The Navy in Tudor Times
"The various ships that were built of yore,
And above them all, and strangest of all
Towered the _Great Harry_, crank and tall,
Whose picture was hanging on the wall,
With bows and stern raised high in air,
And balconies hanging here and there,
And signal lanterns and flags afloat,
And eight round towers, like those that frown
From some old castle, looking down
Upon the drawbridge and the moat."
"The Building of the Ship." LONGFELLOW.
THE Tudor period, to which this chapter is devoted, is noteworthy as
witnessing the birth of the Royal Navy as a permanent national
institution. Though we have accounts--probably to a great extent
mythical--of the 3600 "very stout" ships of the Saxon King Edgar (A.D.
975), which are said to have been divided into three squadrons, cruising
on the north, east, and west coasts of Great Britain; though Edward III,
after the victory over the French at Sluys, was dubbed "King of the
Sea"; and though Henry V got together the most formidable navy of his
time, yet at none of these periods was there what we may term a navy of
the realm. Indeed, for the two years, August, 1447, to August, 1449,
there may be said to have been no navy at all, since during the whole of
this time only £8, 9_s._ 7_d._ was expended upon what we now regard as
our first line of defence.
At the death of Henry V, in 1422, the "Little Navy" disease broke out
again, and nearly the whole of his fine fleet was sold. Things went from
bad to worse, till the disgust and uneasiness of the nation found
expression in a little work entitled _The Libel of English Policie_. The
author, who is supposed to have been Bishop Adam de Molyns, exhorted the
nation to "Keepe the Sea and namely the Narrow Sea", and also to secure
both Dover and Calais. "Where bene our shippes", says he, "where bene
our swerdes become?" He went on to point out how much our naval force
had deteriorated since the time when Edward III had caused the famous
Golden Noble to be struck, in which he is represented standing in a
ship, sword in hand and shield on arm, and thus referred to the
signification of the device:
"Four things our Noble sheweth unto me:
King, Ship and Sword and Power of the Sea".
That this appeal had some kind of effect is shown by the fact that in
1442 an order was issued "for to have upon the See continuelly, for the
sesons of the yere fro Candlimes to Martymesse, viii Shippes with
forstages; ye wiche Shippes, as it is thought, most have on with an
other eche of hem cl men. Item, every grete Shippe most have attendyng
opon hym a Barge and a Balynger." "Hym" strikes one, by the way, as a
curious way to refer to a ship. These vessels with "iiii Spynes", which
seem to have been what we might call dispatch vessels, were stationed,
one at Bristol, two at Dartmouth, two in the Thames, one at Hull, and
one at "the Newe Castell". The whole fleet combined was manned by 2160
men. It was a poor affair, but still it was better than nothing.
Then came the Wars of the Roses, which, naturally, diverted men's
thoughts from the navy. That Edward IV, when he had established himself
on the throne, had some idea of emulating the naval deeds of the third
Edward may be suspected from his having issued a gold noble, which was
evidently closely copied from the one we have already referred to. But
nothing much was done either by him or by his successor, Richard
Crookback, and it was left to Henry VII to reap the honour of being, to
some extent, the founder of the Royal Navy of which we are all so proud.
Though by some his son, "Bluff King Hal", may be regarded in this light,
on account of the very formidable fleet which he raised and organized
and the improvements which he is said to have made in its ships, yet I
think we must admit that Henry VII laid the foundation-stone upon which
his successor built.
He depended greatly on hired merchantmen--we do not despise this method
of augmenting our navy even at the present day--but he resurrected the
Royal Fleet. Though it was but a very small one, of only about a dozen
ships, yet two of them, at any rate, were finer ships than any the
British Navy had before possessed. These were the _Regent_ and the
_Sovereign_. While we had neglected our shipbuilding, to carry on war
between ourselves, it had progressed abroad, especially in France, and
there is little doubt that the _Regent_, built on the River Rother, was
inspired by the French ship _Columbe_, which, perhaps, was the ship
which had brought Henry to England. The _Regent_ had four masts, the
_Sovereign_ three, and each of them was much more like some of the ships
we are familiar with in pictures of the Spanish Armada fight than the
old cogs of a few years previously, even in their most improved forms.
The armament of the _Regent_ consisted, it is said, of 225
"serpentines". The number is formidable, but not the weapons themselves.
They were merely what might be called breech-loading wall-pieces,
corresponding to Chinese "jingalls", and firing balls weighing from 4 to
6 ounces.
In a contemporary picture of the destruction of this ship in her action
with the _Marie la Cordelière_ in 1512, when both ships caught fire and
blew up, the _Regent_ is shown with very heavy guns firing through
port-holes. Port-holes, by the way, are said to have been invented by
Desharges, a Brest shipbuilder, in 1500. I am inclined to think that
they were known at an earlier date--possibly Desharges invented
port-_lids_. It is, of course, possible that these were cut in the
_Regent_ some time after her original construction, and heavier guns
mounted in place of some of her serpentines. According to some writers
this ship was originally christened the _Great Harry_, while the
_Sovereign_ was built out of the remains of an older ship called the
_Grace Dieu_. As a very large and renowned _Henri Grace à Dieu_ was
launched in 1514, there has been a considerable amount of confusion
between one ship and the other. But if the _Regent_ was called the
_Great Harry_, she had nothing whatever to do with the _Henri_, which is
also sometimes referred to as the _Harry Grace à Dieu_.[17] As a matter
of fact, the latter was built to replace the former, the loss of which
was considered a national disaster, and so much so that an attempt was
made to keep her fate a secret. "At the reverens of God", wrote Cardinal
Wolsey, "kepe these tydyngs to yourselfe." There was probably another
reason for the construction of an exceptionally fine ship, and that was
the desire that the English should not be eclipsed by the Scots in this
respect.
[Illustration: THE _GREAT HARRY_, THE FIRST BIG BATTLESHIP OF THE
BRITISH NAVY]
For, the year before the _Regent_ was blown up, the King of Scotland,
who was hand in glove with the French, had put afloat what a
contemporary chronicler terms "ane verrie monstrous great schip". This
was the famous _Great Michael_. Her constructor was Jaques Tarret, a
Frenchman, and it has been written that "she was of so great stature and
took so much timber, that except Falkland, she wasted all the woods of
Fife, which were oak wood, with all the timber that was gotten out of
Norway". She took "a year and a day to build", and we are given her
dimensions, which compare favourably in point of size with many much
later line-of-battle ships. "She was 12 score feet in length and 36 feet
within the sides; she was 10 feet thick in the wall, and boarded on
every side so slack and so thick that no cannon could go through
her." It is rather difficult to understand what "slack" means in this
context.
"This great ship", goes on the account, "cumbered Scotland to get her to
sea." By the time she was afloat and fully equipped she was reckoned to
have cost the King from thirty to forty thousand pounds. She carried a
heavy battery, and if her cannon were as formidable as their names, they
must have been most effective in action. "She bore many cannons, six on
every side, with three great Bassils, two behind in her dock, and one
before, with three hundred shot of small Artillerie, that is to say,
Myand and Battered Falcon and Quarter Falcon, Slings, pestilent
Serpentines and Double Dogs, with Hagtar and Culvering, Cross-bows and
Hand-bows. She had three hundred mariners to sail her: she had six score
of gunners to use her artillery, and had a thousand men of war by her,
Captains, Skippers, and Quartermasters." A "basil" or "basilisk", it may
be explained, was a gun throwing a ball of 200 pounds weight, a much
heavier projectile than any used at Trafalgar.
Space forbids further details as to the "menagerie" of other pieces that
armed the decks of the _Great Michael_, but you will find more about
these and other old-fashioned cannon in another chapter. As soon as she
was afloat the King had her fired at to test the resistance of her
tremendously thick sides, but, says our old writer, "the cannon deired
hir not"; that is to say, could not penetrate her. This is the oldest
experiment of the kind of which we have any record. But the most
remarkable thing about the _Great Michael_--at least to my mind--is her
size. According to the old account from which I have quoted, which, by
the way, was written by one Robert Lindsay of Pitscottie, she must have
had almost the exact dimensions of the _Duke of Wellington_, one of the
last and finest of our steam three-deckers. Now I have a perfect idea of
_her_ size, because I had the honour of serving on board her for a
couple of years. She was in the "sere and yellow leaf" then, her masts
had gone, her engines had disappeared, and she had a roof which made her
look much more like Noah's Ark than a battleship, but I can remember her
in all her glory when she carried the flag of the commander-in-chief at
Portsmouth. I was only a boy then, but I recollect that her appearance
was fine in the extreme. In reckoning the beam of the _Great Michael_ we
must remember to add 20 feet for the thickness of her sides, since
Pitscottie only gives us her internal width. Having done this, I will
put down the dimensions of the two ships for comparison--
_Great Michael_, length, 240 feet; beam, 56 feet.
_Duke of Wellington_, length, 240 feet, 7 inches; beam, 60 feet, 1 inch.
Now if Pitscottie's figures are correct, either the _Michael_ must have
been almost incredibly bigger than any ship of her day, or, as I have
before suggested, the old war-ships of that and earlier centuries were
in reality a good deal larger than contemporary representations and
records of "tunnage" would lead us to expect.
The old Scots writer, however, offers to prove his figures; for he says:
"If any man believe that this ship was not as we have shewn, let him
pass to the place of Tullibardine, where he will find the length and
breadth of her set with hawthorne: as for my author he was Captain
Andrew Wood, principal Captain of hir, and Robert Bartone, who was made
her Skipper".
[Illustration: Rough Diagram, showing Comparative Sizes of Famous Ships
at Different Periods
The sizes of these ships can only be shown approximately, as in some
cases only the length of the keel is known; in others a mean has to be
taken between length of keel and length over-all; while in others the
authority does not say where the length was measured. H.M.S. _Queen
Elizabeth_--650 feet long, with a beam of 94 feet--is bigger than all
the rest put together.]
With regard to the plan of the vessel in hawthorns, I am indebted to
Lady Strathallan for the following interesting items: Tullibardine
Castle has quite disappeared. What little was left of it was used in the
construction of farm buildings from 1830-40. The spot where the
hawthorns were planted to show the dimensions of the _Great Michael_ is
still known, but there is nothing to mark it. When the great ship was
built, the carpenter or "wright" of the castle went down to superintend
the shipwrights. When he got home, as the people at the castle were
very anxious to form some idea of the size of this "Dreadnought" of that
period, he was given orders to have an excavation made of the exact size
of the ship. The hawthorns were, it would appear, planted round the
excavation, which was tilled with water and aquatic plants, and remained
as an ornamental pond till about the time of the battle of Waterloo. In
1837 the shape of the vessel was distinctly perceptible, but three only
remained of the hawthorn-trees that formerly surrounded it. Some time
ago Lady Strathallan, anxious that this curious monument of antiquity
should not disappear altogether, directed the forester to renew the
hawthorn outline of the _Great Michael_. The trees were procured for the
purpose, but the tenant of the farm on which it was situated objected
that it would take up too much room in his field, so that the project
was abandoned. It seems a thousand pities that something cannot, even
now, be done to perpetuate this relic of the famous Scots man-of-war,
which, year by year, is being rendered more and more indistinguishable
by the plough. The field in which traces of the hollow may be looked for
is situated 400 yards from the old parish chapel, which was restored a
good many years ago and used as a burial vault.
The _Great Michael_ did not long remain a Scots ship. The fleet of
Scotland went to France in 1513, and in the following year she was
bought by Louis XII for 40,000 francs, to replace the _Cordelière_,
which, as you will remember, was blown up with the _Regent_. This brings
us back to the _Henri Grace à Dieu_, which was built to replace the
latter ship. But before we turn our attention to her we cannot but note
the difference between the alleged cost of the _Great Michael_ and that
for which she was sold. The bargain does not seem worthy of the Scots
reputation for "canniness". But we must bear in mind that a "pound
Scots" was not at all the same thing as an English pound at that date.
Ever since 1355 its value had been falling, till by 1603 it was only
worth twenty pence instead of twenty shillings. It was, in fact, at the
time of the sale, the kind of "silver pound" that the "chieftain to the
Highlands bound" paid or promised the boatman if he would row Lord
Ullin's daughter and himself "o'er the ferry". But even if we put it at
about a tenth of a pound sterling in 1513, the bargain seems a poor one.
Probably it was more of a political deal than anything else, comparable
to the German sale of the _Goeben_ to Turkey.
The _Henri Grace à Dieu_--I think we may as well call her the _Henri_
for short, and save time and paper--is a ship about which we have the
most extended information in some respects--those dealing with her
decoration and equipment, for instance; but we are left entirely in the
dark as to her size and measurements. The only dimensions I have been
able to find are those indicated on a plan which, on very insufficient
grounds, is claimed to be a copy of the official one on which she was
built, and which is stated to be--or at any rate to have been within the
last century--at Plymouth dockyard. So far this original has not been
traced, and I may remark that anyone who knows anything about the Navy
would not dream of referring to the dockyard in the western port except
as "Devonport Dockyard". However, I give the dimensions for what they
may be worth--not much, I think:
Length, 145 feet; beam, 35 feet 9 inches; tonnage,
839.
Now if this, by any chance, is anything like correct she must have been
a very much smaller ship than the _Great Michael_, which is not very
likely, since Henry VIII would naturally have wanted "to go one better".
Moreover, she is generally credited as having been of at least a
thousand tons displacement, and carried a battery little, if any,
inferior in weight and numbers to that of the _Michael_.
She was heavily equipped with ordnance, very little of which is apparent
in her pictures. According to her inventories she carried something like
185 guns of all sorts and sizes, but many of these must have been kept
on shore as reserve stores. She is generally credited with carrying 14
heavy guns on the lower and 12 on the main deck, and 46 light cannon on
her upper works. Some of the large and all the smaller ones were
breech-loaders, and as most were provided with at least two "chambers"
or breech-pieces, which contained the powder-charge and could be quickly
substituted one for the other, we may almost call them "quick-firers".
She was gorgeously decorated in the first place, and poop, waist,
forecastle, and tops were hung with shields showing alternately the St.
George's Cross, the Golden Fleur-de-Lis on a blue ground, and the Tudor
Rose on a green and white ground. Her sails were woven with a decorative
design in gold damask, and she carried a lion figure-head, but the lion
was badly executed and a very tame one. Like all Tudor ships she flew a
profusion of flags, standards, and immense streamers bearing the St.
George's Cross, the fly or long-pointed end being half green and half
white. These were the Tudor livery colours. The plain red-cross flag or
"Jack" was well in evidence and generally carried on the fore masthead
as well as among the smaller flags placed on poles at equal distances
along the bulwarks. The royal standard was also carried, but not in
every ship, and sometimes it appears "impaled" with the national
red-cross flag--that is to say, the two were placed side by side on the
same flag.
The national status of the Royal Navy was becoming recognized. Before
this time, though the English "Jack" generally found a place somewhere
on board an English ship, the banners and pennons of the nobles and
knights on board were most in evidence. Now we see nothing but royal and
national emblems. In the war with France in 1455 the ships of the
squadron forming the "van" or leading portion of the fleet carried the
St. George's Cross at the fore, those of the centre at the main, and the
rear squadron at the mizzen.
In describing the _Henri_ we have practically described all the "great
shippes" of her class, of which there were a considerable number, though
none were quite so large, or probably quite so elaborately decorated. Of
course she was what we may call "a show ship", like the _Royal James_
and _Sovereign of the Seas_ of a later date.
But by 1546, if we may accept Anthony Anthony's _Roll_ as correct,
"timber colour" with scarlet masts and spars was uniform for all classes
of ships.
But it is time we turned our attention to the men who manned them. The
changes in this respect were quite as important as those we have noted
in the ships themselves. To begin with, the nobles and gentry of the
kingdom were beginning to wake up to the fact that war afloat offered
them at least equal opportunities of distinction to those they had
hitherto looked for in land warfare. Besides, they had now little or no
chance of that at home, and there was no longer any land frontier over
in France across which they could ride and raid and harry and fight as
their fathers and grandfathers had so often done. Naval strategy was
still confined to cross raiding, but ships were now better
fighting-machines and were not merely used as platforms for hand-to-hand
fighting and as transports; so that men of the class which had hitherto
looked down on ships and sailors began to turn their eyes towards the
sea.
[Illustration: Ships of the Time of Henry VIII
(_From a Drawing of 1545_)
Looking at the lofty hulls, the immense mainsails, and the nearness of
the ports to the water-line, we can easily understand how a want of care
wrecked the _Mary Rose_. The ship in the background on the right is
apparently trying to reduce sail, and has had to lower her main-yard.
Her mainsail is almost in the water, to the apparent danger of the
ship.]
This does not mean that they became seamen. No, they still remained and
considered themselves soldiers, and did not trouble to learn any
seamanship. That was still the special job of the master or skipper. But
they recognized that the command of a fighting-ship was worth having. I
may instance the Carew family.[18] At least three of them were serving
in command of ships in the battle at Spithead in 1545. Sir George Carew
lost his life when his ship, the _Mary Rose_, went down; his brother,
Peter Carew, who had been a year or two before in command of a company
of infantry in the English army in France, commanded a Venetian
ship--probably hired--the _Francisco Bardado_; while their uncle, Sir
Gawen Carew, commanded a third. As for the men, the seamen, thanks to
more seaworthy vessels, had probably improved in their seamanship, while
the navy was formed into a regularly-organized force consisting of
"mariners, soldiers"--or, as we should call them now, marines--"and
gunners". Every ship had her proper complement of each. Thus the _Henri
Grace à Dieu_ carried 260 seamen, 400 soldiers, and 40 gunners; the
_Mary Rose_ 180 seamen, 200 soldiers, and 20 gunners; the _Peter
Pomgranate_ 130 seamen, 150 soldiers, and 20 gunners; and so forth,
according to size.
[Illustration: A SEA FIGHT IN TUDOR TIMES
_Facsimile woodcut from "Holinshed's Chronicles"_
Which particular battle this picture is supposed to represent cannot be
stated, since old Holinshed uses it over and over again for almost every
naval engagement to which he makes reference right back as far as the
Conquest. That cannon were not then in existence does not appear to
trouble him at all. But we may take it as fairly representative of an
action at sea in the times in which the historian lived and wrote.]
Though there are indications of a somewhat similar arrangement in
earlier times, it would appear that the seamen were either paid by the
king or hired with their ship, while the soldiers were paid by some
noble or even bishop who had supplied them as a feudal obligation.
The pay does not seem to have been quite so liberal as in former times,
but it was not bad if we allow for the difference in its value compared
with that of to-day. In the _Gabriel Royal_, for instance, Sir William
Trevellian, the captain--a soldier--got 1_s._ 6_d._ a day. The master
and the rest of her company, officers, seamen, and soldiers, got 5_s._ a
month (of twenty-eight days), but the master and other officers got in
addition what were called "dead shares", in number from six to
one-half. This means that the master got six men's pay besides his
own--altogether 35_s._--a month, and so on in proportion. The gunners
got extra pay, called "rewards"--we might call it "efficiency
pay"--varying from 5_s._ a month for the master gunner to 1_s._ 8_d._
for the private gunners.
The provision allowance was respectable--England was renowned for good
feeding at this period. Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays each man had
1/2 pound of beef and 1/4 pound of bacon for his dinner, and the same
for supper. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays they had to be content
with two herrings and 1/8 pound of cheese for each of these meals, while
on Fridays or "ffishe days beynge ffastinge dayes" they had to go
without supper, but for dinner had either half a cod or half a stock
fish and a pound of butter between four men, or, if they preferred it,
could divide ten herrings and a pound of cheese between them. As for
bread, every man got either a pound of bread or biscuit daily, while
instead of the "grog" or "optional cocoa" of to-day, he got a liberal
allowance either of beer or "beverage" made of two parts water to one of
"sack".
As for the clothing of the Royal Navy, we have very little information
so far as the Tudor period is concerned. That there was some attempt at
uniformity may be gathered from the constant references to the provision
of coats or jackets of green and white cloth. Some were satin or damask
of the same colouring, presumably for officers. But what these garments
were like we do not know. In Anthony Anthony's drawing of the _Galley
Subtle_ the master of the ship appears in the old "jack" with the red
cross, while the rowers are apparently clad in pink. This may be
intended to represent their bare flesh, for they might be stripped to
the waist for rowing, but it is more probable that it was originally red
and that the colour has faded. It is said that the rowers of Henry
VIII's royal barge wore this colour, and it seems quite possible that
the _Galley Subtle_, the only one of her class and a profusely-decorated
vessel, _was_ regarded as the royal barge.
We know, too, from the costume of the Yeomen of the Guard, or
"Beefeaters", that red was making its appearance as a military colour,
for their uniform is that of Henry VIII's body-guard. The standard under
which Henry VII secured the crown at the battle of Bosworth Field was a
red dragon on a white and green field, and was supposed to represent
that of Cadwallader, the last of the British kings, from whom the victor
claimed descent. The descent, I dare say, was genuine enough, but
Cadwallader must have died before the invention of heraldry. But Wales
has always been associated with a dragon of this kind, which has from
time immemorial been a world-wide emblem of sovereignty. Henry seems to
have adopted the colour of the dragon as the royal livery colour--as it
remains to-day--but at the same time retained the white and green for
the navy. Much in the same way "blue" is accepted as a royal colour, and
as such is worn as the facings of royal regiments and as the uniform of
the Royal Navy and Royal Artillery.
But it seems probable that blue--very possibly from dye of that colour
being easily procurable; the Ancient Britons, we may remember, decorated
themselves with blue woad--had been for centuries a very usual colour
for seamen to wear; and when, in 1553, Sir Hugh Willoughby's North Sea
expedition was fitted out all his crews were provided with "parade
suits" of "Wachett or Skie-coloured cloth". Watchett was a place in
Somersetshire where this special material was made. But these, perhaps,
were not men actually belonging to the Royal Navy. As for the soldiers
or marines, we may suppose that they wore the white "jack" with the red
cross, which was so universal at this time that "whitecoat" was used for
"soldier" just as "redcoat" was at a later date. The "gunners" wore the
white and green and may have been regarded as "seamen gunners".
FOOTNOTES:
[17] She was first called the _Gret Carrick_, then _Imperyall Carrick_,
next _Henry Imperiall_. The name _Henri Grace à Dieu_ was written with
all kinds of variations; sometimes she was merely called the _Harry_,
and finally, after King Harry's death, the _Edward_.
[18] Each of the Carews adopted the badge of a ship's "fighting-top",
which still appears as the crest of the family.