THE EARLY TUDOR PERIOD
I make no apology to the reader for having taken up so much of his time
in a consideration of the methods which obtained during the time of
Christopher Columbus, not merely because by his splendid seamanship and
navigation a new world was revealed to the old, but because of the two
arts in question at the time when the Middle Ages were beginning to ebb
into obscurity, he was one of the finest if not the very best exponent.
Not that he was very amply rewarded for his wondrous achievements.
Although it is true he did receive other remuneration, yet his pay was
only at the rate of 1600 francs per annum, and that of his two captains
was but 960 francs. The crew’s wages were from 12 to 25 francs a month
in addition to their mess allowance.
But now we find ourselves in the sixteenth century. Thanks to the new
interest in nautical matters which had been aroused by Prince Henry the
Navigator, thanks to the marvellous and true yarns which ocean-going
skippers brought back of their discoveries, there began a new sort
of profession for men who were at all attracted to the sea. It was a
profession which, obviously, could not exist for many, nor last for
many centuries. But for those who were wearied of shore monotony, who
had ambition and dash and loved adventure, there was a keen fascination
in becoming one of that great band of “new land seekers.” Charles V,
you will remember, became King of Spain in the year 1517, while the
period of 1485 to 1547 was covered by the reigns of Henry VII and Henry
VIII of England. Not till the year 1555 did Charles V retire into the
monastery of Yuste. Besides the influence of these three remarkable men
at a critical time of the world’s history, there was also roaming over
Europe that Renaissance movement which, checked here and there, could
not be utterly constrained when it spread itself over shipping. Or, to
change altogether the metaphor, spring was in the air: the buds were
about to burst forth into the glorious flowers of new colonies.
[Illustration: SIXTEENTH-CENTURY CARAVEL AT ANCHOR.
After the Woodcut of Hansen Burgmair.]
And since it was obvious that discovery had to be made by traversing
long expanses of ocean, and that this could only be done by a sound
knowledge of navigation, those in authority were not slow to realise
that lectures and instruction on this subject at home meant presently
an increase of territory and wealth across the seas. Prince Henry on
his promontory had been the first to grasp this. Now also Charles V not
only established a Pilot Major for the examination of those who sought
to take ships to the West Indies, but also founded a lecture on the art
of navigation which was given in the Contractation House at Seville.
Those anxious to qualify as pilots had to learn thoroughly the use of
the astrolabe and quadrant, and obtain a thorough grasp of the theory
and practice of sailing a ship from one port to another out of sight of
land. For this instruction they had to pay fees, but it more than
repaid them many times over when they were able to bring back such
valuable commodities. Furthermore, as experience gains knowledge, so
every voyage taught them something of their art which hitherto they had
not known--the direction of a current, the state of the moon when high
tide occurred at such and such an hour, the depth of those new harbours
they had entered, the position of the outlying shoals, the landmarks on
shore, the temper of the natives, the kind of commodities which could
be obtained in the districts, and so on. The pilots brought all these
details home at the end of every voyage, made the necessary corrections
in the charts (and this not by choice, but by compulsion), so that
always there was being compiled a set of sailing directions and an ever
improving bundle of charts which were simply invaluable to State and
seamen alike.
Thus also there came to be published treatises and manuals on the
seaman’s art, for the instruction of a community that numbered very
few sailors in proportion to its landsmen. Such authors as Martin
Cortes, Alonso de Chavez, Hieronymo de Chavez, Roderigo Zamorano in
time wrote these works, and their influence not merely on Spain, but
upon England, was considerable, until the English seamen of the time
of Elizabeth had produced such nautical experts of their own that they
were able to write better books themselves. But even prior to that
time England had begun to see the wisdom of Spain; and Henry VIII,
following the example of Charles V, “for the increase of knowledge in
his Seamen, with princely liberalities erected three severall Guilds or
brotherhoods, the one at Deptford here upon the Thames, the other at
Kingston upon Hull, and the third at Newcastle upon Tine.” So, indeed,
states Hakluyt. That at Deptford was licensed in 1513, “in honour of
the Holy Trinity and St. Clement in the Church of Deptford Stronde for
reformation of the Navy lately much decayed by admission of young men
without experience, and of Scots, Flemings, and Frenchmen as loadsmen.”
Navy is used here in its literal sense, meaning shipping as a whole.
The word “loadsmen”--otherwise “leadsmen”--was the customary expression
in the North of Europe for pilot. To this day the Dutch word for pilot
is “loods,” “lood” being the Dutch for lead. What does this signify?
It shows--does it not?--that until, thanks to Spain, the astrolabe
began to be used in Northern Europe, the pilot was not so much he
who found his way by fixing his position from the heavenly bodies,
but he who felt his way by the sounding of the lead. In a sentence,
then, whilst of course the lead and line are essential even to modern
navigation, yet historically they belong to the Middle Ages and right
back to Greece and even earlier; while the astrolabe and the finding of
a ship’s latitude are essentially the beginning of that new order of
things which we have already noted. So long as ships were content to
do little more than coasting they had no need of an astrolabe; but as
a lead and line are not much good to one who navigates the Atlantic to
the West Indies, so the new species of voyaging coincided with the new
instrument for ascertaining a ship’s position.
[Illustration: A SIXTEENTH-CENTURY ASTROLABE.
This instrument, in the S. Kensington Museum, is supposed actually to
have been on board one of the ships of the Spanish Armada.]
[Illustration: ASTROLABE USED BY THE ENGLISH NAVIGATORS OF THE
SIXTEENTH CENTURY.]
What, then, was the astrolabe? It was an instrument used for taking
the altitude of the sun and stars. For two hundred years before it was
used by the Christian seamen of the Mediterranean, it had been employed
by the Arabian pilots in the eastern seas. The derivation of such a
curious word is not without interest. The Arabic is “asthar-lab,” and
this in turn came from the two Greek words, ἀστήρ and λαμβανω, meaning
“to take a star.” It consisted of a flat brass ring, some 15 inches
in diameter, of which an excellent illustration can here be seen.
It was graduated along the rim in degrees and minutes, fitted with
two sights. There was a movable index which turned on the centre and
marked the angle of elevation. When the mariner wished to take the
height of the sun with this instrument he proceeded as follows: The sun
being near the meridian or south, the pilot observed the same until
it reached its greatest height. Then, holding the ring on one of his
fingers, he turned the alhidada up and down until he saw the shadow
of the sun pass through both the sights thereof, being sure that the
astrolabe hung upright. The astrolabe was best for taking the height
of the sun when the sun was very high at 60, 70, or 80 degrees; for
the sun, coming near “unto your zenith,” has great power of light for
piercing the two sights of the alhidada of the astrolabe, and then it
was not good to use the cross-staff (reference to which will be made
below), because the sun hurt a man’s eyes and was also too high for the
cross-staff. Furthermore the astrolabe, was a more correct method than
that of the cross-staff.
It was thanks to the aid of Martin Behaim, a distinguished cosmographer
who came to Lisbon to co-operate with the learned men there assembled,
that an improved _sea_ astrolabe was adapted for the purpose of
determining the distance from the Equator, by means of the altitude of
the sun or stars at sea. There had, indeed, been in use for some time
a _land_ astrolabe for finding the latitude of a place, and it was but
a natural advance that this instrument should be adapted for use on
board ship, so that the mariner might be able to ascertain his position
on the vast expanse of trackless ocean. We are all most ready to
admire and extol the men and the ships which made such daring voyages
and discoveries in the past; but I submit that nothing like adequate
recognition has been paid to the essential value of the astrolabe and
cross-staff, or their successor, the modern sextant. Even if in those
days which marked the close of the Middle Ages there had suddenly been
invented and built a whole fleet of turbine steamships with capable
crews, yet still without the instrument of finding latitude they could
have had only vague ideas as to their position and would only have been
able to produce unsatisfactory charts. Indeed, as a modern writer has
remarked, it was this improved sea astrolabe which “removed the last
doubt in Columbus’s mind as to the possibility of carrying out his
plans of discovery.”
Thus it came about that the man who could work an astrolabe was a
person of some importance. He was held in high honour by the crew,
since he alone was able to state the ship’s position and her course
thence to her nearest port. Naturally, therefore, those Arabian pilots
and Oriental astronomers who had been brought to the Iberian peninsula
would go swaggering along the streets of Lisbon wearing these sea-rings
conspicuously both as their badge of office and as indicative of their
dignity. It was Behaim’s astrolabe which was used by Columbus, by Vasco
da Gama, by Diaz, and others in their stupendous voyages: and still
more valuable was it with the addition of the tables of the sun’s
declination, first reduced by Behaim also. Nevertheless, we must not
omit to bear in mind that as far back as the eighth century Messahala,
a learned Rabbi, had already written a treatise on the astrolabe, and
that even earlier still--in the sixth century B.C.--the astrolabe for
use on shore had been invented by Hipparchus. But had the achievements
of the ancients much influence, do you ask, on the cosmographers and
astronomers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries? The answer is
most certainly in the affirmative; and the greatest experts of this
period had a very complete knowledge of the work of their predecessors.
But for the same purpose of taking the height of the sun there was
employed an instrument called the cross-staff; of which the Spanish
word (adapted from the Greek) was the “balla stella.” The drawback to
the astrolabe was that it was difficult to use it with accuracy owing
to the rolling and pitching of the ship. Therefore the cross-staff,
being more steadily held in the hand, began to supersede the astrolabe.
Bourne, the famous Elizabethan navigational expert, insisted that
because the sea “causeth the shippe to heave” the best way to take the
sun’s height was with the cross-staff: furthermore, the degrees on
this instrument were marked larger than on the astrolabe. Also in a
larger instrument an error was seen sooner. The method of use in taking
the height of the sun, he explained, was as follows: Note with your
compass the sun when the latter approaches the meridian. When it has
arrived at S. by E. then begin to take the sun’s height thus: Put the
“transitorie” (or cross-piece) on the long staff, set the end of the
long staff close to the eye, “winking with your other eye,” and then
move the transitory forwards or backwards until you see the lower end
of it (“being just with the horizon”) and the upper end of it (“being
just with the middle of the sun”), “both to agree with the sunne and
the horizon at one time.” Observe the same until you see the sun at the
highest and beginning to descend. You have then finished.
[Illustration: A SIXTEENTH-CENTURY NAVIGATOR USING THE CROSS-STAFF.]
[Illustration: A SIXTEENTH-CENTURY COMPASS CARD.]
It is not my intention to digress from the path of historical
continuity, but let the reader bear in mind how very little the
navigator of this period had to help him. He had the compass for
indicating the direction of the ship’s head, and he had the astrolabe
and cross-staff for showing him his altitude. But two intensely
important data he could not yet obtain accurately: (1) his longitude,
and (2) the distance run by the ship in any given time. Very great
errors were made in both of these. It was not until the introduction
of the log-line in the seventeenth century that a ship could tell
with even approximate accuracy her daily run. For many a long year
all the cunning Jews and Arabs, all the philosophers, the astronomers
and physicians, all the cleverest men out of Portugal, Spain, Genoa,
Venice, and the Balearic Isles had tried but failed to solve this
proposition. And the coming of the perfect chronometer for finding the
longitude was delayed even longer still.
Every modern deep-sea navigator is familiar with what is known as Great
Circle Sailing. For the landsman it may be sufficient to explain that
this principle seems to contradict Euclid’s assertion that the shortest
distance between any two points is a straight line. In the case of a
globe this statement of Euclid does not apply. Every steamer between
Liverpool and New York to-day sails on a great circle for the most part
of her passage. “Great circles” are those whose plane passes through
the centre of the earth: for example, the Equator is a “great circle.”
Now as far back as the year 1497 Pedro Nunez made the startling but
true announcement that in sailing from one port to another the shortest
course was along an arc of a great circle of the terrestrial sphere.
And this fact was appreciated by such Elizabethan navigators as John
Davis in his voyaging across the North Atlantic.
[Illustration: AN OLD NOCTURNAL.
In the S. Kensington Museum.]
The training of a navigator such as went on in Seville was very
thorough, so that it formed an excellent precedent for all who had at
heart the education of the complete navigator. The training in the year
1636 was a three-year course, and the following curriculum is given for
that year by Sir Clements Markham in his “Sea Fathers”:--
First Year: (1) The sphere of Sacrobosco. (2) The four rules of
Arithmetic: Rule of three, extraction of square root, cube root, and
fractions. (3) The theory of Purbach, or planets and eclipses. (4) The
spherical trigonometry of Regiomontanus. (5) The Almagest of Ptolemy.
Second Year: (1) The first six books of Euclid. (2) Arcs and chords,
right sines, tangents and secants. (3) To complete Regiomontanus and
Ptolemy.
Third Year: (1) Cosmography and navigation. (2) Use of astrolabe. (3)
The methods of observing the movements of heavenly bodies. (4) The use
of the globe and of mathematical instruments. (5) The construction of a
watch.
It must not be forgotten that the life on board a Tudor ship was, even
for rough, rude, untutored seamen, full of hardships, even if full
of adventure. Anyone who cares to look through the records of the
voyages can see this for himself. We are accustomed to regard that as
a romantic age; but the romance is only visible through the avenue of
distance which now separates us from those times. The victualling was
disgracefully mismanaged at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The
crews of ships were actually allowed to fight in the English Channel
for their country in a condition that was almost sheer starvation.
Actually the commissariat department was so bad that ships had to
return home from the region of battle to fetch supplies. There was
nothing very romantic, either, in having to serve on ships which exuded
a terrible stench from their holds. A horrible mixture of bilge-water
and decayed food, coupled with the heat of the galley, helped to make
the health of the Tudor sailorman anything but good.
Henry VII had done his best to encourage enterprising shipbuilders by
giving them a bounty on the tonnage built, and there is a record of
at least one ship’s smith being given an annuity for his services to
the king’s ships. This, like many other customs, had been derived from
Spain. Still, for all that, the warships put to sea with so many leaks
that “the water cam in as it wer in a seve.” And there was no dry dock
until Henry VII built the first at Portsmouth with timber gates and
“one ingyn to draw water owte of the seid dokke.” When they went forth
to the naval wars of this period they fought with bows, arrows, spears
and demi-lances, morris-pikes, halberds, bills, guns (including falcons
and harquebuses). There were rammers and powder for the guns, and shot
of iron, stone, and lead, artillery having been recently introduced.
Portholes had also been introduced in the reign of Henry VII, and the
passing of the Viking type of ship to that of a bigger, more seaworthy
type, with high-charged stern and bow, was the beginning of a new order
of things. Gradually the merchantman became separated from the pure
warship, and cannon took the place of the hand-to-hand encounter. But
these changes came only by slow stages.
In the time of Henry VIII England was still leaning on the work of the
foreign shipwright. Spain, Genoa, Venice, and the Hanseatic League all
helped. The arsenal at Venice at this time was a wonderful depôt for
shipping--wonderful in its completeness and systematisation. There was
everything always ready here for the ship to be used at a moment’s
notice. Over a hundred ship-houses were there, containing all the
component parts of craft. Armouries, foundries, rope-works, workshops,
stores of timber, provisions, and munitions of war--it was all done
on a big scale. Such was the perfection of organisation that the
master-carpenters and their men actually demonstrated their ability to
put together all the detached parts of a galley--rigging included--in
less than a couple of hours.
Spain supplied a good deal of the iron for the anchors and guns of
England until our forefathers quarried for themselves. Thanks to
Continental influence, a knowledge of artillery was growing up in
England and employed usefully on board our ships of war. Had you met
any of these craft at sea you would have been struck by the painted
sails, bearing the picture of a saint or whatever device the admiral
preferred. Those high forecastles and poops were also most splendidly
decorated, so likewise the shields round the upper part of the castles
were emblazoned with the arms and devices of the admiral. There were
flags bravely flying on the forecastle, on the poop, and amidships;
from the main-top a broad swallow-tailed standard flew bearing the
admiral’s devices and reaching down to the water. Every mast had its
bunting, and for celebrating a triumph the ship was still further
draped with rich cloth. Thus she looked, with her many flags fluttering
in the wind, more like a fair-ground than an instrument of war.
Such a ship as the famous _Great Harry_ (1500 tons) carried quite
a big company--400 soldiers, 260 sailors, and 40 gunners. Admirals
and captains were still rather military officers and courtiers than
sailors, though the masters were responsible for the handling of the
ship. On this same vessel there were below the rank of master the
following ratings: master’s mate, four pilots, four quartermasters,
quartermasters’ mates, boatswain and boatswain’s mate, cockswain and
his mate, master-carpenter and his mate, under-carpenter, two caulkers,
purser, three stewards, three cooks, cooks’ mates, two yeomen of the
stryks (ropes) and their mates, and two yeomen of the ports with their
mates. Some sort of uniform was worn by the officers, consisting of
green and white coats--the Tudor colours.
In Henry VIII’s time dockyards were established at Woolwich, Erith, and
Deptford, as well as at Portsmouth. Originally the custom was to lay
up the ships in the autumn and fit out in the spring; but at this time
the excellent practice of keeping some ships cruising the Channel in
the winter months was developed. The rate of pay in Henry VIII’s navy
allowed the admiral ten shillings a day and a captain one and sixpence
a day, while the wages of each soldier, mariner, and gunner were five
shillings a month plus five shillings a month for victuals. Conduct
money for those who had to travel long distances to join their ships
was at the rate of sixpence a day, twelve miles being reckoned as one
day’s journey.
Copper and gilt ornamentations were added to the end of the bowsprit
on Henry VIII’s ships, says Mr. Oppenheim, whilst gilt crowns for the
mastheads had been the practice for centuries. Before going into action
a ship would sometimes coil her cable round the deck breast high and
hang thereon mattresses and blankets as a kind of protection. And here
we must say a word concerning the development of naval tactics. As in
other maritime departments, so in regard to this England owed a great
deal to Spanish influence. Naval warfare in the Mediterranean was
already a science, and learned treatises had been written thereon. If
the Spaniards were not a race of seamen by nature, at least they had
developed the scientific side of the sailor’s life in advance of the
English. The awakening from medievalism in marine matters which had
spread to our own shores not unnaturally aroused an interest in the
proper manner of controlling a fleet. The earliest set of fleet orders
in English was that which appeared about the year 1530, written by
Thomas Audley, and still preserved in a Harleian MS. This Thomas Audley
wrote “A Book of Orders for the War both by Land and Sea,” at the
command of Henry VIII. In effect these orders are the final expression
of English medieval ideas before the introduction of artillery and the
practice of broadside fire had started a new school of modern tactics.
Audley’s fleet orders, based on the practice of previous centuries,
insisted on the importance of getting the weather-gage of the enemy,
laid down how to board an enemy--boarding in those days meaning, of
course, engaging him in combat alongside--and denoted the sphere of an
admiral’s action.
In 1543 appeared the “Book of War by Sea and Land,” written by Jehan
Bytharne, Gunner in Ordinary to the King. This contained a number of
regulations for governing the fleet, for ornamenting and painting
the ships, and for the use of flags both for celebrating a triumph
and--this is important--for the purpose of signalling, as, for example,
informing the flagship when the enemy had been espied. Bear in mind
that in the Spanish Navy flag signalling had, following the Spanish
advance towards science, become already a fine art. It is true that
even in England this had been in vogue for centuries, and the earliest
code is to be found in the “Black Book of the Admiralty,” and dates
from about 1340. But the Spanish system was less crude and elementary.
By the middle of the sixteenth century naval tactics in England had
advanced even further still, as the instructions issued in connection
with the Battle of Shoreham indicate. They are too long to detail here,
but it is noticeable that they show both a knowledge of the handling of
ships and a mind that has escaped from medieval muddle. The arranging
of the fleet in proper divisions, each with its own work to perform,
the exact position which was to be maintained, and so on, are well
worth consideration. And each division was to wear the St. George’s
ensign at a different place for purposes of recognition. Those in the
first rank were to fly it from the fore-topmast, those in the second
rank to wear it on the mainmast, and so on.
During the latter half of the sixteenth century, when the autumn came
round each year and most of the royal ships had ended their cruising
till the following spring, it was customary to take these vessels round
to the Medway. Even ships from Portsmouth were hither brought, and they
lay moored in Gillingham Reach. This made a convenient and sheltered
anchorage, and yet was not too far from the Tower of London. When the
time arrived again for fitting out, the ammunition was put on board
barges at the Tower and these, taking the ebb down the Thames and the
flood up the Medway, discharged their load when tied up alongside the
warships at Chatham.
The great achievements of the Elizabethan seamen could not have
occurred unless the English had been engaged in the seafaring life for
years, since it is impossible to make a landsman a sailor except after
much training. The Armada would never have been defeated except for
the superior seamanship and gunnery of our forefathers. Slowly, but
surely, since the history of our country began, there had been growing
up a nucleus of professional seamen. In Tudor times had there been no
race of freight-carriers and fishermen, there would have been no virile
body of men to fall back on in the hour of danger on the sea, for the
merchant sailor often enough had an exciting passage before he landed
his cargo safely in port. Both he and the simple fisherman were liable
to be assaulted on the sea by hordes of pirates. In the North Sea, the
English Channel (especially in the vicinity of the Scilly Isles, where
they swarmed), and off the Irish coast these sea-rovers were a terror
to the peaceful, honest seaman.
In addition to this, however, there sprang up what is nothing better
than a legalised piracy. By a proclamation of 1557, any Englishman
could fit out a squadron of ships against the enemies of the Crown,
and when he had located these enemies on the high seas, could attack
them and confiscate their ships and contents. Now this afforded a
fine outlet for those imaginative seafarers who yearned for something
more adventurous than catching fish. It was just the kind of life for
those who gloried in adventure and wanted it on sea. It helped to turn
the fisherman into a fighting man; it was a training school for those
who were presently to become the great sea captains and admirals, the
gunners and able seamen of the great Elizabethan age.