Chapter III: Introduction: The Navy Before 1509 (1)

[Sidenote: The Modern Navy.]

The creation of the modern Royal Navy has been variously attributed to Henry VII, to Henry VIII, and to Elizabeth. Whichever sovereign may be considered entitled to the honour, the statement, as applied to either monarch, really means that modification of mediæval conditions, and adoption of improvements in construction and administration, which brought the Navy into the form familiar to us until the introduction of steam and iron. And in that sense no one sovereign can be accredited with its formation. The introduction of portholes in, or perhaps before the reign of Henry VII, differentiated the man-of-war, involved radical alterations in build and armament, and made the future line-of-battle ship possible; the establishment of the Navy Board by Henry VIII, made the organisation of fleets feasible and ensured a certain, if slow, progress because henceforward cumulative and, in the long run, independent of the energy and foresight of any one man under whom, as under Henry V, the Navy might largely advance, to sink back at his death into decay. Under Elizabeth the improvements in building and rigging constituted a step longer than had yet been taken towards the modern type, the Navy Board became an effectively working and flourishing institution, and the wars and voyages of her reign founded the school of successful seamanship of which was born the confidence, daring and self-reliance still prescriptive in the royal and merchant services.

[Sidenote: The origin of the Navy:—William I.]

It is not the purpose of this work to deal with the history, of the Navy previous to the accession of Henry VIII, but no real line of demarcation can be drawn in naval more than in other history, and it will be necessary to briefly sketch the conditions generally existing before 1509, and in somewhat more detail, those relating to the fifteenth century.[3] In the widest sense the first Saxon king who possessed galleys of his own may be said to have been the founder of the Royal Navy; in a narrower but truer sense, the Royal Navy as an appanage of imperial power, and an entity of steady growth, really dates from the Norman conquest. The Saxon navy although respectable by way of number, was essentially a coast defence force, mustered temporarily to answer momentary needs, and lacking continuity of existence and purpose. There is but one instance of a Saxon fleet being employed out of the four seas, that which Canute used in the conquest of Norway, and in it the Scandinavian element was probably larger than the Saxon. With the advent of William I, the channel, instead of remaining a boundary, became a means of communication between the divided dominions of one monarch, and a comparatively permanent and reliable naval force, both for military transport and for command of the passage between the insular and continental possessions of the Crown, became a necessity of royal policy. For nearly two centuries this duty was mainly performed by the men of the Cinque Ports who, in return for certain privileges and exemptions, were bound, at any moment, to place fifty-seven ships at the service of the Crown for fifteen days free of cost, and for as much longer time as the king required them at the customary rate of pay.[4] These claims, practically constituting the Cinque Ports fleet a standing force, were ceaselessly exercised by successive monarchs, and, at first sight, such demands might seem to be destructive of that commercial progress which is the primary basis of the growth or maintenance of shipping. But the methods of warfare in those ages were more profitable than commerce, and the decay of the Ports was not due to poverty caused by the calls made upon their shipping for military purposes. The existence of the Cinque Ports service was indirectly a hindrance to the growth of a crown navy, since it was obviously cheaper for the king to order the Ports to act than to man and equip his own vessels; it was not until ships of larger size and stronger build than those belonging to the Ports were required, that the royal ships came into frequent use.

[Sidenote: Results of the Conquest:—Growth of Trade and Shipping.]

As well as mobilising the Cinque Ports fleet, the sovereign was able to issue writs to arrest the ships of private owners throughout the kingdom, together with the necessary number of sailors, when rival fleets had to be fought or armies to be transported. The Normans, descendants of the Vikings, must have been better shipbuilders and better seamen than the Saxons, and the large number of nautical words that can be traced back to Norman French bear witness to improvements in rigging and handling due to them. The Crusades must have reacted on the English marine by bringing under the observation of our seamen the construction of ships belonging to the Mediterranean powers, then far in advance of the North in the art of shipbuilding. And during the century which followed the Conquest, the foreign trade, which is the nursery of shipping, was steadily growing. Under the Angevin kings the whole coast line of France, from Flanders to Bayonne, was, with the exception of Brittany, subject to English rule, and the inter-coast traffic that naturally followed was the greatest stimulus to maritime enterprise this country had yet experienced. The result was seen in the Crusade of 1190, when the fleet of Richard I for the Mediterranean was made up of vessels drawn from the ports of the empire, but many of them doubtless belonging to the continental possessions of the crown; and as John certainly possessed ships of his own, it may be inferred that Richard, and his predecessors also had some. When a general arrest was ordered, foreign ships were seized as well as English, and this practice continued as late as the first years of Elizabeth. Richard I issued, in 1190, regulations for the government of his fleet. These regulations doubtless only methodised customs already existing, and as they dealt with offences against life and property bear the mark of their commercial origin. Offences against discipline must have been punished by military law and military penalties, and required no new code.

[Sidenote: John:—The Clerk of the Ships.]

During the reign of John we meet the first sign of a naval administration in the official action of William of Wrotham, like many of his successors a cleric, and the first known ‘Keeper of the king’s ships.’ This office, possibly in its original form of very much earlier date and only reconstituted or enlarged in function by John, and now represented in descent by the Secretaryship of the Admiralty, is the oldest administrative employment in connection with the Navy. At first called ‘Keeper and Governor’ of the king’s ships, later, ‘Clerk of the king’s ships,’ this official held, sometimes really and sometimes nominally, the control of naval organisation until the formation of the Navy Board in 1546. His duties included all those now performed by a multitude of highly placed Admiralty officials. If a man of energy, experience, and capacity, his name stands foremost in the maintenance of the royal fleets during peace and their preparation for war; if, as frequently happened, a merchant or subordinate official with no especial knowledge, he might become a mere messenger riding from port to port, seeking runaway sailors, or bargaining for small parcels of naval stores. Occasionally, under such circumstances, his authority was further lessened by the appointment of other persons, usually such as held minor personal offices near the king, as keepers of particular ships. This was a method of giving a small pecuniary reward to such a one, together with the perquisites he might be able to procure from the supply of stores and provisions necessary for the vessel and her crew.

In the course of centuries the title changed its form. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the officer is called ‘clerk of marine causes,’ and ‘clerk of the navy;’ in the seventeenth century, ‘clerk of the acts.’ Although Pepys was not the last clerk of the acts, the functions associated with the office, which were the remains of the larger powers once belonging to the ‘Keeper and Governor,’ were carried up by him to the higher post of Secretary of the Admiralty.

[Sidenote: Henry III.]

With the reign of Henry III we find the royal ships large enough to become attractive to merchants, who hired them from the king for freight, perhaps at lower rates than could be afforded by private owners. There is hardly a reign, down to and including that of Elizabeth, in which men-of-war were not hired by merchants, and the earlier trading voyages to Italy and the Levant during the last quarter of the fifteenth century were nearly all performed by men-of-war let out for the voyage. The Navy was mainly made up of sailing vessels even before the reign of Henry III, and by that period many of them possessed two masts, each carrying a single sail. The conversion of a merchantman into a fighting-ship was accomplished by fitting it with temporary fore and after castles, which became later the permanent forecastle and poop, the addition of a ‘top castle’ or fighting top, and the provision of proper armament. Doubtless the king’s own ships were more strongly built, and better adapted by internal arrangements for their work, than the hired merchantmen. The supreme government of the Navy in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries was in the hands of the King’s Council, who ordered, equally, the preparation and fitting of ships and the action of the admirals commanding. These officers, known during the greater part of the thirteenth century as keepers or governors of the sea, were usually knights or nobles in command of the soldiers. While holding commission they appear to have had jurisdiction in the matter of discipline on board their fleets, but not of law suits or maritime causes until 1360; before that date such causes were dealt with at common law.[5] There were usually two, one having charge of the East, the other of the South Coast, but occasionally, an officer had a particular section placed under his care, such as the coasts of Norfolk and Suffolk. Their period of service was commonly short and often only for a special employment. The maintenance of a fleet was a part of the King’s Household expenses; in the Wardrobe Accounts for 1299-1300 are the amounts paid for fifty-four vessels and their crews hired for the conveyance of stores for the Scotch war.

[Sidenote: Galleys.]

Galleys, although frequently mentioned, were at no time a chief portion of our fleets. Large fleets were mainly composed of impressed merchantmen, and galleys are expensive and useless for trading purposes compared with sailing ships; the natural home of the galley was the landlocked Mediterranean, and even there its utility was limited to the summer months, so that it was still less suitable for Northern latitudes. But the great difficulty was in manning them. Forced labour by captives taken in the continual warfare normal amongst the states on the Mediterranean littoral solved that problem for them, but here the cost of the free oarsman, to whom the drudgery was in any case distasteful, was prohibitive. We shall see that, down to the close of the sixteenth century, attempts were at various times made to form such a service, but always unsuccessfully, and the supreme moment of the galley service, so far as it ever existed here, was the reign of Edward I.[6] This king steadily increased the strength of the Navy. In 1294 and 1295 galleys were built by him at York, Southampton, Lynn, Newcastle and Ipswich, of which at least two pulled 120 oars apiece. Perhaps the experiment was conclusive for, neither as regards number or size do such ever occur again. Although Edward III had one or two built, most of those he employed were temporarily hired from the Genoese or from Aquitainean ports, and the total number bore a very small proportion to the sailing vessels in his fleets. The records of the first years of Edward II show that the crown possessed at least eleven vessels, all sailing ships, but the circumstances of the reign were not conducive to the growth of a Royal Navy, although there seem to have been ten ships in 1322.

[Sidenote: Edward III:—Relative estimation of Army and Navy.]

A far-seeing statesmanship in relation to the political value of sea-power has been attributed to Edward III on the strength of the victories of 1340 and 1350, and of two lines of a poem, written nearly a century later, referring to the gold noble of 1344.[7] This view assigns to Edward a knowledge, in the modern sense, of ‘the influence of sea-power on history’ greater than that possessed by such a statesman as Edward I, and a policy in connection with maritime matters of which the results, at anyrate, were directly the opposite of his intentions. The claim to be lord of the narrow seas was not a new one, and was as much and merely a title of dignity as any other of the sovereign’s verbal honours, not following the actual enforcement of ownership but consequent to the fact of the channel lying between England and Normandy.[8] And it was a title also claimed by France. There is no sign in the policy of the early kings of any perception of the value of a navy as a militant instrument like an army, or any sense of the importance of a real continuity in its maintenance and use. Society was based on a military organisation, but there was no place in that organisation for the Navy except as a subsidiary and dependent force. Fleets were called into being to transport soldiery abroad, to keep open communications, or to meet an enemy already at sea, but the real work of conquest was always held to be the duty of the knights and archers they carried from one country to another. There is no understanding shewn of the ceaseless pressure a navy is capable of exercising, and the disbandment of all, or the greater part, of the fleet was usually the first step which followed the disembarkation of troops or a successful fleet action. In an age when the land transit of goods was hampered by innumerable disadvantages, the position of England, dominating the natural way of communication between the prosperous cities of the north and their customers, was one of splendid command had its far-reaching political possibilities been realised. That they did not comprehend a function only understood many generations later cannot be made a subject of censure, but it has a distinct bearing on the question of Edward’s superiority in this matter to his predecessors and successors. In the same way as theirs the methods of Edward III were directed to conquests by land, and, once the troops were transported or an opposing fleet actually in existence was crushed, the Channel was left as bare of protection to merchantmen, and as destitute of any power capable of enforcing the reputed sovereignty of the narrow seas, as it remained down to the days of the Commonwealth. Beyond the fact that in 1340 and 1350 Edward commanded in person, where his predecessors had been represented by deputies, his action in relation to the Royal Navy differs in no respects from theirs. The gold noble of 1344, into which so much meaning has been read, was struck in combination with the people of Flanders for political and trading purposes, and in connection with Edward’s intrigues to obtain their financial and military support. It is noteworthy that in December 1339, six months before the battle of Sluys, Flanders, Brabant, and Hainault, agreed that a common coinage should be struck, and this, in all probability, marks the first inception of the noble when Edward realised the purposes to which a common coinage for England and the Low Countries might be made to work. In 1343 the Commons petitioned for a gold coin to run equally in England and Flanders and thus strengthened the king’s purpose. But the ship on this coin, the noble, was obviously an afterthought since the florin, the first issue of the same year, called in on account of its unpopularity, bore the royal leopard on the whole and half noble and the royal crest on the quarter one; if therefore the king meant all that is supposed to be implied by the device it occurred to him very suddenly and subsequent to the first, and deliberately thought out, issue.[9] All that the writer of the _Libel of English Policie_ says is that, in 1436, the noble proves to him four things. Further reasons, in relation to other passages of the poem, will be adduced on a later page to show that his work is only one more instance among the many in which individual and unofficial thinkers have been in advance of the statesmanship of their age and whose views, ignored by their contemporaries have become the accepted opinions of a subsequent period.

[Sidenote: Edward III:—Commercial policy in relation to shipping.]

The commercial policy of Edward III was emphatically not one of protection to English shipping, being a nearer approach to free trade than existed for centuries after his death. During the greater part of his reign the needs in ships for his campaigns were supplied from the accumulations of the reigns of Edward I and Edward II, the second of which was not necessarily disastrous to commerce. But when these were exhausted it was found that a system which had aimed merely at obtaining a highest possible yearly revenue for the purpose of supporting armies had, whether or not in itself, fiscally praiseworthy resulted in the ruin of English shipping. In 1372 and 1373, the Commons complained of the destruction of shipping and the decay of the port towns, and it is collateral evidence of Edward’s real lack of insight into the value of a marine—its slow creation and its easy loss—that some of the causes to which they attributed these circumstances were directly due to a reckless indifference to, or ignorance of, the only conditions which could render a merchant marine, subject to conscription, possible.[10] Vessels, they said, were pressed long before they were really wanted, and until actually taken into the service of the crown, ships were idle and seamen had to be paid and supported at the expense of the owners; the effect of royal ordinances which had driven many shipowners to other occupations, and the decrease in the number of sailors due to these and other causes, formed further articles of remonstrance.[11]

The year which saw the decease of the ‘Lord of the Sea,’ was marked by the sack of Rye, Lewes, Hastings, Yarmouth, Dartmouth, Plymouth, Folkestone, Portsmouth, and the Isle of Wight, a sufficient commentary on the title, and an adequate illustration of the system which had left absolutely no navy, royal or mercantile, capable of protecting the coasts.

[Sidenote: Payment of hired ships.]

In 1378 the Commons again attributed the defenceless state of the kingdom not so much to the late king’s impressment of ships as to the losses and poverty caused by non-payment, or delay in payment for their use, and lack of compensation for waste of fittings and stores. Every meeting of Parliament was signalised by fresh representations, and that of 1380 obtained a promise that owners should receive 3s 4d a ‘ton-tight’ for every three months, commencing from the day of arrival at the port of meeting; in 1385 this allowance was reduced to two shillings, and remained at that rate, notwithstanding frequent petitions for a return to the older amount, for at least half a century.[12] It is not known when the payment of 3s 4d a ton was first introduced, nor on what principle it was calculated, but, in 1416, the Commons said that it ran ‘from beyond the time of memory.’ The following petition, undated, but probably belonging to one of the early years of Henry IV, shows that it was older than the Edwards, and, incidentally, yields some interesting information:

‘To the very noble and very wise lords of this present
Parliament very humbly supplicate all owners of ships in this
kingdom. That whereas in the time of the noble King Edward
and his predecessors, whenever any ship was commanded for
service that the owner of such a ship took 3s 4d per ton-tight
in the three months by way of reward for repair of the ship
and its gear, and the fourth part of any prize made at sea,
by which reward the shipping of this kingdom was then well
maintained and ruled so that at that time, 150 ships of the
Tower were available in the kingdom;[13] and since the decease
of the noble King Edward, in the time of Richard, late King
of England, the said reward was reduced to two shillings the
ton-tight, and this very badly paid, so that the owners of such
ships show no desire to keep up and maintain their ships, but
have them lying useless; and by this cause the shipping of this
kingdom is so diminished and deteriorated that there be not in
all the kingdom more than 25 ships of the Tower.’[14]

They then beg a return to the old rates. We may gather from this document that, at some time during the reign of Edward III there were one hundred and fifty large fighting ships available, and there is some reason to believe that, both in number and size, the fourteenth and fifteenth century navy has been too much underrated when compared with that of the sixteenth century. At least one merchantman of the time of Edward III was of three hundred tons, others were of two hundred, and it will be shown that, in the middle of the fifteenth century, the number and tonnage of merchant vessels will compare favourably with any subsequent period up to, and in fact later, than the accession of Elizabeth.

[Sidenote: The close of the xiv century:—The French Navy.]

While, under Richard II, the guard of the seas was maintained with chequered success by hired ships, the French, under the able rule of Charles V, not only possessed a navy but had founded a dockyard at Rouen completely equipped according to the ideas of the age.[15] Thirteen galleys and two barges are mentioned in this account, with all the tools, fittings, and armament necessary for building, repairing, and equipment, and constituting a complete establishment such as did not exist in England until more than a century later. The accession of Charles VI, and the internal dissensions which culminated in Azincourt, determined an essay not again attempted on the Northern or Western coasts until the ministry of Richelieu.

[Sidenote: Richard II and Henry IV.]

The first Navigation Act,[16] ‘to increase the Navy of England which is now greatly diminished,’ by making it compulsory for English subjects to export and import goods in English ships, with a majority of the crews subjects of the English crown, can only be regarded as a suggestion of future legislation. In fact, it was practically annulled by a permissive amendment the following year. More disastrous to merchants than the losses due to warfare were the operations of the pirates who swarmed on the Northern Coasts of Europe during these centuries, and who appear to have become unbearably successful during the reign of Henry IV. This king appears to have cared little for his titular sovereignty of the seas, ignored every petition of Parliament for redress of the especial grievances affecting shipowners, and used such fleets as he got together, as his predecessors had used them, simply as a means of transporting troops to make weak and useless attacks at isolated points. Tunnage and poundage had been first levied by an order of Council in 1347, and year by year following, by agreement with the merchants; from 1373 it became a parliamentary grant of two shillings on the tun of wine, and sixpence in the pound on merchandise, for the protection of the narrow seas and the support of the Navy.[17] The tunnage and poundage now given was, if applied at all to naval purposes, not used with the least success. It was then, in May 1406, together with the fourth part of a subsidy on wools, handed over to a committee of merchants, who undertook the duty of clearing the seas for a period of sixteen months. The arrangement between the king and the committee was quite an amicable one, but in October of the same year Henry withdrew from the agreement, and it is doubtful whether the members of the committee ever received any portion of their outlay.

[Sidenote: Growth of Trade and Shipping.]

If the Norman Conquest gave the first great impulse to English over-sea trade, the events of the close of the fourteenth and first half of the fifteenth centuries may be held to mark the second important era in the development of merchant shipping by the opening up of fresh markets. Hitherto the products of the countries of the Baltic had been mainly obtained through the agency of the merchants of the Hansa, who had their chief factory in London, with branches at York, Lynn, and Boston. In the same way English exports found their way to the north only through Hansa merchants and in Hansa ships. For two centuries they had held a monopoly of the purchase and export of the products of the north, by virtue of treaties with, and payments made to, the northern powers, and an unlicensed, but very effective, warfare waged on all ships which ventured to trade through the Sound. But the war against Waldemar III of Denmark, the depredations of the organised pirate republic known as the Victual brothers, followed by the struggle with Eric XIII of Sweden, were times of disorder lasting through more than half a century, from which the Hansa emerged nominally victorious but with the loss of the prestige and vigour that had made its monopoly possible. While it was fighting to uphold its pretensions the Dutch and English had both seized the opportunity of forcing their way into the Baltic, and when, in 1435, the Hansa extorted from its antagonists a triumphant peace the real utility of the privileges thus obtained had passed away for ever.

Coincidently with these events economic changes were taking place at home which, by favouring the accumulation of capital, had also a direct influence on the demand for shipping. The temporary renewal of possession in the coast line of France was a spur to trade with it in English bottoms. The growth of the towns, the necessity the townsmen experienced for the profitable use of surplus capital, and the slow change, which commenced under Edward III, in the national industry from wool exportation to cloth manufacture, were all elements which found ultimate expression in increased export and import in native shipping.[18] Possibly the most important factor in the change was the commencing manufacture of English cloth, instead of selling the wool to foreign merchants and buying it back from them in the finished state.[19] During the reign of Henry V, English ships were stretching down to Lisbon and the coast of Morocco, and British fishermen were plying their industry off Iceland. Not long afterwards the first English trader entered the Mediterranean, and the numerous entries in the records relating to merchant vessels show the flourishing state of trade. By example, and doubtless by persuasion, Henry himself assisted in the renewal.

[Sidenote: Henry V:—The Royal Ships.]

Under Henry’s rule the crown navy was increased till in magnitude it exceeded the naval power of any previous reign; the character of the vessels, bought or built, shows that they were provided for seagoing purposes rather than the mere escort or transport of troops which had been the object of preceding kings, and which object would have been equally well served by the hired merchantmen that had contented them. The king himself hired at various times many foreign vessels, but purely for transport purposes.

The following, compiled from the accounts of Catton and Soper, successively keepers of the ships, is a more complete list of Henry’s navy than has yet been printed:—[20]

+------------------------------------+-------+-------+------+
| SHIPS | Built | Prize | Tons |
+------------------------------------+-------+-------+------+
| _Jesus of the Tower_ | | | 1000 |
| _Holigost of the Tower_ | 1414 | | 760 |
| _Trinity Royal of the Tower_ | 1416 | | 540 |
| _Grace Dieu of the Tower_ | 1418 | | 400 |
| _Thomas of the Tower_[21] | 1420 | | 180 |
| _Grande Marie of the Tower_ | | 1416 | 420 |
| _Little Marie of the Tower_ | | | 140 |
| _Katrine of the Tower_ | | | |
| _Christopher Spayne of the Tower_ | | 1417 | 600 |
| _Marie Spayne of the Tower_ | | 1417 | |
| _Holigost Spayne of the Tower_ | | 1417 | 290 |
| _Philip of the Tower_ | | | |
| _Little Trinity of the Tower_ | | | 120 |
| _Great Gabriel of the Tower_ | | | |
| _Cog John of the Tower_ | | | |
| _Red Cog of the Tower_ | | | |
| _Margaret of the Tower_ | | | |
+------------------------------------+-------+-------+------+
| CARRACKS | Built | Prize | Tons |
+------------------------------------+-------+-------+------+
| _Marie Hampton_ | | 1416 | 500 |
| _Marie Sandwich_ | | 1416 | 550 |
| _George of the Tower_ | | 1416 | 600 |
| _Agase of the Tower_ | | 1416 | |
| _Peter of the Tower_ | | 1417 | |
| _Paul of the Tower_ | | 1417 | |
| _Andrew of the Tower_ | | 1417 | |
+------------------------------------+-------+-------+------+
| BARGES | Built | Prize | Tons |
+------------------------------------+-------+-------+------+
| _Valentine of the Tower_ | 1418 | | 100 |
| _Marie Bretton of the Tower_ | | | |
+------------------------------------+-------+-------+------+
| BALINGERS | Built | Prize | Tons |
+------------------------------------+-------+-------+------+
| _Katrine Breton of the Tower_ | | 1416 | |
| _James of the Tower_ | 1417 | | |
| _Ane of the Tower_ | 1417 | | 120 |
| _Swan of the Tower_ | 1417 | | 20 |
| _Nicholas of the Tower_ | 1418 | | 120 |
| _George of the Tower_ | | | 120 |
| _Gabriel of the Tower_ | | | |
| _Gabriel de Harfleur of the Tower_ | | | |
| _Little John of the Tower_ | | | |
| _Fawcon of the Tower_ | | | 80 |
| _Roos_ | | | 30 |
| _Cracchere of the Tower_ | | | 56 |
+------------------------------------+-------+-------+------+

It will be noticed that there is no galley in this list; one is referred to in the accounts, but had apparently ceased to exist, her fittings being used for other ships. Oars occur among the equipments, but probably in most cases, for the ‘great boat’ which with a ‘cokk’ was attached to each vessel. Few cannon were carried—if the schedules represent the full armament—the _Holigost_ six, the _Thomas_ four, the _George_ and _Grace Dieu_ three each, the _Katrine_ and _Andrew_ two. The inventories of stores at this date show very little difference from the preceding century in the character of tackle and gear, nor is there any great alteration for some two centuries from 1350. English vessels were, on an average, smaller at this time than either Italian, Spanish, or German. The tomb of Simon of Utrecht, a Hansa admiral who died in 1437, has a sculpture of a three-masted vessel; if any of Henry’s were three-masted they were certainly the first of that class in our service. The statement of Stow, however, that the vessels captured in 1417 ‘were of marvellous greatnesse, yea, greater than ever were seen in those parts before that time,’ is, if patriotic, as absurdly incorrect as some other of his naval information. The payments for hired ships show that vessels of 400 and 450 tons, belonging to Dantzic and other ports, were taken up for the transport of troops and, putting aside the tonnage of some of the English ships, there is no reason to suppose that the North German traders were the largest of their kind. The prizes of 1416 were Spanish and Genoese carracks in French pay, captured by the Duke of Bedford in the action of 15th August off the mouth of the Seine;[22] those of 1417 by the Earl of Huntingdon in that of 25th July.

The tonnage of the English built ships shows that there was now a well marked tendency to increase in size, probably due to Henry’s initiative. The usual measurement, in the fifteenth century, of a barge was about sixty or eighty tons, and of a balinger[23] about forty. But a man-of-war balinger might be much larger as in the _Nicholas of the Tower_, the _George_, and the _Ane_. There is very little information as to the conditions under which Henry’s ships were built. The _Trinity Royal_, _Grace Dieu_, _Holigost_ and _Gabriel_ were certainly constructed at Southampton, the two last named under the supervision of William Soper, then merely a merchant of the town, who remained many years unpaid the money advanced by him for that purpose; in April 1417 he was given an annuity of twenty marks a year, doubtless by way of reward.[24] The _Thomas of the Tower_ was rebuilt at Deptford in 1420; the _Jesus_, and the _Gabriel Harfleur_ were rebuilt at Smalhithe, in Kent, but in years unknown. The hulls of several of the ships were sold or given away before the end of the reign.

At one time the king seems to have commenced building abroad. There is a letter of 25th April 1419 from John Alcetre, his agent at Bayonne, describing the slow progress of the work upon a ship there and the sharp practices of the mayor and his associates who appear to have undertaken the contract. Alcetre anticipated that four or five years would elapse before its completion, and it is quite certain that it was never included in the English navy. The most noteworthy points in the details given, are the lengths over all and of the keel—respectively 186 and 112 feet—so that the fore and aft rakes, together, were 74 feet, just about two-thirds of the keel length.

[Sidenote: Henry V:—The Grace Dieu.]

The only one of Henry’s ships of which the name is still remembered is the _Grace Dieu_, and she was, if not the largest, probably the best equipped ship yet built in England. She was not constructed under the superintendence of either Catton, the official head of the administration, or of Soper, and with two balingers, the _Fawcon_ and the _Valentine_, and some other work cost £4917, 15s 3½d.[25] Besides other wood 2591 oaks and 1195 beeches were used among the three vessels and for the various details mentioned, and it is to be remarked that, although the _Grace Dieu_ must have represented the latest improvements, she, like the others, appears to have had only one ‘great mast’ and one ‘mesan,’[26] but two bowsprits. These carried no sails and were probably more of the nature of ‘bumpkins’ than spars. She was supplied with six sails and eleven bonnets, but their position when in use is not described, and some of them were perhaps spare ones. The order to commence her was placed in Robert Berd’s hands in December 1416, when Catton was still keeper and Soper was engaged in naval administration. It would appear to be entirely subversive of discipline and responsibility to distribute the control among three men, each of whom possessed sufficient position and independence to ensure friction, and we can only guess that the motive was pecuniary.

[Sidenote: The Administration.]

The first keeper of the ships under Henry V was William Catton by Letters Patent of 18th July 1413, who from the third to the eighth year of the reign of Henry IV had been bailiff of Winchelsea, and who subsequently held the bailiffship of Rye conjointly with his naval office. He was succeeded from 3rd February 1420 by the before-mentioned William Soper. Berd’s name only occurs in connection with the _Grace Dieu_. The river Hamble, on Southampton water, was then, and down to the close of the century, the favourite roadstead for the royal ships lying up, and was defended at its entrance by a tower of wood which cost £40,[27] a storehouse with a workshop[28] was also built at Southampton, and one existed in London near the Tower. If the vessels were not built in royal yards or by royal workmen we may infer the control of a crown officer from the fact of a pension of fourpence a day having been granted, when broken down in health, to John Hoggekyns, ‘master-carpenter of the king’s ships,’ and builder of the _Grace Dieu_, the first known of the long line of master shipwrights reaching down to the present century.

The fittings of ships do not differ materially from those quoted by Sir N. H. Nicolas under Edward III; we find a ‘bitakyll’[29] covered with lead, and pumps were now in use. Cordage was chiefly from Bridport, but occasionally from Holland, and Oleron canvas was bought abroad. Flags were of St Marie, St Edward, Holy Trinity, St George, the Swan, Antelope, Ostrich Feathers, and the king’s arms. The _Trinity Royal_ had a painted wooden leopard with a crown of copper gilt, perhaps as a figure head. The largest anchor of the _Jesus_ weighed 2224lb. The balingers, besides being fully rigged, carried sometimes forty or fifty oars, twenty-four feet long apiece, for use in calms or to work to windward. But even a vessel like the _Trinity Royal_ had forty oars and a large one called a ‘steering skull,’ to assist the rudder we may suppose. The fore and stern stages were now becoming permanent structures. Two ‘somerhuches’ were built on the _Holigost_ and _Trinity Royal_. Somerhuche was the summer-castle or poop of the early sixteenth century, and the cost, £4, 11s 3d, equivalent now to some £70, seems too great for a mere timber staging.[30] Sails were sometimes decorated with the king’s arms or badges, but probably only in the chief ships and for holiday use.

[Sidenote: Henry VI:—The Sale of the Navy.]

After the death of Henry V one of the first orders of the Council was to direct the sale of the bulk of the Royal Navy.[31] Modern writers who hold that the spirit of the ‘Libel of English Policie’ was that representing the ideas of the time must explain this startling contrast between fact and theory. The truth is that the ‘Libel’ described, not existing conditions, but those that the writer desired should exist; the whole poem is a lament over past glories and an exhortation to retrieve the maritime position of the country, but the poet did not look at what lay behind a couple of victories at sea and the capture of Calais.[32] After the real triumphs of Henry V and the memories associated with Edward III, the state of things in the Channel doubtless appeared very evil, although they were hardly worse during the reign of Henry VI than was usual, and not nearly so bad as under James I and Charles I. The poem was really an attempt to obtain continuity in naval policy, a thing of which the meaning is, even now, scarcely understood, and which in 1436, when the man-at-arms was the ideal fighting unit, had as little chance of being accepted and carried out as though it had preached religious toleration.

[Sidenote: Changed character of the Keeper’s appointment.]

By Letters Patent of 5th March 1423, William Soper, merchant of Southampton, a collector of customs and subsidies at that port, and mayor of the town in 1416 and 1424, was again appointed ‘Keeper and Governor’ of the King’s ships, under the control[33] of Nicholas Banastre, comptroller of the customs there; no such clause existed in the patent of 1420. For himself and a clerk Soper was allowed £40 a year, but Banastre was not given any salary. The appointment is noteworthy for more than one reason. It is the first, and apparently the only, instance in which a keeper of the ships acted under the supervision of another officer little his superior in the official hierarchy, and it, with the previous patent of 1420, marks the commencement of a custom frequent enough afterwards of naming well-to-do merchants to posts in the administrative service of the navy. Besides greater business capacity such a man was useful to the government in that he was expected to advance money, or purchase stores, on his own credit when the crown finance was temporarily strained. There is little doubt that Soper’s appointment was of this character, and that his salary, was really by way of interest on money advanced by him for the construction of the _Holigost_ and _Gabriel_, and for other purposes, years before. The first named ship was built in 1414, the other perhaps later, but it was not until 1430 that he received the sum which represented the final instalment of their cost.[34] By the will of Henry V the whole of his personal possessions were ordered to be sold and the proceeds handed over to his executors to pay his debts. They received, in 1430, one thousand marks from the sale of the men-of-war, the remainder of the money obtained from this source being retained by Soper in settlement of his claims dating from 1414.

[Sidenote: The Navy a personal possession of the King.]

The transaction is interesting both as showing that the Council did not consider the men-of-war—if compulsorily put up to auction under the will—of sufficient importance to buy in, and as illustrating the fact that the royal ships were personal possessions of the sovereign in which the nation had no interest of ownership. Tunnage and poundage had been granted for ‘the safe keeping of the sea,’ but the application of the money was at the discretion of the king. He might use it to pay hired merchantmen or he might build ships of his own with it, or with the revenue of the crown estates to fulfil the same purpose; in neither case had Parliament any voice in the employment of the money. While calling upon the Cinque Ports to fulfil the conditions of their charters and impressing merchant ships throughout the country, he might keep his own navy idle; there was no national right to profit by its existence. The tunnage and poundage grant did not interfere with the king’s title to seize every ship in the kingdom, and was only an attempt to secure payment to owners, and the wages and victualling of the crews; it in no way placed upon him the responsibility of providing ships, the supply of which was ensured by the unrestricted exercise of the prerogative, and that prerogative was not used any less frequently because of the existence of the tunnage and poundage. As years passed on and the power of the trading classes increased, and the need for specialised fighting ships grew greater, they made their ethical right to the use of the navy for ordinary purposes felt in practice and implicitly recognised by the crown. Hence the distinction became less and less marked but the note of possessive separation between the ‘King’s Navy Royal’ and the trading navy which was, legally, also the king’s and is so referred to in sixteenth century papers, is to be traced to as late as 1649. Since that date the title ‘Royal Navy,’ although associated with our proudest national memories is, historically, a misnomer as applied to the navy of the state.

[Sidenote: Piracy.]

In 1425, Parliament raised tunnage and poundage to three shillings on the tun of wine and one shilling in the pound on merchandise, at which rate it continued. Probably very little of it was applied to the specific purpose for which it was given, the struggle for the crown of France absorbing every available item of revenue for the support of armies; in 1450 one of the articles against the Duke of Suffolk was that he had caused money given for the defence of the realm and safety of the sea to be otherwise employed. There still remains a sufficient number of complaints and petitions to show to what little purpose our maritime forces were used. In 1432, the Commons formally declared that Danish ships had plundered those of Hull, to the amount of £5000, and others to £20,000 in one year, and requested that letters of reprisal might be issued.[35] Such attempts to clear the Channel as the government recognised sometimes bore a suspicious resemblance to piracy legalised by success. In 1435, Wm. Morfote of Winchelsea petitioned for a pardon, having been, as he euphemistically put it, ‘in Dover Castle a long time and afterward come oute as wele as he myghte,’ and then, ‘of his gode hertly intente,’ had been at sea with 100 men to attack the king’s enemies. He found it difficult to obtain provisions which seems to have been his only motive in asking for a pardon. The answer to the petition, while granting the pardon for ‘an esy fyne,’ more plainly calls him an escaped prisoner.[36] He was member for Winchelsea in 1428.

Although Parliament was continually complaining of foreign piracy there can be no doubt that English seamen had nothing to learn, in that occupation, from their rivals. ‘Your shipping you employ to make war upon the poor merchants and to plunder and rob them of their merchandise, and you make yourselves plunderers and pirates,’ said a contemporary writer.[37] By a statute[38] of Henry V, the breaking of truce and safe conduct was made high treason, and a conservator of safe conducts, who was to be a person of position enjoying not less than £40 in land by the year, was to be appointed in every port. Under Henry VI, safe conducts were freely granted to neutrals to load goods in enemies’ ships, and protests were made by the Commons about their number and that they were not enrolled of record in the court of chancery and so led to loss and litigation.

[Sidenote: Henry VI:—Merchant Shipping.]

Notwithstanding the normal drawbacks of piracy and warfare, the over-sea trade of the kingdom seems to have been steadily expanding. A branch of traffic which employed many vessels, and must have been a valuable school of preparation for the longer voyages of the next generation, was what may be called, the pilgrim transport trade. The shrine of St James of Compostella was then the favourite objective of English external pilgrimage and there are innumerable licenses to shipowners to carry passengers out and home. In 1427-8 twenty-two licenses were granted, and in 1433-4 the number reached 65;[39] in 1445, 2100 persons were carried there and back.[40] Some of the licenses were granted to Soper, who was engaged in the business as well as in ordinary trade to Spain, and it is to be remarked that they were sometimes issued during the winter months—January, February, March,—showing that English seamanship was outgrowing the tradition of summer voyages. In 1449 we have the first sign of the bounty system on merchant ships of large size which, in the next century, systematised into five shillings a ton for those of 100 tons and upwards. John Taverner of Hull, had built the _Grace Dieu_, and in that year, was allowed certain privileges in connexion with lading the vessel in reward for his enterprise.[41] The document seems to imply that she was a new ship, but in 1444-5, she was exempted from the harbour dues at Calais because drawing too much water to enter the harbour,[42] and is probably referred to in 1442.[43]

There are two most valuable papers still existing which enable us to form some idea of the number and size of the merchantmen available for the service of the crown. The first of June 1439[44] is a list of payments for ships taken up for the transport of troops to Aquitaine, and is unfortunately mutilated in some places. Its contents may be thus classified:—

+----------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
| |Tons|Tons|Tons|Tons|Tons|Tons|Tons|Tons|Tons|
| | 100| 120| 140| 160| 200| 240| 260| 300| 360|
| +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
| London | | | 2 | | 1 | | 1 | 1 | |
| Hull | | 2 | | | | | 1 | | 1 |
| Saltash | | | | | | | 1 | | |
| Plymouth | | | | | 1 | | | | |
| Exeter | | | | | 1 | | | | |
| Fowey | | 1 | 1 | 1 | | | | | |
| Bideford | 1 | | | | | | | | |
| Bristol | | 2 | | | | | | | |
| Penzance | | 1 | | | | | | | |
| Barnstaple | | | 1 | 1 | | | | | |
| Southampton | | | 1 | | | | | | |
| Winchelsea | 1 | | | | | | | | |
| Ipswich | | | 1 | | | 1 | | | |
| Ash | | | | 2 | | | | | |
| Lynn | | | | 1 | | | 1 | | |
| Boston | | | | 1 | | | | | |
| Teignmouth[45] | | 1 | | | | | | | |
| Unknown[46] | | | 1 | 2 | | 2 | | | |
+----------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+

Twenty-two other vessels are of eighty tons, twenty of sixty, and six are under forty tons; in two cases the tonnage is not given, nine more are foreign including two from Bayonne, then an English possession, and ten entries are nearly altogether destroyed.

The next list, of 1451,[47] is also one of vessels impressed for an expedition to Aquitaine:—

+---------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
| |Tons|Tons|Tons|Tons|Tons|Tons|Tons|Tons|Tons|Tons|Tons|
| | 100| 120| 140| 160| 180| 200| 220| 260| 300| 350| 400|
| +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
| London | | | | | | | 1 | | 3 | 1 | |
| Bristol | | | | | | | | 1 | | | |
| Southampton | 2 | | | | | 1 | | 1 | 1 | | |
| Dartmouth[48] | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | | 2 | 1 | | | | 1 |
| Plymouth | | 2 | | 2 | | 1 | | | | | |
| Lynn | | | | | | 1 | 1 | 1 | | | |
| Fowey | 1 | 1 | | | | 1 | 1 | | 1 | | |
| Looe | 1 | | | | 1 | | | | | | |
| Weymouth | | 1 | | | 1 | | | | | | |
| Penzance | | | | | | | | 1 | | | |
| Falmouth | 1 | | | | | | | | | | |
| Portsmouth | 1 | | | | | | | | | | |
| Winchelsea | | | 1 | | | | | | | | |
| Ash | | 1 | | | | | | | | | |
| Hoke | | 1 | | | | | | | | | |
| Calais | 1 | | | | | 2 | | | | | |
+---------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+

One vessel of one hundred and forty, one of two hundred, and one of two hundred and twenty tons belong to places unnamed, and there are twenty-three ships of from fifty to ninety tons.