still held for the barons.

If he had succeeded, he might have greatly prolonged the Civil War,

but, happily for England, neither the man nor the means to avert the

disaster were wanting. Hubert de Burgh, the King's Justiciary and

Governor of Dover Castle, was at his post. He appealed to the men

of the Cinque Ports, not in vain. "If these people land," he said,

"England is lost; let us therefore boldly meet them, for God is with

us, and they are excommunicate." Hubert de Burgh saw that the one

effectual way of preventing Eustace from doing harm on shore was to

beat him at sea before he could land. The man who reasoned like this

had grasped the true principle of the defence of England. Sixteen

large ships and some smaller vessels were lying in Dover harbour. They

were at once got out by the shipmen and fishermen of the town, worthy

ancestors of the men who, centuries later, volunteered to fill up the

crews of Blake, when he was threatened by Tromp in these very waters.

The knights, squires, and men-at-arms of Hubert de Burgh's following

made up the fighting crews. Training the yards of the one great square

sail which the vessels of that time carried on their single mast,

fore and aft, the English squadron kept its luff (the word is used by

Matthew Paris), and, standing out to the east, placed itself on the

track of the Monk, and between him and Calais.

As Eustace saw the Dover ships apparently standing over to Calais,

he came to the not wholly unnatural conclusion that their plan was

to plunder the town in his absence. He laughed, for he knew that he

had left it well protected. But the intention of Hubert de Burgh was

incomparably more courageous and more effective. He had begun, as every

English admiral in after time was wont to begin, by manoeuvring

to secure the windward position, which with sailing ships gives him

who holds it the option of attack. As soon as the French vessels had

been brought well to leeward, the English turned together before the

wind, and, forming what in after times would have been called the line

abreast, stood at their utmost speed in pursuit of the enemy. The Monk

was completely out-manoeuvred. His heavily-laden vessels could not

escape pursuit by flight, while they must infallibly be thrown into

confusion by the act of turning to face the pursuers. It was no small

advantage to the English that their arrows would fly with the wind. So

soon as they were within shot, Hubert de Burgh's archers let fly, and

the clothyard shafts, or the bolts from the crossbows, came whistling

down on the crowded benches of the French ships. All battles then by

land or sea were settled at close quarters with cold steel. The English

pressed on to board. Where the enemy's ships were caught in the act of

turning, they drove into them with the stem, ramming and sinking them.

When this more expeditious method could not be practised, the English

laid the enemy aboard, throwing quicklime, which the wind blew in the

Frenchmen's faces, into the air in the moment of impact. The boarders

followed close on the blinding cloud, and the axes of the Cinque Ports

men fell briskly to work.

"Whenas he fights and has the upper hand

By sea he sends them home to every land,"

wrote Chaucer of the shipman. The Cinque Ports men, who had had a cruel

experience of the tender mercies of John's foreign mercenaries, were

certainly in no humour to give quarter to the adventurers who were on

their way to England to renew the worst excesses of the wicked king's

followers. There was a great massacre. Taken at a disadvantage, and

scattered at the moment of attack, the Monk's ships were overpowered

in detail. So great was the fury of the English crews that it overcame

even the love of ransom which commonly introduced some measure of

mercy into mediæval battles. Eustace himself, who, we are told,

offered a great price for his life, was beheaded by one blow of the

sword by Richard, King John's bastard son. The whole fleet on which

Louis and the barons had relied to save them from destruction, was

annihilated. The neck of the opposition to the young king's government

was effectually broken. Before the end of the year Louis had returned

to France, and the barons had made their submission.

The trial stroke of the English Navy was a master-stroke. No more

admirably planned, no more timely, no more fruitful battle has been

fought by Englishmen on water. It settled for ever the question how

best this country is to be defended. In after times, during the Armada

year and later, there have been found men to talk of trusting to land

defences; but the sagacity of Englishmen has taught them to rely on

the navy first, and that protection has never wholly failed us in six

hundred and eighty years. The battle is curiously similar to the long

list of conflicts with the French which were to follow it. The enemy is

found carrying out a scheme of attack on our territory, and so intent

on his ultimate object that he neglects to attack our ships first.

Hubert de Burgh, acting exactly as Hawke, Rodney, Hood, or Nelson

would have done, manoeuvres for the "weather-gage," the position to

windward, falls upon the Frenchman on his way, and wrecks his carefully

laid scheme at a blow.

The navy was now established in all essentials as it was to remain

till the accession of the Tudor dynasty, at the close of the fifteenth

century. The ship was indeed in process of development throughout all

these ages. The stages of this growth are obscure, and belong rather

to the domain of the archæologist than to that of the historian. We

still possess an example of the original type in the Viking ship

which was dug up from the burial mound at Gókkstad in Norway. She

is a vessel of some size, nearly a hundred feet long, sharp at both

ends, high in the bow and stern. Her breadth is about a third of her

length, and she is low in the waist. The bottom is flat, as was natural

in a vessel designed to be hauled up on the beach, and to take the

ground without damage on a receding tide. Her hull is clinker-built,

that is to say, with the planks overlapping one another, and not put

edge to edge, as in the carvel-built ships of later times. One mast,

shipped exactly in the middle, and carrying one great square sail,

constituted all her rigging. There was no deck, though there may

have been small covered spaces at the bow and stern. She was steered

by an oar fixed on the right or starboard (_i.e._ steering) side, a

little before the sternpost. In battle the mast and sail were lowered,

and the vessel propelled by oars, of which the Gokkstad ship rowed

sixteen on each side. By the thirteenth century this type had been

already developed. The maritime States of the Mediterranean and the

Basque ports of Spain had begun to build more elaborately constructed

galleys and much heavier vessels. But, to judge by the illuminations

in the manuscript of Matthew Paris, the ships of Hubert de Burgh did

not differ in any essential particular of construction from those of

Saint Olaf or Canute. Indeed, as late as the reign of Edward III.,

and later, our ships were small in comparison with the Basque. Still

there was a steady though slow advance in mechanical skill. Decks were

introduced, and the vessels were built higher. Fore and after castles

began to be erected. The rudder gradually displaced the steering oar.

Two masts, and finally three, replaced the one of the early ships.

The introduction of cannon, which dates from the fourteenth century,

compelled changes in form. In order to support the weight of the guns,

and the shock of firing them, it was necessary to build ships higher

and stronger. The height could have been obtained by merely continuing

the curve of the bottom farther; but if this had been done, the vessel

would have been weak, and the leverage of the weight of the guns would

have tended to tear her to pieces. To obviate this risk, the sides were

curved in above the water-line in what was called "a tumble home."

The guns were at first fired over the top of the bulwarks. A French

builder, Descharges of Brest, has the credit of first constructing a

ship with portholes through which the cannon could be pointed. In one

respect the mediæval ship was curiously like the modern war vessel.

She carried a crow's nest on her masts, a military top, in fact, from

which archers and crossbowmen could fire, or stones be thrown, on to

an enemy's deck. It must not be supposed that these improvements were

all strictly successive. Old and new types would be found existing side

by side. The rudder and the steering oar, for instance, are found in

use together, but gradually the better drove the less good out of use.

The long low galleys of the Mediterranean, or at least craft of that

description, are heard of as employed in the Middle Ages, but our seas

are not friendly to that class of vessel. It appears, from the account

of the battle with Eustace the Monk, that the practice of lowering

masts and sails on going into action had fallen into disuse by the

thirteenth century. This implies at least a greater weight of spars

and solidity of rigging than had obtained earlier. It will be easily

understood that then, as at all times, there were wide differences in

the sizes of ships. They ranged from mere row-boats to the vessel of

250 or 300 tons, known as "cog," or by other names of which we only

dimly appreciate the significance.

The King of England drew his fleets from three sources. To begin

with, he had his own ships, which were his personal property, like

his horses or the suits of armour he supplied to his own immediate

following. These he used in war, or hired to the merchants in peace,

according to circumstances. The purely administrative and financial

management of these vessels was entrusted to some member of his

household. In earlier ages it fell to one of the "king's clerks," the

permanent civil servants of the time, who, when all learning was the

province of the Church, were naturally ecclesiastics, and for whom

the king provided by securing their nomination to benefices. William

of Wrotham, Archdeacon of Taunton, was "keeper of the king's ships,

galleys, and seaports" to King John. There is a mention, though not

continuous record, of other "clerks" who had charge of the king's ships

till the reign of Henry VIII. The number of these ships would vary

according to the interest the king took in them, the need he had for

them, and his merits as a husband of his money. In the troubled times

of the Lancastrian line the king's ships were few, but it does not seem

that at any period he was wholly without some of his own.

The second source from which the fleets were recruited was the trading

craft of London and the outports. The kings of England claimed, and

exercised from the beginning, the right of impressing all ships for the

defence of the realm. Every port was assessed according to its supposed

resources in so many vessels properly found. They were, however,

maintained by the king on service. There was a certain difference in

the method of manning these two classes. In the king's own ships all

alike were his servants. When a merchant ship was impressed, her crew

would, when possible, be taken with her. The king then put an officer

of his own, with a body of soldiers, into her. In both there was a

distinction between the military officer whose business it was to

fight, and the shipman whose business it was to sail.

Thus arose that distinction between the captain and the master of an

English man-of-war, which lasted far into this century. The practice

was universal as late as the seventeenth century. Every Spanish ship

had two captains--the "capitan de guerra" (of war) and the "capitan de

mar" (sea captain). But whereas in the Spanish ships the two officers

were co-ordinate, with us there was no question that the master was

subordinate to the captain. The Kings of England, from the Conqueror

downwards, have had no love for divided authority.

The third source from which the king drew his ships was the most

picturesque of all. The towns, with their dependent townships,

Hastings, Winchelsea, Rye, Romney, Hythe, Dover, and Sandwich, forming

the ancient corporation of the Cinque Ports, were bound by the terms of

their charters to supply the king in any one year with 57 ships, 1140

men, and 57 boys for fifteen days at their own charges, and after that

for as long as he chose to retain them at his own expense. For this

they were repaid by privileges and honours. Every ancient institution

is respectable, and the Cinque Ports men won such immortal honour by

the defeat of Eustace the Monk, that we are naturally tempted to treat

them tenderly. Yet it may be doubted whether they have not enjoyed an

historical reputation much in excess of their merits. It is the defect

of every privileged body that it is apt to be jealous. The Cinque Ports

men were no exception to the rule. Many instances might be quoted of

their savage feuds with rival towns, notably with Yarmouth. Under

so strong a king as Edward I. and in the midst of an expedition to

Flanders they fell upon and destroyed a number of Yarmouth vessels.

Under weak kings complaints of their piracies and excesses on the coast

are incessant. Although they no doubt supplied some kings with stout

shipmen and useful vessels, it may be doubted whether they did not on

the whole do as much in the way of fighting and plundering their own

countrymen as against the national enemy. In the later Middle Ages the

ports had already begun to silt up. They sank into insignificance,

and in their last stage were chiefly known as nests of smugglers and

pirates.

The crews of war vessels were divided into mariners and soldiers in

unequal proportions. There were always more of the second than of the

first. Thirty seamen were considered the full complement even of a

large vessel; and when it is remembered that two hundred or two hundred

and fifty tons was the size of a "great ship," and that the rigging

was simple, the number will appear amply sufficient. It must always,

too, be kept in mind that, though the relative number of sailors and

soldiers in ships has varied, this distinction between the two elements

constituting the crews of fighting craft has prevailed to our own time.

No man-of-war was ever manned entirely by seamen, nor was it necessary

that she should be. The number of men required to fight or to do work

only on the decks, or between the decks, was at all times much in

excess of what was needed for the purpose of sailing the ship. The

steersmen and mariners of the Middle Ages, and the prime seamen of the

eighteenth century, were highly trained men, whom it would have been

folly to employ on such work as could be sufficiently well done by less

skilful hands. From the earliest time of which there is any record, the

great and arbitrary power of impressment was used to find crews for the

king's ships. In 1208 King John ordered the seamen of Wales to cease

making trading voyages, and to repair to Ilfracombe for the purpose of

transporting soldiers to Ireland. He bade them "know for certain that

if you act contrary to this, we will cause you and the masters of your

vessels to be hanged, and all your goods to be seized for our use." In

later times this would have been called a "hot press." The forms used

might vary, and the penalties grow more humane, but the king's ships

continued to be supplied with crews, down to the end of the war with

Napoleon, after exactly the fashion in which King John provided for the

transport of his soldiers to Ireland in 1208.

All the elements of the crews of later times are found in the ships

of the Middle Ages. The mariners and "grometes" are the able seamen

and ordinary seamen. There were boys then also. The archers were

the predecessors of the marines, and of those drafts from the line

regiments which were frequently used to make up the complement of

men-of-war. The modern officers, too, have their representatives in

the vessels of the Plantagenet kings. The _Rector_, afterwards called

in official Latin _Magister_, is the master, the constable is the

ancestor of the gunner, there was a carpenter, a "clerk," who was

renamed the purser later on, and the boatswain. The nature of the work

to be done would dictate the formation of these different offices. So

soon as regular ships' companies began to be formed, it would be found

indispensable to have someone to conduct the navigation--the master;

someone to supervise the arms--the constable; someone to serve out

the stores--the clerk. As ships' companies grew larger and ships more

complicated, it would be necessary to increase the number of officers,

and little by little the staff of a modern warship was formed. The

title of captain appears at first to have been given to an officer who

held what we should call flag rank. In the fifteenth century it began

to be applied to the commander of a single ship. He was primarily a

military officer, who might or might not be a seaman, but who in either

case had a master under his command whose function it was to navigate

the ship.

The growth of what came afterwards to be called flag rank may easily

be traced. At first the king appointed some knight or noble to command

his sea forces, and the soldiers in his ships, for some definite

service. Then we hear of officers commanding in a given district for

a specified time. These were first known as "captains and governors,"

justices or constables. In the early years of the fourteenth century

the title of "Admiral" began to come into use. Captain and Admiral

is the rank of the officer who commands the North and the Western

Fleets. The first included the coast and sea from Dover to Berwick;

the second, from Dover to the duchy of Cornwall inclusive. There was

occasionally a third officer, who commanded in the Isle of Man and the

Irish Sea. Of him we hear little. His chief duty was to assist in the

work of subduing the Scots, and he was once at least chosen from among

those chiefs of the Isles and the Western Highlands who were the worst

enemies of the King of the Scots in the Lowlands. These captains and

admirals were at first simple knights. Some of them were seamen of

the Cinque Ports. The Alards, a family of Winchelsea, produced more

than one holder of the post. The first admiral for all the seas was

Sir John Beauchamp, K.G.; he was appointed by Edward III. in 1360,

for a year. But it was not till later that it became the rule to have

one admiral superior to all the others. In the fourteenth century a

considerable change began to appear in the character, though not in

formal rank or power, of these officers. In 1345 it was found necessary

to appoint the Earl of Arundel to command the Western Fleet, "for no

one can chastise or rule them unless he be a great man," to quote the

candid confession of the King's Council. The royal authority, in fact,

was growing weaker. It fell to its lowest depths in the later times of

the Lancastrian line. The inevitable consequence was, that the barons

seized upon the command of the ships, and used them for their own

purposes. Warwick the king-maker, who among his many other offices held

that of Captain of Calais and Admiral, was practically master of the

whole naval forces of the country. The office of Lord High Admiral,

which dates from the Lancastrian dynasty, was, in fact, a result of

the aggression of the baronage. The king's authority being no longer

sure of obedience, it was necessary to call in the power of the nobles,

with the inevitable result. Those who knew that they were indispensable

made their own terms. By the end of the Middle Ages the office of Lord

High Admiral had become permanent. The old captains and admirals of

the Northern and Western Fleets had disappeared, or were represented

by subordinate officials, who received their commission from the Lord

High Admiral. When the great Royalist reaction of the later fifteenth

century had restored the authority of the Crown, the office survived.

On the military side of his office the Lord High Admiral was the king's

lieutenant for the fleet, exercising immense delegated powers in

complete subjection to the Crown. But during the anarchy of the Wars of

the Roses, such a man as Warwick, who garrisoned Calais with his own

followers, and had the command of the ships, of which many were his own

property, was practically master of the Channel, and rendered as much

obedience to the king--or as little--as he pleased.

While the King of England possessed dominions on the Continent, he

drew part of his naval forces from them. There is occasional mention

of the king's ships and galleys of Aquitaine. The great reputation

of the Italian seamen of the Middle Ages led to their employment now

and then, and one, Nicholas Ususmaris of Genoa, was for a time in the

service of Edward III., though only to command the ships belonging to

Aquitaine. The Mediterranean seamen were employed very largely by the

King of France, who was driven to use them by the want of skilful men

among his own subjects. In the Middle Ages the English king appears

only to have had recourse to them when he wished to make use of that

typical Mediterranean craft, the galley. Under Henry VIII. Italians

were brought in largely to serve both as seamen and shipbuilders,

but by that time a larger class of vessel and a more extensive art

of seamanship had begun to prevail. The galley, as has been already

said, has never been found to answer in the Channel, and its brief

appearances there have been of little note. For the classes of vessels

he mainly used, that is, ships which might take to the oar as a

subsidiary resource, but relied chiefly on the sail, the king could

find men in abundance among his own subjects.

The most brief sketch of our navy in the Middle Ages would be

incomplete without some mention of the famous claim to the sovereignty

of the seas. That the King of England did make this haughty profession

of superiority is within the knowledge of everybody, and it was

advanced, in form at least, till late in the reign of George III.

Attempts have been made to carry it back to the reign of King John,

and have been supported by the inveterate mediæval practice of forging

documents to bolster up supposed rights. But the so-called ordinance

of King John, issued at Hastings in 1200, has been long given up.

It was unquestionably a mere forgery, concocted at a later time to

give the authority of antiquity to a more recent pretension. Yet

about a hundred years later we find the sovereignty of Edward II.

over the seas fully recognised by the Flemish towns. Edward III.

asserted his right to be sovereign of the four seas of Britain without

qualification. It must be remembered that this claim, which later times

found intolerably arrogant, had in the Middle Ages the justification

that it was supported by effective power. Not only was the King of

England by far the most powerful sovereign on the seas in the west,

but the possession of Calais gave him the command of the Straits of

Dover on both sides. At a time when trade was conducted by coasting

voyages, this enabled him to throttle the maritime commerce of the

south with the north at will. The Venetian and Basque ships which came

up to Antwerp in the early summer and went south again before autumn,

were not only liable to attack by English vessels coming out of Dover

or Calais, but they had constant need to use the roadsteads of these

ports. It was consistent with all the ideas and practice of the Middle

Ages that this power to injure should have been held to imply a right

to assert superiority, and compel the recognition of it. Sir Harris

Nicolas states that the first admission of this right on the part of

foreigners is found in 1320, when certain Flemish envoys appealed to

Edward II. to put a stop to piracies committed on their vessels by

English evil-doers, praying him "of his lordship and royal power to

cause right to be done, and punishment awarded, as he is Lord of the

Sea, and the robbery was committed on the sea within his power, as is

above said." It may be pointed out that the offences complained of

were committed upon the English coast, and that an astute diplomatist

of a later date might have argued that this admission did not amount

to a recognition of English sovereignty over the whole North Sea. No

serious resistance was, however, made to this claim till the reign

of Louis XIV., which we may account for by the fact that nobody was

strong enough to resist. The Venetian and Basque traders submitted to

the claim much as an African caravan might recognise the right of a

chief to extort backsheesh. The kings of France were too weak and too

much occupied elsewhere to fight on this point of honour. The Flemings

were generally our allies, and the northern powers were not concerned.

Our pretension was the more easily borne because the King of England

did not insist upon levying dues on all who passed through the four

seas, but only on a salute as a formal recognition of superiority.

This outward sign of deference, the lowering of sails, and in later

times the firing of guns, was insisted upon punctiliously till far

into the seventeenth century, and there are isolated cases in which it

was extorted even in the eighteenth. The space of sea over which the

sovereignty of England was held to extend was counted to stretch from

Finisterre to the coast of Norway.

When the words "sovereignty of the sea" are used as meaning the king's

effective superiority to any force which could be brought against him,

there can be no question as to its reality. Throughout the Middle

Ages, a king of England who was master of his own dominions was rarely

hampered by the naval force of any enemy. When he marched to subdue his

kingdom of Scotland, his fleets kept pace with his army as it advanced

through the Lothians. On the rare occasions on which he visited his

lordship of Ireland, there was nobody to say him nay. He passed and

repassed at will to and from his kingdom of France. Pirates, Scotch,

Flemish, and Scandinavian, might infest the coast. Now and then an

expedition met with disaster. French and Spanish adventurers sometimes

harried the coast, and burned small towns. But these failures of our

power were comparatively rare. They occurred only when the king was

weak, and the country exhausted or disturbed. The rule was, that when

the monarchy exerted its strength it could sweep the seas. If the

king was careless, Parliament was at hand to exhort him to action.

Englishmen were keenly alive to the importance of "guarding the narrow

seas round about." Nor were our ancestors ever in doubt as to how best

to employ their navy. Even in the bad times of Edward II., when wisdom

did not preside in the Council, a threat of invasion from France was

met by the preparation of a fleet which was to attack, so that the

enemy might first feel the evil. Centuries of experience have taught

no better way of using the sea power.

A detailed account of the naval enterprises of the Middle Ages would go

altogether beyond the scale of this work. Nor is the story one which

can be told without monotony. In spite of the many improvements in

the construction of ships and the advance of seamanship, the means of

conducting a regular naval campaign were wanting. Vessels were still

unable to keep the sea during long periods of cruising and blockade.

They were not strong enough to stand the strain, nor could they carry

the water and provisions required for the large fighting crews crowded

into vessels ranging from fifty to three hundred tons. It followed from

this double disability that warfare on sea was conducted by expeditions

of brief duration. A fleet was collected, and sailed to attack the

enemy's ships or harry his coast. When successful, it gathered all the

plunder it could find, and returned home to be laid up for repair,

while its crews were disbanded. Thus it not infrequently happened that,

immediately after a striking victory, a raiding expedition of the enemy

was able to pounce on some part of our coast, and retaliate by murder

and ravage for what he had just suffered at home. We had a prevailing

superiority, due to the greater number and efficiency of English

seamen, and the greater average faculty of the English kings; but we

must not look for examples of coherent, orderly war conducted through

months, or even years, of effort by permanent forces.

A few examples must suffice to illustrate the general character of

these centuries of conflict. No better instance of the nature of

mediæval sea warfare can be found than the story of the desperate feud

between the English and Norman fishermen, in the reign of Edward I.

In 1293 a dispute arose in some port of Normandy or Gascony--for the

authorities differ--between the French and English sailors. The point

at issue, it is said, was which was entitled to drink first. It came

rapidly from words to blows, and a man was killed. The authorities

again differ as to whether he was French or English. All agree that

the English sailors were chased back to their ships by a mob. Their

ship put to sea, pursued by French vessels, and escaped. But the

passions of the Norman seamen being now thoroughly aroused, they were

minded to pursue the feud. Meeting six English merchant ships, they

fell upon them and captured two. They hanged the crews at the yardarm,

together with some dogs by way of greater insult. Then they paraded

the Channel, plundering all they met, making "no distinction between

an Englishman and a dog." In the meantime, the four ships which had

escaped took refuge in the Cinque Ports. Here they promptly found

allies, and a foray was rapidly arranged to revenge the outrage. A

squadron of English ships, mainly drawn from the Cinque Ports, started

in pursuit of the French. Finding that the enemy had returned to port,

the English adventurers entered the Seine, captured six vessels after

a sharp burst of fighting, and carried them off, having previously

despatched their crews. Hereupon followed raid and counter raid, with

their inevitable accompaniment of "great slaughter on both sides,

shipwreck and rapine--both thirsting for blood." At last by common

consent it was agreed to set a day and fight it out. The feud had

apparently extended to all the seamen who used the Channel. Not only

did other Frenchmen join the Normans, but Flemings and Genoese also.

The Dutch and the Irish, the men, that is, of the partly English partly

Norse towns of the coast, allied themselves with us. On the appointed

day, the 14th April or May,--for once more the authorities do not

agree,--the fleets met in mid-Channel, and after a savage battle the

French and their allies were overcome with great carnage. At this

point, but not till now, the Kings of England and of the French took

up the quarrel of their subjects, and the feud between the fishermen

and seamen grew into a national war. As, however, it possessed no naval

features of interest, we need not pursue further the consequences of

this explosion of the violence and pugnacity of the mediæval seamen.

It must always be remembered that the conditions which made this

private war possible endured throughout the Middle Ages. In the

absence of strong organised fleets to patrol the sea, and when no

police had yet been formed in any State capable of depriving the sea

robber of a safe market for his booty, every sailor not only had to

fear the pirate, but he generally was prepared, upon a favourable

opportunity presenting itself, to become one. The men of the Cinque

Ports, of Yarmouth, or of Poole, to say nothing of the fact that they

were prompt to pillage one another for want of better, were ever ready

to applaud their townsman who brought in a French or Basque prize.

The Norman or Basque, again, would have been surprised indeed if he

had been asked to blame the fellow-countryman who came home with

English booty. In fact, the sea everywhere was much in the condition

of the Scotch Border. There might be truce between the kings, but the

Borderers never ceased in their raids on one another, or on the rival

clans of their own side. Hence it was that merchant ships sailed in

large fleets for mutual protection, and that the complaints of rulers

that their subjects had been pillaged by the sailors of another prince

were incessant. Nor were the kings by any means backward in encouraging

their vassals by their example. Of the two sea fights with which the

chivalrous memory of Edward III. is associated, Sluys, and the battle

off Winchelsea, known as "Les Espagnols sur Mer," the second was an

incident in this piratical warfare. King Edward did not indeed make

an unprovoked attack on the Spaniards for mere purposes of plunder,

but he retaliated for one piece of piracy by another. His act was not

one of especial violence for his time, yet it would not have been

possible except in an age when the relations of seafaring nations

were habitually lawless, and when an act of robbery by one was left

unpunished, except when it provoked retaliation in kind by the other.

The battle of Sluys was a great regular engagement fought in pursuit

of a national war. Edward III. had openly assumed the title of King

of France in January 1340, and was preparing to assert his right

by conquest. Philippe de Valois made ready to defend his throne,

and took the measure dictated by sound sense. He collected a great

fleet, composed in part of ships belonging to his subjects, in part

of vessels hired from the Genoese. But the wisdom of the King of the

French stopped at this preliminary stage. Although it appears that

his fleet was collected as early as March, when King Edward had only

forty ships in the Orwell, the great French armament lay idle in the

little Flemish river Eede, at the anchorage of Sluys. The calculation

perhaps was that its mere presence would suffice to delay the English

king from attempting to cross. King Edward was not to be frightened.

In spite of the opposition of his Chancellor and the backwardness of

some of his captains, he decided to attack. Vigorous use was made of

the time allowed him by the sloth of the enemy. Ships were called in

from the north, and about the middle of June the king stood over to

Blankenberg on the coast of Flanders. His fleet was somewhat stronger

than the French. He puts the force opposed to him at a hundred and

ninety vessels, while his own, including small craft, was over two

hundred. But the French acted as if it had been their intention to

deprive themselves of the advantage of their numbers. They remained

in the river, with their ships lashed side by side to one another in

three divisions. At a time when all battles were finally decided by

hand-to-hand fighting, this was a not uncommon device with fleets which

decided, or were compelled, to accept the attack. Nor was it altogether

unreasonable, for it seemed to possess this advantage, that it forced

the assailant to come on bow to bow, where his beaks would act with

least effect, and where his men must board along a narrow passage;

while the defender had the advantage of being able to make a barrier

across the fore part of his vessel with his yard and his oars. The

fatal defect of the formation was that an enemy who could fall on one

end of the line could roll it up. As the French were drawn up along the

bank of an estuary, and the English fleet was coming in from the sea,

there was nothing to force King Edward to make a front attack. This

fatal weakness of the position is said to have been noted by Barbavera,

the veteran admiral of the Genoese. He is credited with an effort

to induce King Philip's officers, Kiriet and Bahuchet, to stand out

to sea so soon as the English appeared on the coast, but they showed

the timidity which has commonly been noted in the sea fighting of the

French, and preferred to wait passively for the attack. As usual, the

victory fell to the side which could and would fall on.

King Edward had landed knights, who, riding over the sandhills, had

taken a leisurely view of the French fleet at anchor. The weakness of

their position must have been patent even to a less skilful captain

than the victor of Creçy, and he decided to attack without delay. The

battle was fought on the 24th of June. In the early morning the tide

was at ebb, and an advance up the river was impossible. The English

ships stood out to sea on the starboard tack till they were well

opposite the entrance to the river. Then, as the tide turned, they

swept in with it, and fell on the nearest division of the French.

The destruction which followed bears an interesting resemblance to

the battle of the Nile. On that occasion an English fleet coming

in from the sea attacked the French lying passively at anchor, and

overwhelmed them in detail. The difference was, that the Nile was

decided by broadsides, and the great fight at Sluys by sword-stroke

and the edge of the axe. Ship after ship was carried by boarding and

its crew slaughtered, for all sea fights were, as Froissart noted,

"felon," merciless and without quarter. The French had put the _Great

Christopher_, a ship of King Edward's own, of which they had formerly

made prize, at the end of their line. She fell first, and her sister

ships shared her fate. In the rear of the French, that is, at the

end farthest from the sea, some ships did indeed escape. They were

commanded by Barbavera. It is probable that the English had not reached

them when the tide turned, and the expert Genoese mercenary took the

opportunity to slip to sea, leaving the van and centre to be crushed.

In this also there is a curious similarity to the battle of the Nile,

when Villeneuve fled with the rear ships. Sluys was an incredibly

murderous battle. Upwards of thirty thousand men are said to have

perished in the French fleet. It entirely crushed the naval forces of

the Valois king, and from that time forward for years Edward crossed

the Channel with as little molestation from an enemy as he would have

met on the Thames at Oxford. The English loss was comparatively slight,

but it is said to have included four of the ladies whom the king was

taking with him to join the queen at Ghent.

The sea fight which took place ten years later is mainly memorable as a

picturesque example of the lawlessness of the times. Characteristically

enough, we owe our best account of it to Froissart, and it was just

such a battle as he loved--a fine example of high-born daring, love

of adventure, and, it is to be added, of total absence of scruple. To

understand this battle, it is necessary to remember that the sea-borne

commerce between the North and South of Europe was conducted in fleets

which came up in spring from the south, and, after unloading and

reloading at the great marts of Flanders, returned towards the end of

summer. For the reasons already stated, they were subject to plunder

on the way, and they were apt to retaliate. The king had cause of

complaint against the Spanish, that is to say, the Basque traders, who

are known to have plundered ten English ships coming from France. So,

without wasting time in diplomacy, which would indeed have brought

him little save delays and counter claims, he resolved to do himself

justice. A fleet was collected at Winchelsea, and there the king,

accompanied by some of his most famous knights, and by his still

youthful sons, the Black Prince and John of Gaunt, lay in wait for the

traders who must pass on their way home. The Basques were warned of

what was preparing for them, but, confident in the size of their ships

and their own courage, they were resolved to force a passage. They

hired at Antwerp one of those gangs of fighting men who were then to

be found in every marketplace in Europe, ready to serve any master who

would pay, and any cause which promised booty. Then they sailed, well

provided with weapons, and ready for the fray.

King Edward had taken up his quarters in an abbey near Winchelsea,

with his queen and the ladies of his household. By day he visited his

ships. By night there was feasting and dancing. When he knew that the

Spaniards must be at hand, he went on board his flagship to be ready

for them. It appears that no cruisers were stationed on the offing,

and that the English fleet lay at anchor in the expectation that the

Spaniards would seek them. If the southern traders had not been so

unduly confident in their own strength, they might have passed in

safety by keeping well out at sea. But, relying on the size of their

vessels, and on "all kinds of artillery wonderful to think of," with

which they were provided, they sought for battle, and therefore steered

well in with the coast.

On the afternoon of the day of the fight, the 28th August 1350, the

king was sitting on the deck of his vessel, the cog =Thomas=, wearing

a black velvet overcoat over his armour and a black felt hat "which

became him well." To pass the time, Sir John Chandos was singing the

German dances he had learned on a visit to that country, and the

minstrels played. While the knights and squires were amusing themselves

with the gaiety of men who lived mainly for battle, the look-out in

the top hailed the deck with "I see one, two, three, four--I see so

many, so help me God, I cannot count them." Then the king called for

his helmet, and for wine. His knights drank to the king, and to one

another, and went to their stations. The fleet stood to sea. Its

movements must have been seen by Queen Philippa, who remained in the

abbey to pray for her husband and her two sons. The young John of

Gaunt, then Earl of Richmond, and afterwards Duke of Lancaster, refused

to leave his brother, the Prince of Wales. He was a boy of only ten,

but King Edward and the Black Prince were the last men in the world to

balk his very proper desire to be in a battle.

The Spaniards came sweeping along from east to west with a good breeze.

They were fewer in number than the English, but heavier ships. "It

was passing beautiful to see, or to think of," says Froissart, who

loved the pomp and circumstance of war. Their tops were glittering

with armed men, and "their streamers bearing their coats of arms, and

marked with their bearings, danced and quivered and lept in the wind."

Coming out from the anchorage of Winchelsea, King Edward's ships struck

on the Spaniards, who were advancing in a line, at an angle. His own

vessel was steered into one of the biggest of the enemy. The two met

with such a crash that "it was as if a tempest had suddenly burst upon

them." They recoiled from the shock, and then crashed together again.

Their spars became entangled, and one of the Spaniard's tops was broken

off. All in it were hurled into the water and drowned. If the king's

ship had not been stout, she would have been broken to pieces against

the bulk of her opponent. As it was, she had enough. Her seams gaped,

and the water rushed in. The Spaniard, being the less injured of the

two, gathered way and stood on. King Edward ordered his men to lay her

aboard again, but was answered, "No, sir, you cannot have this one, but

you shall have another." It would, as his shipmen knew, but probably

had not the time to explain, have been impossible to overtake the

enemy with a vessel already in danger of sinking. The only chance was

to run into one of those coming up behind and carry her by boarding.

We may presume that the shipmen did their best to pick a smaller one.

It was done, and only just in time, for the king's ship sank almost

immediately after he and his crew had forced their way on to the

Spaniard's deck.

King Edward's adventure was an example of what happened all along the

line. The Prince of Wales was in great peril beside a tall Spaniard,

for his ship too began to sink, and he could not scale the high sides

of the enemy. From this pass he was rescued by his cousin Henry, Earl

of Derby. The two got possession of the Spaniard. Then the prince's

vessel sank, so that "he and his knights could more perfectly consider

the danger in which they had just been." The most extreme danger

was run by Robert of Namur, a Flemish noble, and a partisan of King

Edward's, who in after times was the patron of Froissart, and probably

his main authority for the battle. The king had given him the command

of the =Salle du Roi=, the vessel which carried those members of his

household who could not find quarters with himself. Robert of Namur

was grappled by a big enemy, who began to drag him along. His crew

shouted, "Rescue for the =Salle du Roi=!" but to no purpose, for it

was now getting dark, "and they were not heard, and if they had been

heard, they would not have been rescued." The Fleming was saved by the

desperate valour of his squire, Hanekin, who forced his way into the

Spaniard and cut her halyards. Then Robert of Namur boarded, and the

Spaniards "were all slain and thrown into the sea."

It was a desperate battle, for the English fought most valiantly, and

the Spaniards "gave them plenty to do." The English archers had a great

share in the victory. The enemy's crossbowmen, and others who were

appointed to hurl bars of metal or heavy stones over the bulwarks of

the tops and sides, were compelled to expose themselves to take aim,

and were shot through the head or neck by the clothyard shafts, while

thus uncovered. Seventeen Spaniards were taken in all. Against this

we had to set off the loss of several of our smaller vessels and of

many men. The booty must have been considerable. There was no pursuit,

partly because the victors were eager to rifle the prizes, but partly

also, no doubt, because they had suffered much rough usage. The king

returned to Winchelsea Abbey to celebrate his victory by festivities.

The battle with the Spaniards off Winchelsea marks the culmination

of King Edward's naval power. In the gloomy closing years of his

reign all these glories hastened to decay. His navy, drawn from so

many different sources, and composed at all times largely of hired or

impressed vessels, was peculiarly liable to suffer from the general

disorganisation of his government when the long war with France had

begun to exhaust his resources, and his faculties were failing.

Twenty years after his brilliant sea fight, he had to listen to the

bitter complaints of the Commons, who told him boldly, and with too

much truth, that the coast was unprotected, and trade ruined. So far

had the strength of the "Sovereign of the Seas" sunk, that there was

actual fear of invasion from France, while raids carried out by French

and Spanish adventurers on the ports of the Channel were numerous.

Scotch "pirates," in alliance with Flemings, Frenchmen, and Basques,

harried the north and east. The Parliament of 1371 insisted angrily

on the abuses by which the naval strength of the country was being

destroyed. There is much intrinsic probability in their complaints.

When it is remembered that the fleets were mainly formed by impressing

merchant ships, it is easy to understand how the misconduct or want of

judgment of subordinate agents under a weak government might give ample

justification for such complaints as these.

"First, that arrests of shipping were often made long before vessels

were wanted, during which interval the owners were at the expense of

keeping the ships and crews, without making any profit, by which many

of them became so impoverished as to be obliged to quit their business,

and their ships were ruined. Secondly, that the merchants who supported

the navy had been so impeded in their voyages and affairs by divers

ordinances, that they had no employment for ships; that great part of

the mariners had consequently abandoned their profession, and gained

their livelihood in some other way; and that their ships were hauled

up on the shore to rot. Thirdly, that, as soon as the masters of the

king's ships were ordered on any voyage, they impressed the masters and

ablest part of the men of other ships, and those vessels being left

without persons to manage them, many of them perished, and their owners

were ruined."

Part of this petition against grievances is concerned with the general

policy of the king in matters of trade, as expressed in his "divers

ordinances." But the greater part of it is directed against abuses

which were hardly to be escaped at a time when navies were formed

by impressing merchant ships. Corrupt or even only insolent and

overbearing officers would abuse the power of impressment. Where those

evil motives were not at work, there was still an all but irresistible

temptation to "arrest" ships long before they were needed, since,

if they were allowed to go on trading voyages, they would not be

forthcoming later on. The king's officers were to be excused if they

preferred to err on the safe side; but to the trader it was a grievous

oppression, for he was deprived of the means of earning profits, while

remaining liable to be taxed in order to provide the king with a

revenue for the support of the war. In later ages the impossibility of

combining the qualities of money-earning merchant ships and of fighting

ships, which should be always available for war, had much to do with

the formation of regular military fleets. In the seventeenth century

the State took, first, to hiring vessels for long periods, and manning

them itself; then, as the need of a special class of vessel grew with

the development of artillery, to building for itself. In the Middle

Ages no State was yet rich enough to maintain for long together a great

and costly naval force. Thus it was necessary to rely on impressed

vessels, which could only temporarily be withdrawn from commerce.

Fleets formed in such a way bore an inevitable resemblance to armies

composed of farmers, townsmen, or mountain clans collected for a single

foray or battle, and always liable to dissolution on the approach of

harvest, or even under the influence of the occasional soldier's not

unnatural desire to put his booty in a safe place. In the great Civil

War of the seventeenth century, the Parliament discovered that the

London trainbands, though capable of good marching and hard fighting,

as they proved during the relief of Gloucester and at the battle of

Newbury, soon grew eager to be back to their shops, and mutinous if

they were kept out for what seemed to them an undue period. So it must

always be with a citizen force. Since the mediæval navy was largely

of that description, it suffered from recurrent lapses of strength,

and was peculiarly liable to total collapse when the country was

overwrought by the strain of long war.

Edward's reign closed in failure and defeat. The last blow was given

to his power in the south of France, when a fleet sent to the relief

of Rochelle, under the command of John Hastings, Earl of Pembroke,

was crushed by a superior force of Spanish vessels under Ambrosio

Bocanegra, the Admiral of Castile, in 1372. The troubled reign of

Richard II. saw no improvement. At one period in his minority, a Scotch

pirate named Mercer harried the north-west unchecked, till he was

defeated by the enterprise of a citizen of London, John Philipot. It

is typical of the time, that Philipot was rebuked by some of the lords

of the Council, with foolish insolence, for taking on himself to fight

without their consent. A wealthy and important citizen of London, of

Philipot's spirit, was not a man to stand bullying tamely. He answered

that he had fought only to make good their failure to do their duty,

and to that they had very naturally "not a word to answer."

Even the astute and capable Henry IV. was for long unable to bring

about visible improvement. Amid the embarrassments of the first years

of his reign, he had recourse to a very curious experiment. In order to

deal with what may be called the ordinary work of the navy, the pursuit

of pirates, and the repulse of mere raids on the coast, he entered

into a contract with the citizens of London. They were to provide a

force of ships and men, to be commanded by their own admirals, and

were to be paid certain dues, and keep all their prizes. They did not

undertake to deal with a great hostile fleet, but only to discharge

the police duties. After a good deal of negotiation, the experiment

was actually tried from May 1406 to September 1407. The merchants

appointed two admirals, Richard Clytherow for the south and west, and

Nicholas Blackburn for the north, who were endowed with large powers of

impressment. This curious attempt to discharge the duty of the State

by contract was not satisfactory, and the arrangement was not renewed.

It is chiefly worth mentioning as showing to what shifts the Crown was

driven in its times of weakness.

In an introduction which aims only at giving an outline account of the

mediæval navy, further details of warlike operations, which were always

of the same general character, are unnecessary. There was a revival of

efficiency with Henry V., not, however, marked by any single events of

the brilliancy of the battle of Sluys, or "Les Espagnols sur Mer."

Then came another period of collapse in the dreary reign of Henry VI.

With the close of the fifteenth century the mediæval period in the

history came to an end. The establishment of the Tudor dynasty has been

described as marking the beginning of the new monarchy. This is perhaps

a somewhat arbitrary description, but it is certainly the case that

the anarchy of the Wars of the Roses had converted Englishmen, or had

brought them back, to a high conception of the need of a strong royal

authority as the one effectual security for the safety of the subject

against disorder. The administration was centralised in the king's

hand. Increase of wealth in the nation supplied him with a larger

revenue, and the formation of a Royal Navy in the modern sense became

at last possible.

Before leaving the mediæval navy, the picture may be completed by one

example of that brutal violence which has been mentioned as a feature

of the sea life of the time. I have spoken of the feuds between the

different towns, and of complaints of excesses committed on the coast

by armed forces appointed to protect them. One concrete example is

better than any amount of general statement. Here is an instance of

sheer devilry taken from the unhappy years of the minority of Richard

II., when the State was weak, and Englishmen had been brutalised by the

savage wars of France.

In 1379 Sir John Arundel was appointed to the command of a force of

archers and men-at-arms, which was to go to the help of the Duke

of Brittany. It was to sail from Southampton. As the weather was

unfavourable, there was some delay in starting, and Arundel quartered

his soldiers in a nunnery. The house, according to a common practice of

the time, contained, in addition to the nuns, many married women whose

husbands were absent, widows, and unmarried girls, who were sent there

for safety and education. Arundel's soldiers violated these women, and

pillaged the chapel. Disregarding all complaints, he not only went to

sea without punishing the offenders, but allowed them to bring their

booty and several of the women with them. There were also, it appears,

prostitutes in the ships. The ecclesiastical authorities fell back on

the only revenge then within their power. They formally cursed Arundel

and his thieves with bell, book, and candle as the ships sailed away.

To men accustomed to the licence of the French wars, this doubtless

appeared a very impotent form of retaliation. But they soon had

occasion to change their minds. A violent storm burst upon them,

apparently, since it swept them out of the Channel, from the east or

north-east. To lighten the ships, these savages threw overboard all the

women they had carried to sea. The danger might have been avoided if

Arundel had listened to the advice of his sailing-master, John Rust, a

sailor of the now very much decayed little town of Blakeney in Norfolk,

who warned him that a gale was coming on. But Arundel, though a good

soldier, as he showed when defending Southampton in 1377, was neither

a seaman himself, nor sufficiently a man of sense to listen to those

who were. Having first incurred disaster by his obstinacy, Arundel

sealed his own fate by persisting in again overriding the opinion of

Rust. He had been driven to within sight of the coast of Ireland,

and, in his frantic desire to escape the misery of his position on

shipboard, insisted that an attempt should be made to land. It was in

vain that the sailors pointed out to him that it was far safer to keep

at sea. In an explosion of sheer fury, largely excited, we may presume,

by fear, Arundel killed some of them. Then Rust and the others made

the hopeless attempt to land the madman whom they had the misfortune

to be compelled to obey. Seeing a small island near the coast, the

sailing-master attempted to get under its lee, but found the water

too broken. Then, as a last resource, he tried to beach the ship, but

she struck on the rocks, and went to pieces. Arundel, to whom every

opportunity seems to have been given by fate to display his folly, was

one of those who contrived to reach the shore. He might have escaped if

he had not stood within reach of the waves, shaking the water out of

his clothes. Rust, who had also come through alive, seeing his peril,

ran forward to drag him back, and both were beaten down and dragged

under by the next wave. An uncertain number of other vessels, with many

knights and men-at-arms, perished in the same disaster. This may stand

as sufficient example of what was possible when the brutality of the

Middle Ages coincided with the licence of the sea. We may hope that

the details of the story were heightened in the telling, but there is

no reasonable ground to doubt its substantial truth, and the mere fact

that such a tale could be told shows what was believed to be possible.

CHAPTER I

THE NAVY OF THE TUDORS TILL THE ACCESSION OF ELIZABETH

AUTHORITIES.--Much information concerning the navy during the earlier

Tudor period will be found in Charnock's _Naval Architecture_, vol.

ii. cap. 2 and 3; but the chief authority now is Mr. Oppenheim's

recently published _Administration of the Navy_, 1509-1660. This may

be supported by numerous passages in the Calendar of State Papers for

the reign of Henry VIII., prepared by Mr. Brewer. The details of the

fighting in Conquet Bay are given in Echyngham's letters to Wolsey

in the Calendar. The collection called "State Papers," edited by Mr.

Haines, 1831-1852, contains Lisle's letters during the operations

of 1545. The memoirs of Martin du Bellay and Blaise de Montluc give

the French side. The early history of the Trinity House has been

investigated by Mr. C. L. Barrett, _The Trinity House of Deptford

Strond_, 1893.

The Tudor dynasty filled the throne of England for a hundred and

eighteen years. A hundred and six years of that period belong to the

reigns of Henry VII., Henry VIII., and Elizabeth, three rulers of

consummate ability. No other reigning house has maintained so high

a level of governing faculty during so large a proportion of its

existence, and it is not the least part of the wonderful good fortune

of England that her destinies should have been directed, at a time of

change and growth, by sovereigns of eminent capacity. She passed in

those years from an old world to a new, and, however high we may rank

the faculty of the race, it is impossible to doubt that the transition

must have been far less successful than it was if there had been

weakness or folly in its rulers. The two Henrys and Elizabeth, it must

be remembered, were, in the fullest sense of the word, rulers. They had

to submit to necessity, to abstain from much, to accept much which was

by no means pleasing to them, but it was because they could do this,

and did not persist in endeavouring to drive the world where it would

not go, in the fatal fashion of the Stuarts, that they succeeded. The

great men who served them, and the qualities of the English people,

were not made by the Tudors, but it was they who chose the servants,

and used the qualities of their subjects.

The foundation of the modern navy was a great and vitally important

part of their administrative work. It must not be supposed that there

was any sharp-drawn line dividing the Middle Ages from the later times.

The new monarchy itself cannot be said to have differed formally from

the old. Henry VII. claimed to reign by the same right and authority as

his predecessors. The difference was in the method and the spirit. From

the end of the fifteenth century till the beginning of the seventeenth,

Englishmen looked to the sovereign as the representative on earth of

that law whose "voice" is "the harmony of the world." To the great

mass of Englishmen, to all, in fact, except a few nobles, and the poor

and martial northern counties, the king was the divinely appointed

ruler who stood between them and anarchy. They expected him to govern

by the law, but they also recognised his commission to pronounce and

enforce it. In later times the authority of the Crown became an object

of hostility, but from the day that Henry VII. put on the circle of

gold which had fallen from the helmet of Richard III. on the field of

Market Bosworth, till Elizabeth sank to rest, old, weary, and half

broken-hearted, there were few Englishmen who would have drawn any

distinction between the State and the King. On the Continent of Europe

the same influence was at work, turning the mediæval king into the

modern despot.

So, too, in regard to the navy, there is no deliberate break with the

past, no express beginning of any new thing. The ships are still the

king's, commanded by his captains, manned by his mariners, administered

by his servants. Even in matters of detail the old usages lingered far

into the seventeenth century. The captain continued for long to be

more soldier than sailor, the man whose business it was to fight, not

to sail the ship. In Boteler's "Dialogues," published in the reign of

Charles II., though probably written in the reign of his father, it

is proposed, as if there were some novelty in the suggestion, that no

man should be appointed captain until he had been at least one voyage

to sea. The attempt to form a regular corps of naval officers dates

from the Restoration, and must be put to the credit of James II., then

Duke of York and Lord High Admiral. The crews were still collected for

each voyage, and disbanded at its end. This applies not only to the

men, but to the officers, though the king might keep a certain number

of captains about him, by putting them on the footing of gentlemen of

his household. It was not until the time of the Commonwealth, and then

through the exertions of the Council of State, that the navy was raised

to a strength which made it possible to dispense with the service of

pressed or hired merchant ships when a great fleet had to be fitted

out. On the face of it, in fact, and if we look to the mere letter,

there was no change at all. The admiral was still a great officer of

State, who acted as king's lieutenant in sea affairs. There were king's

ships managed by the king's servants, and in time of need the old calls

were made on the ports to provide their quota for the defence of the

country.

Yet for all that there was a change, and the beginning of something

new. The same causes which were leading to the formation of

professional standing armies on the Continent, were at work to induce

the Tudors to pay attention to their navy. English kings had done so

before them. When the Duke of Norfolk told Chapuys, the ambassador of

Charles V., in 1535, that it was a good thing for a king of England to

be provided with ships to inspire awe in those who wished to attack

him, he was saying nothing which was not well known to John or Edward

III. The difference lay in the continuity of attention paid to the navy

by the Tudors, in the proportion of their revenue which they spent

on it, and in the formation of a department expressly devoted to the

work of maintaining the king's ships. In former times so much of the

king's navy as was his personal property bore a close resemblance to

those bands of mercenaries which he raised for a particular war, and

disbanded when he had no further need for their services. From the time

of the Tudors his ships became a permanent establishment. It is from

them that the Royal Navy descends, not from the sea militia of the

Cinque Ports. The British army began with the regiments of Charles II.,

not with the host which was called out on the summons of our ancient

kings.

From the very necessity of the case, a permanent fighting force

calls for the attention of a no less permanent civil administration.

Throughout nearly the whole of the reign of Henry VIII. the work

continued to be done under the supervision of the Clerk of the Ships,

but by an increasing staff of subordinate clerks, called for by its

growing needs and the establishment of a dockyard at Portsmouth.

The office, in fact, grew, as has been commonly the case with our

administrative machinery, by adaptations to meet needs. At last,

in 1546, in the year before his death, the king formed the first

regular Navy Board by letters patent dated April 24. It consisted of a

Lieutenant of the Admiralty, a Treasurer, a Comptroller, a Surveyor,

a Clerk of the Ships, and two officials who had no special title.

A "Master of the Ordnance of the Ships" was created at the same

time, but this was a separate office. This organisation was subject

during its history to suspensions and modifications, as will be seen

further on; but four of the officers here named, the Treasurer,

Surveyor, Comptroller, and Clerk of the Ships, or of Acts, or of the

Navy, continued with brief intervals to be the chiefs of the civil

administration of the navy till 1832. Upon them fell the duties

of buying stores, building and taking care of ships, managing the

dockyard, distributing provisions, paying wages, and what we should

now call the compassionate allowances given to wounded men. This body

existed, with temporary suspensions, but little permanent modification,

till 1832, when it was merged into a body from which it must always be

carefully distinguished--namely, the Admiralty.

The Admiralty, which has now absorbed the whole administration of the

navy, originally only exercised the higher military control. It was,

in fact, the representative of the Lord High Admiral, and is still

technically described as the commission named to discharge the duties

of his office. This office descended to the Tudors from earlier times.

The Lord High Admiral was, to repeat a phrase already used, the king's

lieutenant for sea affairs. He exercised a large jurisdiction, gave

commissions to the military officers of the navy, the lieutenants,

that is to say, and captains, issued the orders, and commanded in war.

The non-military officers, the masters and their mates, whose duty was

the navigation of the ship, the doctors and pursers, fell under the

Navy Office. This department was subordinate to the admiral, and bound

to execute his orders, but he did not sit in it. In earlier times he

discharged the duties of his office in his own house. Even at later

periods, when there was an Admiralty Office at Whitehall, the Navy

Office had its own quarters in Seething Lane, or, later on, in Somerset

House, until the great reform of 1832 welded the departments together.

By the end of the reign of Henry VIII. the navy was, in so far as the

main lines are concerned, organised pretty much as it was destined

to remain for three centuries. The chief change introduced during

this long period was the formation of the regular corps of naval

officers, which dates from the Restoration. Until that time there

was no organised body of fighting sea officers, as we may call them,

in order to avoid the confusion which arises from the use of the

word "military" as applied to the naval service. Individual men were

habitually employed, and, when not on service, provided for by being

put on the footing of gentlemen of the royal household, but they had

no general commission as naval officers, and no claim to pension. The

Lord High Admiral gave commissions when a fleet was fitted out, issued

instructions, and commanded in person. The Navy Office, or Navy Board,

did the civil work. On this side of the administration the necessity

for taking care of ships and stores early led to the formation of a

regular staff of pilots, boatswains, and gunners, who belonged to the

navy, and were not merely attached to this or that ship for as long as

she was in commission.

The growth of the ship itself had much to do with bringing about the

formation of a permanent Royal Navy. By the beginning of the sixteenth

century, it was no longer possible to rely on such resources as could

be found in the Cinque Ports, even if they had not been silted up by

the action of the currents of the Channel. Little vessels built for the

coasting trade had neither the size, the strength, nor the armament

which had now become necessary for the work of war. The larger merchant

ships of the great ports were, indeed, better fitted for the purpose.

In those times of insecurity at sea they generally went armed, even in

peace. Accordingly, we find that until the middle of the seventeenth

century pressed or hired merchant ships were always to be found in

great fleets. But their inferiority to the vessel built for war was

early recognised. Queen's officers were found to declare that the

merchant ships were of little use, except to make a show, in the fight

with the Armada. The special warship early became a necessity to a

power which was bound to keep up its strength at sea. It could only

be provided by the State, which at that time meant the king. Henry

VII. saw that truth clearly, and so did his successors on the throne.

If they did not build vessels enough to render them independent of

all other sources of supply in war, it was because of the poverty of

the Crown. From the time, indeed, when vessels of any size began to

be required for purposes of war, the State was compelled to rely on

those it built for itself. The great bulk of our trade was conducted

in vessels of small size. Even at the end of the first quarter of this

century, a merchant ship of 500 tons burden was thought large. The

great majority ranged from 150 to about 250 tons for the most distant

voyages. But as early as the reign of Henry VII. warships were built

of 1000 tons. Such vessels could not be supplied by the trade. Neither

were the trading craft, being built as economically as possible, equal

in strength to those constructed for war.

The great ships of the early Tudors were an exaggeration of the cogs

of the Middle Ages. They were longer, broader, and built much higher

in the sides. But they had the same towering castles at bow and stern.

The word forecastle preserves the memory of the species of fort which

once cumbered the fore part of ships. These fortresses were shut off

from the rest of the ship by barriers, called, in later times at least,

cobridges, and defended even when the enemy was in possession of the

waist. Small guns, called "murdering pieces," were mounted on them,

to clear the deck on emergency. As parts of a castle they had their

merits, but they were very dangerous top hamper for a ship. The fate

of the =Mary Rose=, which will be mentioned later on, shows how easily

vessels of the time were upset. Their instability was exaggerated

by the nature of the rigging. In the largest vessel there were four

masts--one at the prow, another at the stern, and two between. They

were apparently complete spars, not divided, as in later times, into

lower mast and topmast. Each carried a great square sail or course of

excessive height, to which a topsail could be added. The strain thrown

on the hull by these great sails must have been severe. It was aided

by the castles, which had a constant tendency to tear away when the

ship was rolling. As the structure was weak, and the caulking alone was

trusted to keep the ships watertight, it is easy to understand that a

very short cruise or a very moderate spell of bad weather was enough

to reduce the noblest of them to the condition of a sieve. Indeed, the

unfitness of the "capital ships" of the sixteenth century for winter

cruising was recognised by everybody. Even a hundred years later, when

many improvements had been introduced, naval officers were reluctant

to keep large vessels at sea after summer was over. As late as the

reign of William III., at the end of the seventeenth century, a council

of officers declared that the heavier line-of-battle ships could not

be safely kept out after the first days of autumn. In the earlier

Tudor times they were of use only in fine-weather months. The smaller

vessels, being less built upon, and not subject to the same amount of

leverage tending to tear them to pieces, were more seaworthy. As they

must also have sailed very badly, there is no apparent reason for the

confidence inspired in our ancestors by the presence of one of these

"capital ships." They must be supposed to have trusted it to bear down

opposition by its mere weight, just as a very fine corps of mail-clad

horsemen would sweep lighter opponents before them on the field of

battle.

Their armament consisted of a multiplicity of guns, ranging from

very small pieces mounted on the castles up to the "cannon royal," a

68-pounder, on the main deck. Guns of different sizes were mounted

on the same deck. Experience gradually showed the unwisdom of this

variegated armament. In the following generations the cannon royal was

given up as too heavy, and the very small pieces as too light, while

the batteries were made uniform.

The subsequent progress of the navy is better understood when we

remember from what it was that it started. The early Tudor warship

was absurdly over-hampered with superstructures, rigged in a fashion

which was inefficient, and yet exposed the vessel to a dangerous

leverage, and armed as if the aim had been to produce confusion. It

was still so little fitted to struggle with the forces of the sea and

wind, that it could not meet winter weather. From that point the Royal

Navy advanced to the stage at which Nelson could keep his watch off

Toulon for two years, and at the end of them be still ready for the

pursuit of Villeneuve. The story is one of continual simplification

and adaptation. The towering over-built castles were cut down, the

long complete mast was subdivided into lower, top, and top-gallant.

These two last named could be lowered in case of need to relieve the

ship. The unwieldy course was reduced, and the topsails and top-gallant

sails added to the power of the ship, while remaining themselves

perfectly handy. The upright mast in the prow was lowered till through

successive stages it became the bowsprit. The armament was brought into

a comparatively few classes of guns.

The method in which the ships of the Tudors were manned and fought is

better known than their construction. During his first war with France

(1511-1514) Henry VIII. provided for the equipment of his fleet very

much after the fashion which continued to be followed in the raising

of regiments till the end of the eighteenth century. He entered into a

contract with his admiral, Sir Edward Howard. The king, on his part,

undertook to provide ships, guns, and a sum of money. The admiral,

on the other hand, bound himself to do his sovereign service, and to

give him one-half the prizes. The business of collecting the crews

was apparently left to the admiral, who was armed with the power to

press, and was entitled to command the service of local officials for

the purpose. It shows how far a fleet was looked upon as a temporary

force, that this contract was only to last for three months, and to be

renewable for periods of the same length. If the desired purpose was

effected, or peace was made, the whole force would be dissolved. Hired

or pressed ships would be paid off, and allowed to go. The king's ships

would be returned to his own docks, which were then in the Thames,

there to remain under the care of his officials of the Navy Office (or,

since we are speaking of 1512, it would be more accurate to say, the

officials who in the course of the ensuing years were to be organised

into the Navy Office) until they were again wanted. The men would be

disbanded. There would be left the admiral, who was a great officer

of State, ready to command when called upon, the civil officers, the

caretakers of the ships and stores, and the ships themselves,--the

materials, in short, out of which a fleet could be formed when required.

This was the method in its main lines. The details will be best

understood by taking a single ship, and seeing how she was manned. For

example, let us take the establishment of the =Gabriel= as she was

in the month of March in the fourth year of the reign of Henry VIII.

(1513). It gives the disposition of the crew, that is, the classes

into which it was divided, and their rates of pay. The statement, which

is taken from Charnock, does not agree with the list of the navy in

1513 as quoted in the Calendar of State Papers of Henry VIII., but it

supplies us with an account of the crew of a great ship of the time

which is substantially accurate as a model. How little confidence is to

be placed in the details of the lists of "the king's army on the sea"

which are preserved from this reign may be shown by a single fact. In

one "book," or, as we should say, "return," corrected by Wolsey, the

=Gabriel= is described as of 800 tons, having two captains, Cortney

(Courtenay) and Cornwall, with 600 men, of whom 250 are mariners. In

another she is said to be of 700 tons, with one captain, Sir Will.

Pirton, and 500 men.

Number Wages

of of

Men. Men.

Sir William Trevellian, captain, at 18d. a day 1 42/-

His retinue, every man 5/- a month 420 £105

The town of Gloucester, every man 5/- a month 25 £6 15/-

John Clerk, master 1 5/-

Mariners, every man 5/- a month 240 £60

Dead shares, that is to say, the master, 6; his mate, 2;

the pilot, 3; four quartermasters, 4; their mates, 3;

the boatswain, 2; his mate, 1; the coxswain, 1; his

mate, 1/2; the carpenter, 1; the caulker, 1; the steward,

1; his mate, 1/2; the purser, 1 = 27-1/2, £6, 17s. 6d.

Gunners, every man 5/- a month 20 100/-

Rewards to the gunners, that is to say, the master gunner,

3/- a month; his mate, 2/6; the four quartermasters,

every one of them 2/6 apiece, 10/-; fourteen gunners

at 20d. apiece, 23/4 40/10

Sum of the men, 602; of the dead shares, 27-1/2;

of the money, £187, 10s. 4d.

No lieutenant is named, and an officer of that name only appears later,

but he probably had an ancestor in the gentleman who was captain of

the retinue of Sir William Trevelyan. This gentleman was a soldier

appointed to fight, and not to attend to the navigation and seamanship,

which was the duty of the master. From the fact that the mariners are

given as a separate class, we may confidently conclude that the retinue

consisted of soldiers, whom the captain brought with him. It will be

seen that they greatly exceeded the sailors in number, and this was for

long the rule. There is, in truth, no greater mistake than to suppose

that the crews of the great warships at any time contained a majority

of real seamen, but in Henry's reign the proportion of soldiers was

larger than was commonly the case in later times. The indenture made

in 1512 with Sir Edward Howard provides that of the 3000 men to be

raised over and above the crew of the =Regent=, which is mustered by

itself, 1750 were to be soldiers, and 1233 sailors. It is probable,

however, that under the name of soldiers were included many men who

afterwards would have been entered as "waisters" and "landsmen," parts

of the ship's company who were only expected to work on deck or below,

and were not in the proper sense "sailormen." The gunners also were

a separate class, and we may safely conclude in their case also that

they were not--at least not necessarily--sailors, but rather marine

artillerymen.

"Dead pays" is an odd expression, which, however, almost explains

itself. They were imaginary men, whose pay was applied to the purpose

of providing a sufficient salary for the warrant officers. In theory

every member of the crew received the same allowance of 5s. pay and

5s. rations for a month of twenty-eight days. The captain, who drew

eighteenpence a day, was the only exception. It was a manifestly

insufficient salary, but a gentleman in his position was probably a man

of means, who expected to serve at his own charges, and looked to prize

and ransom money, or to the king's favour, for his reward, as also

for the means of rewarding the volunteers of good family who followed

his banner. The system was one which obviously lent itself to abuse.

A poor or unscrupulous captain would be tempted to enrich himself by

making false musters, that is, by misstating the number of men actually

present in his ship, and pocketing the money paid for wages. He would

always have the help of subordinates who were bribed, or were afraid to

offend a great man when he wished to deceive the king. This absurdly

roundabout way of remunerating the officers was finally given up,

but it left a curious representative in the so-called "widows' men"

of quite recent times. They also were imaginary sailors, and the pay

allowed for them was handed over to Greenwich Hospital, to form a fund

for the pensions of women whose husbands were killed in action. The

twenty-five men of the town of Gloucester mentioned in the list of the

=Gabriel's= crew may be supposed to have been contributed by the town

to the king's navy as its quota of the levy. In the crews of other

ships we find mention of the men of Exeter, or of the county of Devon,

or the Earl of Arundel, or some other great noble, who were similarly

mustered apart. These are traces of the mediæval organisation which

survived into and overlapped the new time.

The manner of fighting of the time is sufficiently well known. Of

strategy, in the proper sense of the word, the sea-captains of Henry

VIII. knew the essential. They could harry an enemy's coast and

commerce for the purpose of provoking him to fight, or lie in front

of any port where his ships might be at anchor, and wait till he came

out. The actual management of ships when engaged with the enemy was

decidedly rough and ready. It does not appear that there was as yet

any formation of a fleet. One great number of ships advanced in a

swarm against another, and each individual vessel got into action as

speedily as the seamanship of her master and the spirit of her captain

allowed. In one of the letters of Sir Edward Echyngham to Wolsey we

have a spirited account of the preparations made to meet some hostile

French ships. He reports that on a certain day in April 1515 he spied

three French men-of-war "that made unto usward; and 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, and dagswayns

(a species of coarse, shaggy blanket used by the poor), and such

bedding as I had within board, and setting out my marris pikes, and

my fighting sails all ready to encounter these three French barks,

with such poor ordnance as I had, and then they saw that I made unto

them with so good a will, and would not shrink from them, then they

put themselves to flight, and then I chased them till they came to the

Abbey of Fécamp, which lies hard by the seaside, and so they gat them

under the walls of the haven, and we followed them until they shot

their ordnance into us." From Sir Edward Echyngham's despatch, it is

clear that his ship had no bulwarks between the fore and after castles,

and the protection for the men fighting on deck was secured by making

a temporary barrier of bedding, blankets, and sails. It was here that

the enemy would naturally attempt to enter, and the men stationed

in this part of the ship, commonly called the waist, would be most

exposed to the fire of the enemy's tops and castles. The practice of

concealing this, the most vulnerable part of the deck, by hanging up

what were called waist-cloths, continued until the next century. They

were, however, a very poor substitute for bulwarks, being exceedingly

inflammable. Well-painted wood will resist fire for a long time, but

canvas sails, bedding, and blankets are much more easily set blazing.

An accidental explosion in the ship herself, the wads from the guns

on the cobridge heads, or, worst of all, the flames of a fireship

alongside, would cause all the canvas and rigging to burn up like a

bonfire. A frightful instance of the facility with which a disaster of

this kind could be produced was given in the very first naval battle

of Henry VIII.'s reign. The mention of pikes proves that Sir Edward

Echyngham calculated that a considerable part of his fighting would

consist in repelling boarders or in attempting to board. Indeed, until

it got to hand-to-hand fighting, there was little decisive result to

be expected from the sea battles of that time. The guns were, as has

been said above, often heavy, but the artillery practice of the crews

was very rough. The allowance for windage was absurdly large, and it

was consequently a matter of chance in what direction a bullet would

go. Besides, the use of cartridges had not yet been introduced, and

the powder was ladled out of a barrel--a very slow and very dangerous

practice. It seems to have been thought that a great fleet had

maintained a fire of wonderful intensity if it discharged three hundred

shot in one day's work. This is far less than the total amount of the

fire of either the =Victory= or the =Royal Sovereign= at Trafalgar.

By firmly establishing the royal authority, and by filling his

treasury, Henry VII. had prepared the way for his son's work as

an organiser of the navy. He certainly left his son a navy of no

contemptible strength, according to the standard of that time. The

Statute-book of his reign contains several acts meant to encourage

shipping. The comparative obscurity of his navy is probably mainly to

be accounted for by the fact that he looked upon war with dislike,

and never pushed a quarrel with his formidable neighbour, the King of

France, beyond the point at which Louis XI. was prepared to offer him

a bribe to keep quiet. But, however much Henry VIII. may have received

from his father, he certainly exerted himself strenuously to increase

his inheritance. He not only built ships, but he improved the naval

architecture of his subjects by inviting workmen from the great Italian

ports. He not only built and improved ships, but he took a very keen

and intelligent interest in the organisation of his fleet and in the

performances of his vessels. He extended his establishments on the

Thames, and to him belongs the credit of setting up the dockyard at

Portsmouth. And we know that in March 1513, in the fourth year of

his reign, he issued a "Licence to found a Guild in honour of the

Holy Trinity and St. Clement in the Church of Deptford Strond, for

reformation of the navy, lately much decayed by admission of young men

without experience, and of Scots, Flemings, and Frenchmen as loadsmen."

Loadsmen were those who were considered capable to throw the lead, and

were the skilled seamen from whom the masters and pilots, or, as we

now say, mates, were chosen. This was the Trinity House, which still

exists, and still continues to perform the duty assigned to it by Henry

VIII. of examining those who wished to be accepted as fit to navigate

or pilot a ship, besides taking care of the lights and buoys all round

the coast. Its connection with the navy was much closer in Tudor times

than it came to be later on; for not only did it supply the masters and

pilots of the king's ships, but it was entrusted with the supply and

transport of many kinds of stores.

A letter written by Sir Edward Howard on the 22nd of March 1513 gives

a very pleasing instance of the minute personal interest which the

king took in his ships. The document has been so damaged by time and

accident that a large part of it is illegible, but from what can be

deciphered we learn that Sir Edward gave the king a minute account of

the performances of all the vessels in his squadron, during a cruise

from the mouth of the river to the Channel. Fragments of sentences tell

how the one sailed very well, and how "your good ship, the flower, I

trow, of all ships that ever sailed," did something which the damaged

state of the paper conceals, and then "came within three spear-lengths

of the =Kateryn= and spake to John Fleming, Peter Seman, and to

Freeman, master, to bear record that the =Mary Rose= did fetch her at

the tail." "The flower of all ships that ever sailed" was apparently

the =Mary Rose= herself, Howard's own flagship, the same which was

destined to come to such a disastrous end in the Solent some thirty

years later. Sir Edward tells how she "fet" the =Mary George=, and in

all ways proved herself "the noblest ship of sail ... at this hower

that I trow be in Christendom." When they came to anchor, the admiral

noted down the order in which the vessels forming his squadron came up

to the Road: "The first after the =Mary Rose= was the =Sovereign=, then

the =Nicholas=, then the =Leonard= of Dartmouth, the =Mary George=, the

=Harry= of Hampton, the =Ann= of Greenwich, the =Nicholas Montrygo=,

called the =Sancho de Garra=, and the =Katherine= and the =Mary=." That

the king's officers were encouraged to keep him so minutely informed of

the performances of his ships is proof enough of the interest Henry

took in his navy.

Although the new time had begun, the change from the Middle Ages was

not yet very perceptible in so far as the general direction of a war

was concerned. It was still a matter of raids and casual battles. The

first naval action of Henry's reign was in pursuit of the old standing

war against the pirates. A Scotchman named Andrew Barton had been

robbed by the Portuguese, and had received letters of marque from his

own sovereign, authorising him to indemnify himself for his loss out of

any Portuguese property he could find upon the seas. In much later and

more civilised times it was never difficult to turn a privateer into

a pirate, and in the early sixteenth century the distinction between

them was fine in the extreme. Barton betook himself to considering

that everybody he came across on blue water was a Portuguese, or would

serve the purpose very well. He plundered Englishmen, Frenchmen, and

Flemings indiscriminately, and without the slightest regard to the

embarrassments he cost his own sovereign. At last he became such a

nuisance that ships had to be fitted out to pursue him. According to a

story which is not very well founded, they were sent out at the expense

of the Earl of Surrey, and were commanded by his sons, Sir Thomas and

Sir Edward. The two vessels belonging to Barton, called the =Lion= and

the =Jenny Perwin= or =Bark of Scotland=, were overtaken by Surrey's

two cruisers, and captured after a fight of a most determined and

picturesque character, for which, however, the chief authority is a

spirited ballad of much later date. There is no doubt, however, as to

the death of Barton, who was one of the numerous Scotch pirates of the

time.

The same year which saw the capture of these skimmers of the sea

saw also the beginning of a much greater naval war. In 1511 Henry

entered into the first of his wars with France. As he had then been

only two years upon the throne, the fact that he was able to despatch

a considerable naval force against the French coast at once, shows

that he must have inherited a large force of ships from his father.

Four-and-twenty vessels of his own, which he reinforced by ships

hired from the Hanse Towns and of the Spaniards, represented the, for

that time, very respectable naval power of the kingdom. The war was

carried on in the barbarous mediæval style. In 1511 Sir Edward Howard,

to whom the king gave the command as Lord High Admiral, ravaged the

coasts of Brittany. The devastation of his dominions stung the King

of France into making counter exertions, and a fleet was collected

at Brest under the command of an officer of the name of Primauguet,

which our historians, availing themselves of the licence of the

age, corrupted into Sir Pierce Morgan. In 1512 King Henry's fleet

was collected at Portsmouth, to be prepared to repel the French if

they made any attack, or to fall upon them first if their coming was

delayed. The king himself rode down to Portsmouth and reviewed the

soldiers, who formed the larger part of his crews on the Downs. Then

the fleet sailed, standing over to the coast of France. What exactly

followed it is very difficult to say on the evidence we possess. The

fleets certainly met somewhere in the neighbourhood of Brest. The

historians on either side contradict one another flatly, both as to

the respective strengths of the combatants and as to the result of the

fight, each asserting that his own countrymen were outnumbered, and

that the enemy ended by flying away in a scandalous state of panic.

The one point on which all agree is, that somehow or other, and in

consequence of manoeuvres which are perfectly unintelligible as

they are narrated, the great English ship the =Regent=, of which Sir

Thomas Knevet, the King's Master of the Horse, was captain, and the

still larger French ship named the _Cordelier_, fell on board one

another, caught fire, and blew up. Knevet and the French admiral,

Primauguet, whose flag was flying in the _Cordelier_, both perished,

and from one thousand to fifteen hundred men with them. Whether, as

the French assert, this disaster had such a terrifying effect on the

English ships that they all ran away, or whether, as our authorities

maintain, the French were completely cowed, and took refuge in Brest,

the fact that the battle came to an end with no very decisive result

is well established. The terrible circumstances of the loss of these

two ships produced a profound impression. We notice in ensuing years a

marked disinclination among French and English to come too close. It

is a feeling easy to understand. There was little use in destroying

your enemy if you perished with him; and when both were so inflammable,

and the danger of fire was so great, it was always likely that flames

would break out somewhere, and if they did, it was nearly certain

that they would spread from one to the other. The substantial fruits

of victory remained to the English, for their enemies attempted no

retaliation. King Louis XII. was plainly convinced of the inferiority

of his forces, for he prepared for the struggle of the ensuing year by

sending for a reinforcement of galleys from the Mediterranean. They

were brought round by a French Knight of Malta of the name of Pierre

Jean le Bidoulx, which was abbreviated into Pregent by his countrymen,

and corrupted by us into Perye John, and Preter John.

The winter months put a stop to the movements of ships between 1512

and 1513. In this year the operations began as before, that is to say,

the English fleet sailed over to the coast of France for the purpose

of making plundering raids, and then there was a fight between the two

fleets. In this case, however, the end was disastrous to England. In

spring Sir Edward Howard had his fleet collected at Plymouth. The total

strength was of ships 24, of tons 8460, which gives an average of some

350 tons each. The statement as to the strength of the crews drawn up

for Wolsey illustrates the superiority of the soldier to the sailor

element in the fleets of the time. It is recorded that the captains

were 26 in number, and the soldiers 4650, while of masters there were

24, and of mariners 2880. From this method of arranging the different

elements of the crew, it is obvious that the captain and his soldiers

were not looked upon as naval men in our sense of the word, but purely

as fighting men, and were altogether considered as as much superior

in dignity as they undoubtedly were in numbers to the sailors. It will

be seen that these vessels must have been crowded to what would now be

thought a dangerous extent. There were no less than two hundred men

per ship. It was no doubt for this reason that the fleets of that time

were attended by a swarm of small vessels called victuallers. There

was, in fact, insufficient room to store the provisions required for

such considerable bodies of men in such diminutive craft for any length

of time. These victuallers were of course a serious hindrance to any

fleet. They were slow, and, being only merchant ships, employed wholly

as transports, were perfectly incapable of offering any resistance

to an enemy. Thus the naval force which they were meant to feed was

not only kept back from movements of any rapidity, but was constantly

compelled to employ a large part of its strength in protecting its

own food against attacks by even insignificant ships belonging to the

other side. One short cruise out, an attack on some part of the enemy's

coast, and a prompt return home, was all that could be expected from

fleets pestered by so many obstructions.

It is said that Howard was so well pleased with the force under his

command that he urged the king to come down and take part in the

attack on France himself, for which he was soundly rebuked by the

Council as having shown an insufficient regard for the safety of His

Majesty's sacred person. Yet King Henry might have made this voyage

with very little risk, and Howard himself might have returned from

the coast of France in safety but for his own headlong courage. On

reaching the neighbourhood of Brest, which he seems to have done on

the 12th of April, the admiral found the enemy in no humour to give

him a meeting. Their ships fled back into Brest on his approach, not,

as it appears, into the actual harbour, which lies at the end of the

very appropriately named Goulet or Gullet, but into Bertheaume Bay,

which lies just outside on the north. Here they took refuge under the

protection of forts, and refused to be enticed out. Howard had, in

fact, made his appearance on the French coast at a very inconvenient

time for the enemy. Pregent, who was on his way with the galleys from

the Mediterranean, had not yet been able to join the French ships at

Brest. The English were placed between the two divisions of the enemy,

and, being apparently superior in force to either of them, could have

crushed them in detail if once they could have been got out of the

protection of their forts. But to come out was just what the French

would not do; nor could Howard by any insults, or even by the damage

he inflicted on the coast villages, sting them into giving him battle.

Provoked by the shyness of his enemy, and perhaps sore from the rebuke

inflicted on him by the Council, Howard made two successive, and, as

the result shows, very rash attacks on the enemy. He first endeavoured

to sail in and attack the French at anchor in Bertheaume Bay, but,

being very ill supplied with pilots, he speedily came to grief. One of

the largest of his vessels, commanded by Arthur Plantagenet, a natural

son of Edward IV., ran on the rocks, and became a total wreck. It does

not appear that Howard blamed "Master Arthur" for the loss of the ship.

In a letter to the king on the 17th of April he praises him for his

courage, and says that he had given him leave to go home. "For sir,

when he was in extreme danger ... he called upon our Lady of Walsingham

for help and comfort, and made a vow that, an it pleased God and her to

deliver him out of the peril, he would never eat flesh nor fish till

he had seen her." As Master Arthur Plantagenet would have been reduced

by his hasty vow to the sad necessity of living upon dry bread, it was

humane to let him get home as quickly as might be. The Middle Ages were

not yet quite over, but the years were at hand when any officer of King

Henry's who had pleaded a vow to our Lady of Walsingham as the excuse

for retiring from the presence of the enemy would have soon found

himself in another and even a worse form of peril than shipwreck.

After the failure in Bertheaume Bay, Howard turned to attack "Pery

John," as he calls him. The Knight of Malta, finding himself cut off

from Brest, had taken refuge in Conquet Bay, which lies just round the

point San Mathieu, the extreme western end of the north side to the

approach to Brest. Le Conquet is a little island, one of several which

stretch south-east from Ushant, and the bay is just opposite on the

mainland; the channel between them is called the Passage du Four. The

French commander had drawn his galleys up on the beach. It was one of

the advantages of these long, narrow, and in stormy waters unseaworthy

craft, that they could be beached with ease, and so escape larger and

heavier vessels which dared not follow them so near the shore. If

Howard could have landed men and guns, he might very soon have made

an end of the galleys. And it does appear that he had a scheme of the

kind in contemplation, but, whether because he feared interruption by

French ships coming out of Brest, or whether only because his buoyant

courage ran away with him, he took another course. The story is told

by Sir Edward Echyngham in a letter to Wolsey dated the 5th of May.

"The news of these parts be so dolorous," he begins, "that unneith I

can write them for sorrow;" and it was indeed a sorrowful story. Sir

Edward Howard, so we make out, finding that the enemy would not give

him a fair meeting, and that, while he was subject to interruption

from Brest, he could not safely land his soldiers to attack Pregent,

had at last despatched part of his fleet into what we then called the

Trade, which is now known as the Passage de l'Iroise, and had decided

to make a front attack on the enemy in Conquet Bay with the others. It

was, in fact, a cutting-out expedition; and once more we note that the

Middle Ages were lingering on, for the admiral led himself, as Sir John

Chandos might have done, on a piece of work which in later times would

have been more appropriately left to a subordinate officer. The object,

as Sir Edward Echyngham reported, "was to win the French galleys with

the help of boats, the water being too shallow for ships," and he goes

on to describe what followed in words which it would be hardly possible

to better.

"The galleys were protected on both sides by bulwarks, planted so

thick with guns and cross-bows, that the quarrels and the gonstons

(gunstones) came together as thick as hailstones. For all this the

admiral boarded the galley that Preyer John was in and Charran the

Spaniard with him and sixteen others. By advice of the admiral and

Charran they had cast anchor into [word illegible] of the French

galley, and fastened the cable to the capstan that if any of the

galleys had been on fire they might have veered the cable, and fallen

off; but the French hewed asunder the cable, or some of our mariners

let it slip. And so they left this [word illegible] in the hands of

his enemies. There was a mariner wounded in eighteen places who by

adventure recovered unto the buoy of the galley so that the galley's

boat took him up. He said he saw my Lord-Admiral thrust against the

rails of the galley with marris pikes. Charran's boy tells a like

tale, for when his master and the admiral had entered, Charran sent

him for his hand gun which before he could deliver the one galley was

gone off from the other, and he saw my Lord-Admiral waving his hands

and crying to the galleys, 'Come aboard again, come aboard again,'

which when my Lord saw they could not, he took his whistle from about

his neck, wrapped it together and threw it into the sea."

So died Sir Edward Howard, deeply lamented. "For there was never

nobleman so ill lost as he was, that was of so great courage, and had

so many virtues, and that ruled so great an army so well as he did,

and kept so good order and true justice." Sir Edward was the first of

the short list of our admirals who died in battle, and it may be said

that he was the last knight in the old sense of the word--that is to

say, a valiant man of his person, thinking more of the point of honour

than of beating an enemy by good management--who commanded an English

fleet. Although it has been the custom to speak of the valour of this

attempt as honourable to the whole force engaged, the truth seems to

be that Sir Edward Howard was not well supported. This small English

galley in which he boarded the Frenchman appears in sober fact, to have

been seized with a panic. No sooner had the knights and gentlemen leapt

on to the Frenchman's deck than their mariners left them to shift for

themselves. Nor was it only the sailors who were somewhat deficient

in spirit. Sir Edward Echyngham reports that "Sir Henry Shirborne and

Sir William Sidney boarded Prior John's galley, but being left alone,

and thinking the admiral safe, returned." These two, though brave men,

satisfied themselves hastily of the safety of their leader, and it is

not easy to understand how they could have failed to see his peril,

considering that the whole body was crowded on the narrow space of a

galley's deck.

The loss of Sir Edward Howard most certainly had the effect of

depriving his command of all spirit. Within ten days they were back

in England, and Echyngham's account of the repulse was written from

Hampton. The excuses given for this hasty return were that the fleet

did not know to whom the command ought to fall upon the death of

the admiral, and the want of victuals. They are more plausible than

convincing, and the fact probably is that the fleet was dispirited

on finding that the French were too strongly posted to be attacked.

The discipline, too, was probably not very good at a time when all

forces were raised for temporary expeditions. The death of a leader

whose rank and character secured the respect of his followers, was not

infrequently followed by the disbanding of his whole force.

The short remainder of this war, which speedily came to an end, was

filled by a mere repetition of the old raids by English ships on the

French coast, and by French on the English. Pregent plundered the coast

of Sussex, while the English ships were refitting, till he had an eye

knocked out by an English arrow. English captains in revenge plundered

the coast of France, and so it went on with much brutality and no

decisive effect till the war died a natural death.

For thirty years there were no further events in the history of the

navy which call for particular notice. Henry entered into several

wars with Francis I., the successor of Louis XII., and his navy was

used to good effect; but little would be gained by a barren recital

of the number and strength of the fleets fitted out to transport our

armies across the Channel, or harass the French coast. The superiority

of Henry during all these years was very marked. He had, in fact, no

serious enemy at sea, for Scotland was too poor to send out any naval

armament above the level of a casual pirate or semi-pirate, while

Charles V., whose dominions included both our rivals at sea in the

coming generations, the Spaniards and the Hollanders, was generally

at peace with the King of England. Francis I. might have been a most

formidable enemy if he had applied himself to developing his navy. He

did not indeed actually neglect it at any time, and towards the end of

his reign he made one strenuous attempt to get the upper hand at sea.

But he had too much to do elsewhere, not to be forced to sacrifice his

fleet. His rivalry with Charles V., both in the contest for the empire

and in the struggle to obtain possession of the duchy of Milan, made

it absolutely necessary for him to devote his resources mainly to the

maintenance of armies on land.

In this as in other cases England owed a great deal to the geographical

position which saved her from the temptations and necessities besetting

her rival. It is enough to say that from 1514 to 1544 the English fleet

carried troops across the Channel or escorted the armies marching

into Scotland, practically unresisted. This interval was, however, of

great importance in the history of the navy. The establishment of the

Navy Office was not completed till 1546, but the dockyards were more

thoroughly organised, and were greatly extended. There was still very

much to be done in the formation of a permanent service. A certain

lingering confusion between the Navy Royal and the general shipping

of the country probably accounts for the king's decision to leave the

management of Deptford Dockyard in the hands of the Trinity House.

But the tendency was always towards the formation of special services

to be employed for definite ends. Although no regular naval service

was as yet formed, the foundations were laid. Even when there was no

expedition to be carried out against the French or the Scotch, the king

took care never to leave the seas without their winter or their summer

guard--small squadrons of vessels appointed to patrol the Straits

and the Channel. This force was very small--in quiet times hardly

exceeding six or seven little vessels, and the crews were hired only

for the summer or winter commission. The fact that a man had commanded

a ship in one or other guard did not give him any right to continued

employment, but from the very nature of the case a certain continuity

of service would arise. Officers who proved satisfactory, or had

good friends at court, were employed again and again, and the king's

captains began to be a recognised body; while it is safe to presume

that there were some soldiers and mariners who found his service more

acceptable than that of private employers, and who volunteered into it

with regularity. It was during these years, too, that the first efforts

to improve the construction of ships were made by the introduction of

skilled shipwrights from the Italian ports. Of these Henry must have

had a respectable staff in constant employment. When the =Mary Rose=

was sunk at St. Helens, the efforts made to raise her were mainly

directed by Italian workmen.

After neglecting, or if not actually neglecting, then subordinating,

the naval strength of his kingdom to his armies, and to much less

worthy purposes, for thirty years, Francis I. was at last driven into

making a desperate effort at sea by the capture of Boulogne in 1544.

When the King of England had appeared in France at the head of an

army of 30,000 men, and had added another defensible position to the

fortress he already possessed at Calais, the unwisdom of leaving him

the command of the Channel was borne in upon Francis with a force which

aroused him to efforts really worthy of the occasion. In the spring of

1545 (the operations of the previous year had merely been the transport

of the army, and a few plundering expeditions) preparations were made

on both sides for something deserving to be called war. The King of

France built ships in batches, and brought from the Mediterranean not

only his own galleys, but large numbers of vessels hired from the

Ragusans, whom our ancestors called the Aragoozes. The superiority of

the fleet which he was soon able to command might have taught a French

ruler how very possible it was for his great monarchy, then certainly

more than twice as populous and rich as England, to excel her in the

number of her fleets. The English were outnumbered from the first, and

knew it. In the spring of 1545, Lord Lisle, then Henry's admiral,

and the famous or infamous Duke of Northumberland of the next reign,

made his appearance on the coast of France with a scheme for attacking

the French in the Seine; but he did not carry it into effect, and the

explanation that he found his enemy too strong is at least the most

plausible. When the French put to sea, the English certainly acted

in a manner to be expected of men who felt themselves overmatched.

They retired into Portsmouth harbour, and allowed the French admiral,

D'Annebault, to advance to the anchorage of St. Helens, and establish

himself there unopposed. The real strength of the French fleet was

by no means in proportion to its numbers. A large part of the ships

were galleys, which were of little or no use except in a dead calm. It

seems, too, that the spirits of the French fleet had been a good deal

damped by a disaster which happened before they left Havre. A great

vessel, the _Philippe_, the most beautiful in the world according to

the French writers, caught fire in the harbour of Havre, and burned to

the water's edge. Blaise de Montluc, who saw the disaster, immediately

formed the conclusion that no good would come of the enterprise; and

if he, who was the most intrepid of mankind, had come to this gloomy

conclusion, we may be sure that there were plenty more in the fleet who

were not in a more confident spirit.

A much more trustworthy indication of the little result to be expected

from the enterprise would have been the want of spirit of the officers

chosen to command by the French king. They had, in reality, an immense

superiority of strength. One hundred and fifty "great ships," and at

least a hundred smaller vessels, were collected under the command of

D'Annebault, and the troops amounted to eight or ten thousand men

under the command of Marshal Biez. The force was amply sufficient to

strike such a blow to England as would have very rapidly compelled

Henry to restore Boulogne, if it had been used with any degree of

resolution, but the French leaders were from the beginning on the

outlook for difficulties. They left Havre on the 16th of July, and

two days later made their appearance on the coast of Sussex, where

they spent some time in plundering insignificant fishing villages. No

attempt to molest them was made by the English fleet, which lay quiet

in Portsmouth harbour. After doing just enough on the coast of Sussex

to arouse the whole countryside, the French fleet came on to the Isle

of Wight, and anchored at St. Helens. Here they remained, apparently

for about ten days, neither attacking with determination, nor being

attacked to any purpose. The fine July weather and the prevailing calms

were wholly in favour of the French, whose fleet consisted largely of

galleys. On the English side, a number of the smaller vessels had been

fitted with sweeps, in order that they might act against the rowing

vessels of the enemy. But neither did they show any particular zeal

to attack. The king himself had come down to Portsmouth to survey the

fortifications, and if courtly historians did not praise him too much,

it was at his suggestion that the English vessels were provided with

oars. Henry did not stay to witness the fighting (if it deserves that

name) which ensued, but returned to London, leaving the command of the

fleet to Lisle, and of the garrison to Suffolk. The operations were of

a very monotonous description, and leave us under the impression that

each side was reluctant to fight till it had the other at a hopeless

disadvantage.

On the first day the French admiral sent forward sixteen galleys under

the command of the Baron de la Garde, for the purpose of drawing the

English admiral out to St. Helens, where he might be overpowered by

numbers. Lisle was resolute not to be tempted to put himself at a

disadvantage. Indeed, the plan was rather a futile one, which it hardly

needed any great display of skill on the part of the English admiral

to defeat. The galleys were not able to face the king's ships when any

wind was blowing. They were very lightly built, and carried only one

gun in the bow. If the English ships were able to manoeuvre, they

could either overpower their enemy by the fire of their broadsides,

or, better still, run into them and sink them. Such a vessel as the

=Great Harry= running before a good breeze would probably have gone

over a galley without suffering any material damage herself. Therefore

the vessels sent by D'Annebault could not, without extreme rashness,

come within striking distance of the English fleet, except in a dead

calm. When, however, the weather was of this kind, the English ships

were unable to move, and could not sail into the French fleet even

if they had been disposed to do so. The fight, then, between the two

resolved itself into something like this. During the calm hours of the

morning, the Baron de la Garde and his colleague Strozzi, the Prior of

Capua (the same who afterwards took the castle of St. Andrews from the

Scotch Reformers, and had John Knox for his prisoner), came near enough

to Lisle's ships to open an exasperating fire. So long as the wind did

not get up, the English vessels lay helpless, and could only reply to

the fire of their enemy with the few guns they could bring to bear. In

such a case, the galleys at all times took care, as far as possible,

to station themselves right ahead or else astern of their opponent, in

order to avoid the fire of the broadside, though this, considering the

rude gunnery of the early sixteenth century, was almost an excessive

precaution, since the narrow, low-lying galley, when end on, must have

presented a mark much more likely to be missed than to be hit. When the

breeze got up, the English ships stood toward the enemy, who thereupon

incontinently fled, and was not followed for any considerable distance.

This moment was dangerous for him, for if he did not turn quick enough

and get away before the English were quite close, he was likely to

suffer very severely, for the galleys carried no guns astern. La Garde

and the Prior of Capua were expert officers, and when, after some hours

of long bowls, the wind got up and the English ships began to bear

down, they extricated themselves very smartly from danger.

The first day having thus passed in a species of fighting which might

have been prolonged for weeks with little material damage to either

side, the French went on for a second, but not apparently for a third

day. Yet, on this occasion, they were encouraged by the conviction

that they had really inflicted a severe loss on the English fleet.

There had been a loss, but it was due, unless all contemporary

Englishmen were in a conspiracy to conceal the truth, to something

more discreditable to us than the enemy's cannon. The king's ship, the

=Mary Rose=, had been thrown away by pure mismanagement. This was the

vessel so ardently praised by Sir Edward Howard in the words quoted

already. She capsized as she was coming out of Portsmouth harbour,

owing, as it would seem, partly to defects in her construction, partly

to neglect of precautions on the part of her crew. The lower-deck ports

are said to have been only sixteen inches above the water-line, which

is certainly dangerously low. As her crew were tacking her, or altering

her course in some other way, she heeled over. If the ports had been

shut and the guns made fast, no great harm might have followed, but the

ports were open and the guns cast loose. When the water rushed in, the

additional weight caused the vessel, overburdened as she was with the

weight of her fore and after castles, to heel still further, and then

the unfastened guns fell in a rush on the lee-side, probably breaking

through wherever they fell against the planking. The =Mary Rose= filled

and sank with such amazing rapidity, that of the 400 soldiers and 200

sailors, more or less, who formed her crew, not more than 40 were saved.

The pardonable conviction that they were entitled to credit themselves

with the destruction of the =Mary Rose= had no very inspiriting

influence on the French. M. d'Annebault even gave up making any further

attacks to draw the English ships out by the use of his galleys, and

adopted the alternative course of landing small parties of men in St.

Helens Bay, at Shanklin, and the Blackgang Chine, for the purpose of

plundering the country. None of these landing-parties seem to have

been of any strength, and several of them were roughly handled by the

militia of the island. D'Annebault has been severely criticised by

his countrymen for want of energy, and on the whole with justice. He

excused himself, partly by pleading that if he had landed a great

number of men, he would have so weakened his fleet that the English at

Portsmouth could have fallen upon him with every prospect of success,

and partly by the opinion of a council of war. The first of these

excuses is very lame, for at a later period D'Annebault could afford to

put four thousand men on shore in France, and yet be strong enough to

give battle to Lisle at Shoreham. He could certainly have landed three

thousand in the Isle of Wight, and if he had done so he might have

retaliated very severely for the damage done by the English in France,

while the ships at Portsmouth must have incurred deep discredit if they

had lain idle while the houses of their countrymen were being burned

before their eyes. The council of war is only technically a better

excuse. He did indeed call a council of all the pilots in his fleet, to

ask them whether it was possible to attack the English at Portsmouth

with success. The pilots, as might have been expected, magnified the

dangers and the difficulties--the shoals, the narrowness of the entry,

the currents, the tides, the risk that the first vessels entering would

be overpowered, and block the way for those following, the chance that

a ship anchoring in a tideway would swing stern-on to the English

fire, and, in short, all the topics of dissuasion which are usually

advanced by subordinates on such occasions. If the expert knowledge of

pilots had been listened to by Nelson, he would never have fought the

battle of the Baltic. Fortunately for King Henry VIII., D'Annebault

does not seem to have reflected that you can hardly hope to inflict

serious injury upon an enemy who possesses some effective strength,

except at the very serious risk of being hurt yourself. He wanted, to

judge by his actions, to win without running any serious risk; and

as the enemy with whom he had to deal was not one likely to give him

a victory upon these easy terms, he had finally to retire without

delivering an effective stroke. His timidity and want of resource are

strikingly illustrated by the fact that he made no use of his galleys

for the purpose of towing his great ships into Spithead, which they

could easily have done. On the other hand, it must be confessed that

no very great enterprise was shown by the English in the use of their

own row-boats. We neither hear of them as being employed to tow the big

ships into action, nor of any really serious attack made by them upon

the galleys. Perhaps the fate of Sir Edward Howard was too fresh in the

recollections of our officers to allow of any repetition of his attempt

in Conquet Bay.

Whether any considerable number of men were either killed or wounded in

these very languid operations is doubtful, but both fleets certainly

lost heavily from a cause which, throughout the whole of this and the

following two centuries, was far more destructive than the sword.

Hardly had King Henry VIII. left Portsmouth when his generals began

to report to him the prevalence of sickness in his fleet; while the

plague broke out amongst the French at St. Helens, even if it had not

begun before they left Havre. Overcrowding, dirt, and salt food were

universal in old fleets, and they produced their natural effects. We

are probably well within the mark in supposing that for every man

killed in action, or mortally wounded, fifty died of fever or the

plague, and this continued to be the rule until well past the middle of

the eighteenth century. What between disappointment at the obstinacy

of the English in not fighting him on his own terms, the timidity of

his pilots, and want of enterprise, D'Annebault, after spending several

days in this futile manner, sailed away from St. Helens, coasting along

Sussex, and making, as before, small plundering attacks, which even

seem to have been very badly conducted, and could in any case serve no

purpose except to embitter the already sufficiently savage hostility of

the two countries. After a few days of this, he stood over to the coast

of France, and near Boulogne landed not only four thousand soldiers,

but three thousand pioneers, who had been supplied to him for the

purpose of erecting the fortifications in the Isle of Wight. Even after

this he still thought himself sufficiently strong to return to the

English coast, and he reappeared accordingly in a few days.

On their return to the coast of England, the French made no attempt to

renew the attack on the Isle of Wight. They prowled along the shores

of Sussex and of Kent in what reads like a very aimless manner. If they

had any definite object, it was to prevent the English from sending

reinforcements to Boulogne. On the whole, it does appear likely that

they had some such purpose, for the general direction of their cruise

was towards the narrow seas. So soon as they were relieved from their

fears at Portsmouth, the English ships were ordered out to observe the

French. It appears, from a letter of Lisle's to Paget, that he had been

instructed by the king to remain at Spithead.

"Havyng received your letters, this morninge, wherein I do perceyve

the Kinges Majesties plesser, as concerninge the settinge forwardes of

His Majesties navy towardes the Narro Sees, wher, as it aperith, the

Frenche men doo tryhumphe, I truste ther shalbe no tyme forslowyde in

the advauncement and settinge forth of His Majesties plesser in that

behalfe; and I moste humbly thanke His Majestie, that it hath plesed

the same to gyve me libertye to look towardes theyme, for I never

thought my selfe in prisone tyll now, syns the tyme of our lyinge

here, and doe no servis. I truste in God that we shall departe hense

uppon Tusdaye, yf the wynde will serve us."

When they did depart hence, some time was spent in finding the exact

whereabouts of the triumphing French. Lisle sent vessels to look into

Havre, who reported that a great part, if not all, of the French fleet

had returned. This, however, must have been a mistake, for D'Annebault

had certainly come back to the north side of the Channel immediately

after landing his men at Boulogne. Between the 9th of August, the date

of the letter quoted, and the 15th, Lisle found the enemy somewhere in

the neighbourhood of Shoreham. The orders he had taken in view of the

expected battle are particularly interesting, not only for what they

tell of the sea fighting of the time, but because they contain the

first mention of much which appears continuously during the succeeding

centuries of our naval history.

The fleet under Lisle's orders consisted in all of 104 vessels. He had

divided them into three squadrons, respectively called the Vanwarde,

the Battle, and the Wing. All three terms were taken from the military

language of the time. The Battle was the usual name of the main or

central division in the army, the Vanwarde needs no explanation, and

we may suppose that the Wing was used to describe the third division,

later called the Rear. This is the division into Red, White, and

Blue squadrons, which became established in the naval wars of the

seventeenth century. These titles were taken from the flags which

finally came into use. In 1545 the only flags shown were the Royal

Standard or "Banner of the King's Majesty's Arms," and the Cross of St.

George or English Ensign. Lisle provided for distinguishing his own

flagship from those of his subordinates by ordering that she should

bear the Royal Standard at the main, and one flag of St. George's

Cross at the fore. The ships of his division were to carry the St.

George's Cross at the main. The admiral of the Vanwarde was to carry

two flags of St. George--one at the main, and the other at the fore.

The ships of his division were to carry their St. George's Cross at

the foretopmasthead. The admiral of the Wing was to carry the English

Ensign at the mizen, and every ship of his division was to do the same.

It does not appear that the ships in this division were distinguished

in any way from the flagship. By night the admiral carried three

lights--one great lantern on the poop, and two smaller lights in the

midst of the bonaventure mizen shrouds. The bonaventure mizen was a

very small mast at the extreme end of the ship, where the smaller

mast of a yawl is now placed. The admiral of the Vanwarde carried two

lights, and the admiral of the Wing one light, on the bonaventure

shrouds. The last articles of the sailing orders were, "The watch

wourde in the night shalbe thus, 'God save King Henrye'; thother shall

aunswer, 'And long to raign over us.'" This has been supposed to be the

germ of the National Anthem.

In strength the fleet was divided as follows:--The Van consisted of

24 ships, carrying 3800 men, the Battle of 40, with 6846 men. Lisle

himself was in this division, with the flag in the =Henry Grace à

Dieu=. The Wing was of 40 smaller vessels, carrying only 2092 men.

Perhaps the most interesting of the admiral's fighting orders is the

third--

"Item, when we shall se a convenient tyme to fight with thenimies, our

Vanward shall make with ther Vanwarde, if they have any; and if they

be in one compenye, our Vanward (takyng thadvauntage of the wynde)

shall set uppon ther foremost ranck, bryngyng them oute of order; and

our Vice-Admirall shall seake to bourd their Vice-Admirall, and every

capitaign shall chose his equall, as nere as he maye."

In the thirty years which had passed since the death of Sir Edward

Howard, some progress had been made towards establishing a recognised

order of battle. Practice, helped no doubt by speculation, had brought

our admirals to see the necessity of a regular method. In this

disposition to stretch all along an enemy, and engage him from end to

end, we have the first indication of that line of battle of which so

much will be heard. It was the natural formation of a fleet relying

on its broadside as its means of offence. But the line of battle may

be left to grow a little more clearly defined before we discuss it.

What is for the present of interest is to point out that the principle

upon which the great majority of our naval battles have been fought,

was present, not in germ, but fully developed, in this third item of

Lisle's orders. It contains, in fact, the whole of the famous Article

XIX. of the Fighting Instructions. The van was to steer with the

enemy's van, the centre with his centre, and the rear with his rear,

and the captains were to take "every man his bird." In time this became

a sheer pedantry, and a burden under which the ablest officers of the

navy chafed for a generation, until a happy accident encouraged them

to throw it off. But in 1545 it was a progress, since any kind of

order was in advance of none at all, and there was no hope of finally

attaining a good system except by a series of experiments,--in other

words, by successively trying everything that was wrong, and rejecting

it.

The correspondence of the Lord Admiral was otherwise interesting. There

was, for instance, admirable sense in the reasons he gives for not

appointing two captains to the vessels fitted as galleys.

"And wher as His Majesties plesser ys to have to capitaynes and

leaders of His Highnes rowyng peces, I do think, yf it may so stande

with His Highnes plesser, that one shall do His Majestie better servis

then too. For if theyr be too rulers, one will have his mynde, thother

wil have his; if any thinge frame a mys, thone will excuse him by

thother; the resydue under theym will excuse theym by two comanders;

'he bed me do that, and tother this.' Yf theyr be butt one, having

chardge, nether he that hath the chardge commytted only to him, nether

thos which be under one, hath any soche excuse."

Lisle's correspondence contains also several incidental notices

of the ships under his command, which are valuable as showing the

unseaworthiness of even the best vessels of the time. Thus, for

instance, he writes on the 20th of August to Lord St. John: "This

shall be to advise you that the King's Majesty's new ship called =The

Mistress= is in such case with labouring in this foul weather, that

she is not able to keep the seas, without spoiling of her masts, and

tackle overboard. Her mainstay is loose in the partners, and the

cross-trestles both of her foremast, and also of her mainmast are

broken." The foul weather of which Lisle complains must have been

experienced between the middle of July and the latter half of August.

At that season it would certainly have been thought extraordinary, in

the eighteenth century, that a new ship should have been so strained

by weather alone as to be under the necessity of returning immediately

to port. It does not appear that Lisle made any complaint of the work

done on the =Mistress=, or that he attached any blame to her officers.

He rather accepted this instant disabling of this vessel, which, be it

observed, was the flagship of the Wing, as a dispensation of Providence

to be borne with patience. Nor was the =Mistress= by any means the

only ship of his fleet which had broken down under the strain of a few

weeks' cruising in summer.

On the 21st Lisle writes again to St. John--

"I trust your Lordshipp have advertised the Kinges Majestie of the

state of the =Mystres=, and of the Gallye =Subtill=, and the foyste,

which I suppose wooll be hable to do no more sarvice, until they be

amended. And if the French armye shuld retourne agayne this yere to

the sees, which verilly I rather thynck they wooll not, we shuld have

no small mysse of those three peeces. There be allso in this armye

dyvers shippes, which, after another storme, wooll be hable to loke

no more abroode this yere. And I thynck our enimies be in as evill

cace, or worse. For emonges such a nomber of shippes, as they have,

and as we have, all cannot be strong, nor all cannot be well tackled."

If it appears, as on a bare narrative of the facts it must, that both

fleets showed a singular languor during their movements in this summer

campaign, it is only fair to take into account the quality of the

instruments with which the admirals had to deal. It was not possible to

do anything very rapid with clumsy, ill-balanced vessels, which were

overstrained by a summer breeze. Moreover, both leaders were in reality

hampered by what they no doubt considered an element of strength. The

numbers of their fleets alone would have made any kind of combined

action impossible. At a time when the vessels were incomparably better,

and our seamen had a far larger experience, Nelson considered it

impossible to manoeuvre more than thirty ships in a line of battle.

That is to say, he thought it beyond the power of the most skilful and

practised body of captains ever collected under one command to combine

the movements of more than thirty well-constructed ships in such a

manner that they could be brought to bear upon an enemy all together.

If this was impossible with so small a number of very superior vessels,

we can imagine how hopeless must have been the attempt of D'Annebault

or Lisle to direct the movements of a hundred and a hundred and fifty

inferior vessels of all sorts and sizes. With the best will in the

world, they could not but straggle in the variable summer breezes and

the tides of the Channel. Besides, the system of signals was hardly

yet in existence. There were, and indeed at all times must have been,

a few arbitrary signals, to anchor or to get up anchor, to fight or

leave off fighting, and so forth, but there were no means by which

an admiral could communicate an order to make a particular movement,

except by sending a boat with an officer. Of course this implies that

the movements of fleets must have been very slow, or else a messenger

who had to row could not have overtaken the captain to whom he was

sent. Even so, to send orders to the ships ahead of the admiral must

have required an amount of time which made any rapidity of movement

impossible, besides leaving an interval for accidents which would

render the order improper by altering the whole circumstances. In fact,

no battle, in the sense the word had in even the seventeenth century,

could well be expected to take place between these two fleets in 1545,

even if there had been a more manifest desire on the part of the

admirals to bring one on.

The truth is, that neither D'Annebault nor Lisle showed any such

inclination. The Frenchman returned from his own coast to ours, and

began to stretch along it from west to east. Lisle followed, with the

intention of making a stroke at the enemy if a particularly tempting

opportunity presented itself. On the 9th of August he wrote to Paget:

"If we chance to meet with them, divided as it should seem they be,

we shall have some sport with them." From the French account in the

memoirs of Martin du Bellay, which is both full and fair, it is clear

that D'Annebault was no more adventurous than Lisle. On the coast of

Sussex he showed the same incapacity to understand that, in war more

than in most enterprises, he who will nothing venture shall nothing

have. The English fleet came in sight of the French near Shoreham on

the 15th of August. D'Annebault had drawn his vessels as close to

the beach as was safe, with his galleys to the west, under a small

headland, and therefore between his great ships and the English, who

were advancing from Portsmouth. The galleys had been hauled into very

shallow water, where the larger of Lisle's ships could not reach them.

D'Annebault's calculation was, that the English admiral would not care

to run the risk of passing the galleys, for the purpose of attacking

the great ships beyond, lest they should fall upon his rear, and so

put him between two fires. According to Lisle's statement to the king

of the plan on which he intended to fight, he would not have been

deterred from attacking by the dispositions of the French admiral. He

had made counter arrangements which were skilful in intention, and

might have been effective. His plan was to fall upon the great ships

of the French fleet, with the Vanwarde and the Battle, leaving the

smaller craft which formed the Wing to stay behind, or to windward,

and ward off the French galleys. A shift of the wind from the west to

north-east rendered it impossible for him to carry out his intention.

The change in the wind had transferred the weather-gage to D'Annebault,

and if he had been as eager for battle as according to Martin du

Bellay he asserted himself to be, he had now an admirable opportunity

of fighting. But D'Annebault again found insuperable difficulties in

the way of coming to close quarters. All the use he made of his chance

was to fight a tardy, inconclusive battle. Martin du Bellay and Lord

Lisle substantially agree, but we may give the preference to our own

countryman.

"After my right hartie commendacions. Theis shalbe tadvertise you,

that the Kinges Majesties navie ys arrived twhart of Beauchif; where,

for lack of wynde, we be at this present comme to ancker, to stopp

this ebbe, and with the nexte fludd, which wooll be aboute foure of

the clock in the mornying, we entend (God willing) tapplye towards

Dover. I had thought the French fleete wold have been here before me,

to have stopped us at this place, for uppon Saturdaye night last,

both they and we came to ancker within a leage togethurs; and all

the same daye, frome noone untill night, they assailed us with ther

gallyes, but ther hole fleete approached us not, untill it was after

son settyng; before which tyme ther gallies were repulced, and then

both they and we came to ancker, within a leage one of an other: and

yarly in the mornyng they were dislodged; for by the tyme yt was

daye, they were asfarre unto the wynde of us, as we might escrye them

oute of my mayne topp, halyng into the seawarde, the wynde beyng

somewhat fresshe; so that, if they had taried, ther gallyes could

have doon them letill pleasour. And wheras, the daye before, they

came togethurs, like an hole wood, they kepte now, in ther removing,

noon order; for some of our small boates, which could lye best by

a wynde, (whome I dyd purposely send to se what course they helde,

and what order they kept) brought me wourde, that they lay est with

the sailes, as though it shuld seame that they mynded to fetche the

Narrow Sees before us. Ther was five myles in lenght (as they thought)

between ther foremost and ther hyndermost shippes. And seyng that

they be not here in this baye (which we have alredy seane) I cannot

perceave, howe they can be before us in any part of the Narrow Sees.

Wherefore I have thought good to desyer you to send me some of your

intelligence, and allso that you wold gyve knowledge to Rye, that all

the shippes, which be there with the Kinges Majesties victualles, may

comme and mete with me to morowe at the Nasse (Dungeness), as I goe

towardes Dover; where, (God willyng) if the wynde wooll suffer me, I

wooll be with thole flete to morowe at night. Herof I requier you,

with diligence, tadvertise the Kinges Majestie. And if ther armye, or

any parte of them, remayne in any parte of the Narrowe Sees, whethur

it be uppon ther owne quoast, or uppon oures, I doubt not but I wooll

have some knowledge of them, ones ere to morowe night; wherof allso

(God willyng) I wooll not faile to signifye unto His Highnes. And thus

I byd you right hartilly well to fare. In the Harrye, under Beauchif,

this Mondaye, the 17th of August, at 9 of the clock in the night."

Your assured loving Frende,

(Signed) John Lisle.

To this lame and impotent conclusion came the great attempt of Francis

I. to punish Henry for the capture of Boulogne. When every allowance

is made for the insufficiency of the tools with which the French

admiral had to work, it is impossible to acquit him of having shown a

remarkable want of spirit. It would appear, if we are to trust Blaise

de Montluc, that his countrymen did not expect much. "Our business is

rather on the land than on the water, where I do not know that our

nation has ever gained any great battles," is the sentence in which he

dismisses the expedition. Montluc, for his part, did nothing that was

worthy to be written about. But it was perhaps because the French did

not expect much, then or at later periods, that their admirals have so

commonly shown the timidity of D'Annebault.

The war contained no further naval operations of any importance. Both

fleets were worn out by operations which for the time were lengthy and

trying. The Governments, too, were exhausted, and all but bankrupt.

Both Francis and Henry VIII. were at the end of their lives; and

although peace was not actually made till after the death of both of

them, the war was not pushed seriously. Only a very detailed history of

the navy could find place for an account of the reigns of Edward VI.

and Mary Tudor. Much could not be said, however anxious the historian

might be to pass over absolutely nothing. The only achievement of

Edward VI.'s Government with regard to the navy was to employ it for

the purpose of assisting the Protector Somerset's invasion of Scotland.

This effort appears to have exhausted the energies of King Edward's

Council, as far as the navy was concerned. In fact, all the members

of that body were far too busy intriguing against one another, to

attend to the defences of the realm. The resources of the country

had been taxed to the utmost during the reign of Henry VIII. A sum

of over £3,600,000 was calculated to have been spent on wars during

the reign of father and son, and to get the equivalent of that outlay

in our generation we must not only multiply the sum spent by 20, but

divide the existing wealth of the nation by some much larger figure.

During the few years of confusion which make up the reign of Edward

VI., the navy was reduced to half the numbers attained by Henry VIII.

Seventy-one vessels, of which thirty were of respectable size, was

the strength of Henry's navy. Queen Elizabeth never had quite so

many ships; and although those of James and Charles I. were on an

average larger, they were never more numerous. Mary Tudor inherited

the diminished navy of her brother, and she could do little to bring

it back to the former standard. Her marriage with the King of Spain

established a firm alliance, for the time being, with what was then the

most considerable naval power in Europe, while the entire exhaustion

of France in the reign of Henry II. made the possession of a powerful

fleet less necessary. But though little was demanded of the navy at

that period, it was allowed to become too weak to do even that little.

When Calais was attacked by the Duke of Guise in the winter of 1559,

Mary's navy was so unprepared that it could not be got ready in time to

give the least assistance to the garrison. A few of our ships, which

had been fitted out too late to be of any service at Calais, did make

their appearance on the flank of the French troops, which were defeated

on the sands at Gravelines, by the Count of Egmont, and that was about

the sum of the service they rendered during Mary's reign. There was

indeed something stirring among the seamen of the west of England,

which was to have great consequences in the next reign, but it will

come to be dealt with more appropriately in our account of the navy of

Queen Elizabeth.