Chapter IV: Introduction: The Navy Before 1509 (2)

There are, then, at least thirty-six ships in the 1439, and fifty in the 1451, list of one hundred tons and upwards. It must be remembered that they are not schedules of the total available reserves drawn up during a naval war, with an enemy’s fleet at sea, or under the pressure of a threatened invasion, but merely represent the number of vessels required to transport a certain military force, and form only a proportion—whether large or small we know not—of the maritime strength of the country. Certainly the numbers for Bristol did not represent the total resources of that city, and Newcastle and Yarmouth, to name only two flourishing ports, do not occur in either list. Assuming the method of tonnage measurement to have been the same during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries we have here registers which will compare favourably, both in number and size of vessels, with those of the earlier twenty years of the reign of Elizabeth,[49] and imply a naval force superior in extent to anything existing during the greater part of the sixteenth century. There is contemporary evidence from a French author, one therefore not likely to be more than just to England, as to the flourishing condition of the merchant marine during the reign of Henry VI.[50] The author makes the English herald claim that his countrymen ‘are more richly and amply provided at sea, with fine and powerful ships than any other nation of Christendom, so that they are kings of the sea, since none can resist them; and they who are strongest on the sea may call themselves kings.’ The answer of the French herald, too long to quote, after admitting that ‘you have a great number of fine ships,’ is only devoted to showing that France possesses all the natural advantages which go to the formation of maritime power, and that the French king, ‘when he pleases,’ would become supreme at sea. Obviously down to the time of the loss of the English conquests in France, and the outbreak of the wars of the Roses, the wave of prosperity which commenced with the century had not altogether spent its force.

Great or small, the progress was, at anyrate, not a bounty-fed one, since shipowners were experiencing the usual difficulties in obtaining payment merely for the use of their vessels. The bill for ships provided in 1450, came to £13,000, nearly one fourth of the yearly revenue of the crown, but the Treasury, exhausted by the ceaseless demands made upon it by the garrisons in France could not pay.[51] The king, therefore, appealed to his creditors and has left it on record that as £13,000 was a sum

‘Wyche myght not esely be perveyed at that tyme wherefore
we comauded oure trusty and welbelovid Richard Greyle of
London and others to labour and entrete the seyd maistres,
possessores, and maryners for agrement of a lasse sume, the
wych maistres, possessores, and maryners by laboar and trete
made with hem accordyng to our seid comaundement agreed hem to
take and reseve the sume of £6,200 in and for ful contentacyon
of their seid dutees; and bycause the seid £6,200 myght not at
that tyme esely be ffurnysshed in redy mony we graunted to ye
seid maistres and possessores by oure several letters patentes
conteynyng diveise sumys of money amountyng to the sume of
£2,884 that they, their deputees or attornies shold have to
reseyve in theire owne handes almaner of custumes and subsidies
of wolle, wollefell and other merchaundises comyng into dyverse
portes.’[52]

This was perhaps all they obtained of the £13,000, and such incidents, of which this was doubtless only one, explain the discontent of the trading classes with the house of Lancaster. Shipowners and merchants might be trusted, in the long run, to take care of their own interests, but the seamen were more helpless, and it may be supposed that if employers had to accept less than a fourth of their dues the men did not fare better if as well. Their protests were sometimes neither tardy nor voiceless. The murder of Bishop Adam de Moleyns at Portsmouth on July 9, 1450, is directly attributed to an attempt to force sailors to accept a smaller amount than they had earned, and the bias towards the house of York, shown by the maritime population generally, may be ascribed to this cause.

[Sidenote: Henry VI:—The Royal Ships hired out.]

Henry V had not considered it beneath the dignity of the crown to hire out his ships to merchants for voyages to Bordeaux and elsewhere when they were not required for service; the Council of Regency, therefore did not hesitate to follow the same course. In 1423 the _Holigost_ was lent to some Lombard merchants for a journey to Zealand and back for £20; and the _Valentine_ from Southampton to Calais for £10.[53] As the _Holigost_ was of 760 tons a rate of £300, in modern values, or about eight shillings a ton for a voyage probably occupying nearly two months, cannot be considered excessive, and does not imply any great fear of sea risks, whether from man or the elements.

[Sidenote: And sold.]

In the meantime, in virtue of the Council order of March 3, 1423, the destruction of a navy progressed merrily. During 1423 the following vessels were sold to merchants of London, Dartmouth, Bristol, Southampton, and Plymouth, and, from the prices, many of them must have been in good condition[54]:—

_George_ (Carrack), £133 6 8
_George_ (Balinger), 20 0 0
_Christopher_, 166 13 4
_Katrine Breton_ (Balinger), 20 0 0
_Thomas_, 133 6 8
_Grande Marie_, 200 0 0
_Holigost_ (Spayne), 200 0 0
_Nicholas_, 76 13 4
_Swan_, 18 0 0
_Cracchere_, 26 13 4
_Fawcon_, 50 0 0

Anchors and other stores were sold and, in 1424, the storehouse and forge at Southampton went for £66, 13s 4d; if there were to be no ships there was certainly no reason to keep up any establishment for their repairs. In the same year eight other vessels, mostly described as worn out, followed their sisters. They were sold for very low prices and the description of their state may be exact, although two at least were nearly new, and what we know of administrative methods in later times does not warrant an implicit faith, especially under a Council of Regency. When a 550 ton ship, like the _Marie Sandwich_, brought only £13, it must be assumed that she was almost worthless even for breaking up, or that the proceedings were not devoid of collusion.

[Sidenote: Henry VI:—Subsequent Naval Administration.]

We have no record of the expenditure for the first years of Henry’s reign but, from 31st August 1427 to 31st August 1433, the sum of £809, 10s 2d was spent by Soper for naval purposes, being an average of £134, 18s 4d a year.[55] The _Trinity Royal_, _Holigost_, _Grace Dieu_, and _Jesus_ were still in existence, but dismantled and unrigged at Bursledon. Apparently there were no officers attached to them, or at Southampton, of sufficient experience to assume responsibility, since Peter Johnson, master mariner of Sandwich, was paid for coming to superintend the removal of the masts of the _Grace Dieu_. The _Trinity Royal_ was so far unseaworthy and useless as to be imbedded in the mud of the river Hamble, and fifteen Genoese and other foreign master mariners were employed about dismasting her. There seems at this time to have been some purpose of rebuilding the _Jesus_, because she was taken to a dock lately prepared at Southampton, and, of the whole amount before mentioned, £165, 6s 10d was laid out in unrigging her, towing to Southampton, expenses of dock, etc. As the sails and stores of the vessels sold in 1423-4 were still under Soper’s care, a new storehouse, 160 feet long and 14 feet broad, was built at Southampton. That at London had not been closed in 1423, possibly because it may have been within the precincts of the Tower, and much of the equipment of the four great ships still remaining was kept in it.

During the four years ending with the 31st August 1437, £96, 0s 2½d was received from the Exchequer and £72, 1s 6d from the sale of cordage, etc., belonging to the ships;[56] the expenditure was £143, 6s 5¾d. For the two years ending 31st August 1439, the outlay on the Royal Navy was £8, 9s 7d. The ‘Libel of English Policie,’ which is now held to have represented the views of the governing statesmen was therefore given to the world when the estimates for the crown navy averaged £4, 4s 6½d a year.

Economy had been further exercised by the discharge of the shipkeepers as superfluous, and possibly one of the results of this careful thrift was the destruction of the _Grace Dieu_ by fire, while lying on the mud at Bursledon, during the night of the 7th January 1439.[57] Some loose fittings were saved and 15,400lbs. of iron recovered from the burnt wreck. Soper’s next account, from 31st August 1439, ends on 7th April 1442, during which time he received £3, 10s from the Exchequer and £3, 0s 11¾d for 1222lbs. of lead from the ships. The disbursements were £4, 16s 4d, chiefly incurred in breaking up the cabins[58] on the _Trinity Royal_ and _Holigost_ and taking away the timber; the _Jesus_ appears to have been too far perished to experience even this fate.[59]

From 7th April 1442, Soper was succeeded by Richard Clyvedon, a yeoman of the crown[60] by Letters Patent, dated 26th March 1442, but at the smaller fee of one shilling a day which had been received by Soper’s predecessors. In all probability Soper’s salary was very irregularly, if at all paid, and an official outlay which averaged some £1, 10s a year, offered few opportunities in the way of perquisites to a prosperous merchant. For five years and ninety days, from 7th April 1442 until 6th July 1447, the receipts were £61, 2s 7d, all from the sale of stores originally belonging to the vessels sold in 1423-4; no expenses of any sort had to be met since the bare hulks of the _Jesus_, _Trinity_, and _Holigost_, still existing were left to take care of themselves.[61] The next and last accounts continue for the following four years and nine months to the 7th April 1452, when they cease. The amount received was £73, 11s 4½d, again altogether from the sale of stores; the expenditure was £16, 12s 10d, mostly referable to the cost of a chain fixed across the Hamble.[62] As only the rotting hulls of the _Trinity_ and _Holigost_ now remained, it is difficult to estimate its value so far as they were concerned, but for the first time for nearly forty years, there were now fears of French reprisals.

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

It must not, however, be supposed that because the Royal Navy was not kept up, no measures were taken to protect maritime interests. The predecessors of Henry V had employed a combination of royal and impressed ships; Henry V apparently intended to increase the crown navy until it was powerful enough to enable him to rely on it for every purpose but that of transport. Rightly or wrongly the Protector and Council adopted a different system and one which was continued through all the political changes of the reign. Instead of keeping up a royal force, or of pressing ships and placing them under the crown officers, indentures were entered into now and again with certain persons supposed to be competent to provide under their own command an agreed number of ships and men to keep the sea for a specified time. In favour of this plan it was perhaps argued that it was cheaper than any other, and that it should prove sufficiently effective as the coast of France was either in English occupation or belonged to a neutral or ally in the Duke of Brittany, and that an expensive Royal Navy was unnecessary when a French navy was impossible and only the ordinary rovers of the sea had to be met and destroyed. Against it might be urged that, besides the delay inevitable to the process of collecting merchantmen at a given _rendezvous_, it was the object of the persons undertaking the work to make a profit on the bargain and that they would probably minimise effort, time, and expense, as much as practicable. So far as the scanty evidence enables us to judge it is possible that, until the loss of the French coastline, the plan, had it been carried on under the authoritative supervision of an able and honest crown official, might have worked successfully. Doubtless the economy promised was the final argument because, once the Royal Navy had been suffered to perish, there was never throughout the reign any financial possibility of restoring it. By 1433 the royal expenses were nearly double the revenue; and the Lord Treasurer, Cromwell, told the King, ‘nowe daily many warrantis come to me of paiementes ... of moche more than all youre revenus wold come to thowe they wer not assigned afore; whereas hit aperith by your bokes of record which have been showed that they have been assigned nygh for this eleven yeere next folowyng.’[63]

As many of the debts of Henry V for hire of ships and men’s wages were still unpaid, the conditions were evidently not favourable to the direct action of the crown either in replacing its own navy or taking ships into pay. An intermediary of recognised position to whom a payment was usually at once made on account, doubtless inspired more confidence in owners and men. Although not the first in point of time, the commission of Sir John Speke by an agreement of 2nd May 1440, is noticeable in that the service was apparently the first in which the men were paid and victualled at a weekly rate, one and sixpence a week wages and the same for victuals.[64] For at least two centuries the rate had been threepence a day, with usually an additional sixpence a week ‘reward,’ and this reduction of pay seems to imply that there were plenty of men to be obtained. In 1442 the Commons themselves arranged the period—2nd February to 11th November—during which a fleet was to be at sea, and even designated the ships which were to serve, together with the allowances to officers and men.[65] There were to be eight ships, all merchantmen, manned by 1200 men, and each of the eight was to be attended by a barge and balinger having respectively 80 and 40 men apiece. There were also four pinnaces. One of the ships is the _Nicholas of the Tower_ of Bristol. ‘Of the Tower’ was the man-of-war mark, and this is the only one found in the lists of merchantmen of the century. The _Nicholas of the Tower_ of Henry V was sold to some purchasers belonging to Dartmouth, but may have passed into Bristol ownership. It was the crew of this vessel, usually described as a man-of-war, who seized and executed the Duke of Suffolk on his passage to Flanders when exiled in 1450.

The seamen’s pay, two shillings a month, if not an error of entry, can only be explained by the expectation of a liberal division of prize-money, one half of which was to be shared among masters, quartermasters, soldiers and sailors. The other half was divided into thirds, of which two went to the owners and one to the captains and under-captains. The victualling was now one and twopence a week. The captains and under-captains were military officers; there was no ship-captain in the modern sense although the master, whose pay was sixpence a day, was his nearest equivalent. The conditions were beginning to slowly change during this century, but hitherto the fighting had been done on board ship by the soldiers embarked for the purpose. The duty of the sailors, whether officers or men, was only to handle the vessel at sea or in action. The fleet does not appear to have put to sea till August, although the undertakers, Sir William Ewe, Miles Stapylton, and John Heron, were receiving money for its preparation in June.[66] In 1445 the charges for the passage of Margaret of Anjou when she came to share the crown do not show the same tendency to lower wages; masters were still paid sixpence a day, but the men received one and ninepence a week and their sixpence ‘reward,’ and pages (boys) one and three halfpence a week.[67] During the winter of 1444-5 a Cinque Ports squadron was in commission from September to the following April, and this must be almost the last instance of the performance of the ancient service of the ports in a complete manner. Twenty-six vessels were provided—four from Hastings, seven from Winchelsea, four from Rye, Lydd, and Romney, two from Hythe, three from Dover, five from Sandwich, and one from Faversham, numbers which perhaps indicate the relative importance of the towns at this time. The whole cost of the fleet was only £672, 9s 1½d, while Margaret’s journey was considered worth £1810, 9s 7½d.[68] The tonnage of the Cinque Ports vessels is not given, but that they were of no great size may be inferred from the small number of men in each.

In 1449 Alexander Eden and Gervays Clifton, afterwards Treasurer of Calais, were entrusted with the care of the Channel and, although their deeds have left no mark in history, they were considered so satisfactory at the time that, in the following year, Clifton was granted a special reward of four hundred marks for his good service. In 1450 Clifton and Eden were again performing the same duty and, in 1452, Clifton and Sir Edward Hull. Certainly there was now every reason for redoubled vigilance. Between 1449 and 1451 the English Conquests in France had gone like a dream; only Calais was left, and that was considered to be imminently threatened. Notwithstanding loans, mortgages of revenues, and money obtained by pawning the crown jewels, the government owed £372,000, while the receipts from the crown estates were not more than £5000 a year, and the yearly charge of the household alone was £23,000. If we add to these facts a saintly king, and an inefficient government, the first mutterings of the storm of civil war, and a foe, exhausted it is true, but eager for vengeance, we are able to partly picture the extent of the losses in honour and prosperity which made one of the first acts of the Duke of York, when created Protector on 27th March 1454, the appointment of a fresh commission to guard the seas. On the following 3rd April, the tunnage and poundage for three years was assigned to the Earls of Salisbury, Shrewsbury, Wiltshire, Worcester, and Oxford, the Lords Stourton and Fitzwalter, and Sir Robert Vere, for that purpose.[69] That immediate action might be taken a loan of £1000 was raised in the proportions of London £300, Bristol £150, Southampton £100, Norwich and Yarmouth £100, Ipswich, Colchester and Malden £100, York and Hull £100, New Sarum, Poole and Weymouth £50, Lynn £50, Boston £30, and Newcastle £20, to be repaid out of the tunnage and poundage.[70]

[Sidenote: Henry VI:—The Civil War.]

In 1455, the first battle of St Albans was fought and there was no further question of naval matters until Edward IV was on the throne. Naval power appears to have had but little influence on the result of the wars of the Roses, nor, except at one moment, is the command of the sea shown to be a factor of any great importance in the struggle. Such as it was the Yorkists possessed it, as owners and seamen both affected the white Rose, but the Lancastrians seem never to have experienced any difficulty in obtaining necessary shipping, when in power on land, during the years of war. In 1459, however, when York fled to Ireland, and Warwick to Calais, the attachment the seamen generally felt for the latter enabled him to hold his own there and in the Channel, which perhaps had no inconsiderable influence on the final issue. The naval weakness of the Lancastrians compelled them, instead of protecting the English coasts off the French ports, to issue commissions to array the _posse comitatus_ in the maritime counties to repel invasion, and the sack of Sandwich in 1457, by the Seneschal de Brézé was an outcome of the changed conditions. But Warwick’s fight on 29th May 1458, with a fleet of Spanish ships of more than double his strength, and his capture of six of them, though little better than open piracy, was a sharp reminder that English seamen had not lost the spirit which animated their fathers, and, under the right conditions could still emulate their deeds.[71]

Unless the merchant marine had degenerated very rapidly there must have still been plenty of seagoing ships available in English ports, but the subjoined Treasury warrant perhaps indicates the difficulty the Lancastrians experienced in chartering ships and obtaining men. On 5th April 1460, Henry was once more king and his adversaries in exile, and an order of that date directs the officials of the Exchequer that ‘of suche money as is lent unto us by oure trewe subgittes for keping of the see and othire causes ye do paye to Julyan Cope capitaigne of a carake of Venise nowe beinge in the Tamyse £100 for a moneth, and to Julyan Ffeso capitayne of a nother carrake of Jeane[72] being at Sandwich £105 for a moneth the which two carrakes be entretid to doo us service.’ This is of course not conclusive because foreign vessels were at times hired by all our kings although English ships were available. But in June 1460 the Lancastrian Duke of Exeter, with a superior force, met Warwick at sea, but did not venture to attack him, being unable to trust his men. If, therefore, the men were not reliable there was good reason for the employment of foreigners.

[Sidenote: Henry VI:—Results of the Contract System.]

Administering the navy by contract had been tried and found wanting; it had never been resorted to before and was never used again. It had proved expensive and ineffective. There can be little doubt that had one half the money wasted in spasmodic efforts been devoted to the maintenance of a small but efficient royal force, always ready for action, the results, if less profitable to the intermediaries, would have been better for the nation. But before all and above all, whatever plan was adopted, there was necessary the hand to control and the brain to govern. The military organisation had been systematised for centuries and would go on working more or less easily whatever the personal qualities of the ruler. The Navy was not yet to the same extent an organised and permanent force, and its strength in any reign was still dependent on the initiative of the sovereign. Henry obtained canonisation at the expense of the lives and prosperity of his subjects, of his followers, and of his son. It had been better for them if he had possessed more of the sinful strength of a man and less of the flaccid virtue of a saint.

[Sidenote: Henry VI:—Docks, etc.]

There is nothing known positively of any improvements in the form or equipments of ships during this reign. There are no inventories in detail between the time of Henry V and the first years of Henry VII. But while in the first quarter of the fifteenth century we find that men-of-war possess, at the most, two masts and two sails, carry three or four guns, and one or two rudimentary bowsprits, at the close of the same century they are three or four masters with topmasts and topsails, bowsprit and spritsail, and conforming to the characteristics and type which remained generally constant for more than two centuries. It is quite certain that no sudden transition occurred; the changes came slowly with the passing years, but they have left no traces in the records. Whether docks were used in England before the fifteenth century may be doubtful, but the word is in common use in the reign of Henry V, although it did not denote what we now understand by such a structure. Its derivation from the Low Latin _Diga_ a ditch, more exactly indicates its character, but the word was employed in more than one sense, and even after the construction of the first dry dock at Portsmouth in 1496, we find in the sixteenth century an arrangement of timber round a ship in the Thames, to protect her from the ice, called a dock. The _Nomenclator Navalis_ of 1625 describes a wet dock as ‘any creek or place where we may cast in a ship out of the tideway in the ooze, and then when a ship hath made herself (as it were) a place to lie in we say the ship hath docked herself,’ a description which much more nearly portrays the dock of the fifteenth century than the dry dock of to-day. The following details of a dock for the _Grace Dieu_ in July 1434 are perhaps the fullest to be found, and are taken from Soper’s accounts for that year:—[73]

‘And in money paid Thomas at Hythe, and 29 men labourers, for
working about, making and constructing anew[74] of a fence
called a hedge,[75] by the advice and ordinance of discreet and
wise mariners, that is to say on the Wose,[76] near Brisselden
aforesaid for the safe keeping and government of the King’s
ship, and to the putting out and drying up of the sea water
strongly running from the said King’s ship because the same
is weak: and also that the said King’s ship may be kept more
safely and easily in its said bed[77] called dok within the
said enclosure; taking for this work made and built by the
said ——[78] by agreement with him made in gross for the King’s
advantage the said month of July 12th year xxviiiˢ viᵈ. And
in money paid John Osmond, mariner, working about towing and
bringing timber and branches with his two boats for the service
of the same fence called an hegge[79] and there about the same
employed iiˢ. And in money paid to the said Thomas at Hythe
and to 29 other men his fellows for labouring and watching in
the said ship of the King’s about towing and conducting the
same from the same Brisselden where first she was in mooring
and in rode to the said enclosure called Dok, and there to the
placing, directing and guarding of the said ship of the King’s
within its bed called Dok, and to the attending on the safe
custody and superintendence of the same for three days, working
day and night, besides expenses of victualling, taking for this
work and occupation for the time aforesaid by agreement with
him in that cause made in the King’s service in gross the month
and year aforesaid xˢ.’

It may be inferred from this that the ship was brought to a suitable spot at a spring tide, possibly hauled still further aground by mechanical means, and when she had bedded herself, surrounded by timber and brushwood, perhaps puddled with clay. It will be seen[80] that in 1496 a drydock, the first known to have been made in England was constructed at Portsmouth, but we are without knowledge of the intermediate steps, or whether there were no intervening improvements, and the dock at Portsmouth copied in its completeness from one already existing abroad.

[Sidenote: Measurement of Tonnage.]

It has been pointed out that the value of the comparison between fifteenth and sixteenth century ships depends greatly on the method of measuring tonnage, and on that subject we have unfortunately but little information. The Bordeaux wine trade was the earliest, and for two centuries one of the most important branches of English maritime traffic; ships were therefore measured by their carrying capacity in Bordeaux cask. The first arithmetical rule for calculating a ship’s tonnage was devised in 1582, and that rule made the net or cask tonnage nearly the same as the average cargo. The unit of measurement was therefore the tun of wine in two butts of 252 gallons which in 1626 were estimated to occupy 60 cubic feet of space. The ancient wine gallon occupies 231 cubic inches and a tun measures strictly therefore only 33¹¹⁄₁₆ cubic feet, but the reckoning is by butts, and much waste of space must be allowed for in view of the usual shape of a cask. In 1626 certain experiments described on a later page were carried out on the _Adventure_ of Ipswich, and it was found that while her burden in Bordeaux cask was 207 tons net, and 276 gross,[81] her tonnage by the Elizabethan rule was again almost exactly the same. If, in the fifteenth century, the shipper allowed 60 cubic feet for two butts of wine, and the allowance of 1626 was doubtless the outcome of long experience, there could have been but little difference between the ship of Henry VI, and indeed of earlier reigns, and that of the period of Elizabeth.

[Sidenote: Edward IV:—General Policy.]

There is even less material for the naval history of the reigns of Edward IV and Richard III than for that of Henry VI; if, as is probable, a naval administration existed, no records have come down to us. Edward seized the crown on 4th March 1461, but it was not until after the battle of Tewkesbury in 1471 that he could consider himself really and indubitably king. The uncertainty of his position during the intervening ten years must have prevented the systematic organisation of a naval department, but he was not remiss in, so far as was possible, holding the command of the Channel. Doubtless his experience with Warwick at Calais in 1459 had taught him its importance. Not long after Towton, an English fleet under the command of the Earls of Essex and Kent ravaged the coast of Brittany in revenge for the sympathy shown to Margaret by the reigning Duke. In 1462 another fleet was at sea, but we have no details of its action, although it was no doubt fitted for service to anticipate or deal with Margaret’s landing at Bamborough in October. An agreement dated 1st February 1462, placed naval affairs under the control of the Earl of Warwick for three years, the Earl’s salary being £1000 a year.[82] If Edward’s experience in 1459 had instructed him in the significance of the command of Calais and the fleet, he may not have willingly appointed his powerful subject to a position which made the latter practically independent of the crown; it may be, however, that he had little choice, and that Warwick’s power in the country, and his popularity with the seamen made his nomination almost a matter of necessity.

Notwithstanding this indenture made with Warwick we find that in July 1463 the Earl of Worcester was in charge of naval matters, and, in August, that nobleman is described as ‘captain and keeper of the sea.’[83] Warwick may have resigned or may have constituted Worcester his deputy. A later paper[84] tells us that Worcester acted by Letters Patent of 30th June 1463. This would not clear Warwick’s term of office but in any case these appointments of Warwick, or of Worcester, or of both, appear to have been the last survivals of the custom of putting the safeguard of the seas out to contract. And the survival was more due to political conditions than to any intention or desire of renewing the old system. The name of Richard Clyvedon, who succeeded Soper as clerk of the ships in 1442, disappears after a few years; as no payments were made even for his salary, it may be assumed that he either died, resigned, or was dismissed, and the post was not filled up. Under the circumstances there was no use for a clerk of the ships as the contractors who engaged to provide ships and men would prefer to employ their own servants to manage the details. In 1465 Piers Bowman is referred to as ‘clerk of our shippes,’ but his patent is not to be found nor any payments by way of salary, and the document in question[85] is the only one in which his occupancy of the office is mentioned. Three years later, in 1468, Sir John Howard, afterwards Duke of Norfolk, was entrusted with the payments due for the passage of Edward’s sister Margaret on her marriage with Charles of Burgundy. Howard possessed ships of his own, and on 27th August 1470, received twenty marks on account of the victualling of two ships which he had equipped ‘to take certaine rovers that lie in the Tamyse mouth or there aboute, and robbe bothe the kinges subgittes and frendes.’ This was little more than a fortnight before Warwick landed at Dartmouth and shows how little Edward feared the Earl, for he made no preparation to intercept his passage, and his care, even in his uncertain position, of the commercial interests of his subjects.[86] All through the second civil war, Warwick retained the command of the Channel, nor does Edward, whether from indifference or inability, appear to have made any attempt to wrest it from him. He relied for assistance chiefly on the Burgundian navy, of which Philip de Comines says that it was so powerful that ‘no man durst stir in the narrow seas for fear of it.’ By a navy, however, De Comines must be understood as meaning the general shipping strength of the state. Even after Tewkesbury Edward was once more reminded that supremacy on land was only possible to the ruler who controlled the sea. The bastard of Fauconberg,[87] Warwick’s subordinate and in command of his fleet, seized the Thames and raised Kent and Essex; had there been any Lancastrian power able to support him Edward’s newly regained crown would have been once more in jeopardy.

[Sidenote: Edward IV:—The Keeper of the Ships.]

By Letters Patent of 12th December 1480, the office of clerk of the ships was once more reconstituted in the person of Thomas Rogers, with a salary of one shilling and sixpence a day for himself and a clerk, and two shillings a day for travelling expenses, when employed on the king’s service. In later patents Rogers is described as a citizen and fishmonger, and as a merchant of London, and as having been purser of a king’s ship. He so successfully trimmed his opinions to the varying political currents, as to retain his office during the reigns of Richard III and Henry VII, until his death in 1488.

[Sidenote: The Royal Ships.]

The re-appointment of a keeper of the ships was the natural corollary of the new formation of a crown navy which was going on slowly throughout the reign. As early as July 1461 the _Margaret_ of Orwell, or of Ipswich, is spoken of as ‘our great ship,’ and was doubtless a merchantman bought by the crown. Without collateral evidence, however, the expression ‘our ship’ does not always prove crown ownership; the phrase seems to have been often used in writing of ships pressed for special service. The _Margaret’s_ equipment included 200 bows at eighteenpence apiece, 600 sheaves of arrows at eighteenpence the sheaf, bow strings at five shillings a gross, 200 spears at sixteenpence each and 1000 darts £5. As it also comprised 600 ‘gunstones’[88] at ten shillings the hundred and 1000 lbs. of powder at fivepence a lb., she must have carried cannon as well as the more primitive weapons.[89] In 1463, a caravel of Salcombe was bought for £80, and the shares of the _John Evangelist_ of Dartmouth purchased from the joint owners in that and the following year.[90] In 1468 the _Mary of Grace_ was bought from Sir Henry Waver[91] and in July 1470 250 marks were given for a Portuguese ship, the _Garse_, obtained from John de Poinct of Portingale.[92] An order on the Exchequer did not however necessarily mean prompt payment unless money was plentiful, and just a year later another warrant was made out for John de Poinct as he was still unpaid; not long after there is mention made of the _St Peter_, a Spanish ship bought for £50 which sum had also long been owing.

In 1473 the _Grace Dieu_ once more occurs among the names of men-of-war. Marcus Symonson of Causere was paid £62, 8s 2d for pitch, tar, masts, and other necessaries supplied by him for the ‘new making of our shippe called the _Grace Dieu_.’[93] Unless she was one of the vessels previously bought rebuilt and renamed, she must have been a new ship but there are no other particulars concerning her. In 1472 there is a grant of an annuity of £20 a year to this Mark Symonson, owner of the _Antony_ of Causere,[94] for the good services he had done and would do; this large reward, equal to at least £200 a year now, points to the possibility of his having been captain and owner of the vessel which brought Edward over to Ravenspurn in 1471. Another Spanish ship, the _Carycon_ was purchased in 1478 for £100 and in the same year William Combresale, who afterwards succeeded Rogers as clerk of the ships, is referred to as master of the king’s ship _Trinity_, another new name. Carycon or Carraquon was simply old French for a large carrack, and the ship, shortly afterwards, became the _Mary of the Tower_.[95] With the _Carycon_ and the _Trinity_ there is found, ‘the king’s ship called the _Fawcon_,’ and in 1483 Rogers was ordered ‘to repaire and make of the newe our shippe the _Mary Ashe_,’ possibly the older _Mary of Grace_. The last purchase is at the close of the reign in January 1483, when 100 marks was paid to Roger Kelsale, collector of customs at Southampton for his share in a bark of Southampton lately bought.

[Sidenote: Edward IV:—Naval and Commercial Policy.]

It is obvious from this list that Edward had set himself to reverse the practice of the preceding forty years, and had determined to restore the Navy. He must have taken a certain pride in it and in the appearance of the men, since, for the first time, we find a payment on one occasion for ‘jackettes’ for the sailors.[96] His interest in the men did not extend, however, to arresting the tendency to lower wages which were now one shilling and threepence a week, while the victualling was reckoned at one shilling and a halfpenny.[97] He had been granted in 1465, tunnage and poundage for life and therefore always had at command money to be devoted to naval purposes. Nor was he indifferent to the commercial interests of the kingdom. In 1464 a navigation act, the first consented to by the Crown since the reign of Richard II came into force, and although it was allowed to lapse at the end of three years was an earnest of future and more effective legislation. He is said to have himself engaged in trade, and the commercial treaties with Burgundy, Brittany and Castile, show that he understood the sources of national wealth. Some of Edward’s business transactions were with the Italian cities, and that the field of trade was generally enlarging is shown by the appointment in 1484 of a consul at Florence, because ‘certain merchants and others from England intend to frequent foreign parts, and chiefly Italy with their ships and merchandise.’ The old custom of hiring out men-of-war for trading voyages was soon revived and, shortly before Bosworth field, the _Grace Dieu_ was lent to two London merchants for a Mediterranean journey but was finally kept back for the protection of the coasts.

The short and troubled reign of Richard III did not allow that monarch much time for naval development, but the crown service was not allowed to retrogress and some fresh ships were purchased. In January 1485 the _Nicholas_ of London was bought from Thos. Grafton, a London merchant, for 100 marks, and the _Governor_ from Thos. Grafton and two others for £600.[98] There seems to have been no attempt during the reigns of Richard and his brother, to form any centre for naval equipment and for stores, such as had existed at Southampton and Bursledon under Henry V, and at other places in the preceding centuries. Ships were fitted at Erith, or in the Orwell, or wherever they happened to be lying when required for service.

[Sidenote: Henry VII:—The Royal Ships.]

In popular belief Henry VII shares with his son and grand-daughter, the credit of founding the modern navy. This view is so far unfounded, that, although its strength did not recede during his reign, and he prepared the way for further progress, he did not increase the force and reorganise the administration as did Henry VIII, nor use it with effect as did Elizabeth. Henry VII still relied on hired merchantmen to form the bulk of his fleets, an assistance his son almost succeeded in renouncing for squadrons of the same strength. In 1590 out of eighteen vessels at sea only two were men-of-war. There are no accounts extant for the whole reign of the expenditure on the navy, but the amount for the first three years was £1077,[99] and for 1495-8 £2060[100] exclusive of the cost of the two large ships, the _Regent_ and _Sovereign_, built by his orders. At any rate these sums represent a much more acute appreciation of the necessity for sea power than that shown by his immediate predecessors.

The following is an attempt, perhaps imperfect, at the navy list of this reign:

_Grace Dieu_
_Mary of the Tower_
_Governor_
_Martin Garsya_
_Sovereign_
_Regent_
_Le Prise_ or _Margaret_ of Dieppe
_Bonaventure_
_Fawcon_
_Trinity_
_Sweepstake_
_Mary Fortune_
_Carvel of Ewe_

Of these the _Grace Dieu_, _Mary of the Tower_, _Governor_, _Martin Garsya_, _Fawcon_, and _Trinity_ were obtained with the crown, the _Margaret_ was captured in 1490. Only the _Regent_, _Sovereign_, _Carvel of Ewe_, _Sweepstake_ and _Mary Fortune_ were new, the two latter being small vessels built at a charge of £231.[101] The _Carvel of Ewe_,[102] after having been in the royal service by hire, was bought at some period of the reign. The name of the _Bonaventure_ only occurs once as ‘our ship called the _Bonaventure_ ... William Nashe, yeoman of our crown hath in his rule and governance,’[103] a reference which appears to point unmistakeably to a royal ship; she may have been the bark of Southampton bought by Edward IV, or one of Richard’s purchases. The _Martin Garsya_ was given to Sir Richard Guldeford in December 1485, the _Governor_ disappears after 1488, and the _Mary of the Tower_ after 1496; the _Fawcon_, _Trinity_, and _Margaret_, after 1503. In 1486 Henry commissioned a trusted officer, Sir Richard Guldeford, Master of the Ordnance, to superintend the construction of a large ship, afterwards called the _Regent_, at Reding on the river Rother, in Kent.[104] An Exchequer warrant of 15th April 1487 directs the Treasurer to pay the money necessary ‘for the building of a ship of which he[105] has the oversight in the county of Kent of 600 tons, like unto a ship called the _Columbe_ of France.’ Nothing is now known of the _Columbe_, which Henry had perhaps seen when at Rouen, and which had evidently impressed him. Payments on account of the _Regent_ to the amount of £951, 7s 10d can still be traced, but this sum doubtless does not represent the whole cost. While the _Regent_ was on the stocks the _Grace Dieu_ was delivered to Sir Reginald Bray to be broken up and the material employed in building a new vessel, the _Sovereign_.[106] In neither instance had Rogers, the official head of the administration, anything to do with the construction of these ships. Both Guldeford and Bray were men of rank and credit near the king’s person, and the work may have been assigned to them as a mark of confidence and as a cheap way of conferring some pecuniary advantages on them.

The chronicler Stow says, under the year 1503, ‘the same King Henry made a ship named the _Great Harry_, which ship with the furniture cost him much.’ Naval historians have successively accepted this statement, but all that can be said is that there is no trace of such a ship in the State Papers. Stow’s naval details are frequently more than doubtful. Under 1512 he writes of ‘the _Regent_ or _Sovereign_’ of England; the _Regent_ was never called the _Sovereign_ which has an individual existence down to 1525, but he may have meant the sovereign, or greatest ship.

[Sidenote: Henry VII:—The Clerk of the Ships.]

When Rogers died in 1488, he was a man of substance and a landed proprietor in Hertfordshire. He was succeeded by William Comersall or Cumbresale, of whom we know nothing except that he had held executive rank at sea during the reign of Edward IV, as master of the _Trinity_. He appears to have been content with a position of minor importance, and during his term of office payments in connection with the _Regent_ and the _Sovereign_ were frequently made through other persons. From 19th May 1495, Robert Brygandine was appointed, and while held by this man, practically, although not nominally the last of the mediæval clerks or keepers, the post regained some of its former dignity. Brygandine was a ‘yeoman of the crown,’ that is to say in the personal service of the sovereign, and, on one occasion, mentions that he had received certain orders from the king _vivâ voce_. In 1490 he had been granted an annuity of £10 a year, besides other favours, and altogether seems to have belonged to a higher class socially than his predecessors, and was therefore better able to maintain the independence of his office.

[Sidenote: General Policy—The Bounty.]

Although Henry VII, during a reign of twenty-four years, added only five or six vessels to the navy, it cannot be said that he was indifferent to the maritime strength of the country, or to that of the navy proper. The political conditions did not require fleets at sea as they had done in the fourteenth, and again did in the succeeding century. The objects sought by Louis XI, Charles VIII, and Louis XII did not necessitate strength at sea, at anyrate in the Channel, and when Henry VII did act abroad English ships were only engaged in the unopposed transport of troops. The existence, however, of a Royal Navy did not prevent Perkin Warbeck’s attempted landing in Kent, nor impede his sailing about the narrow seas, subsequently, unmolested and apparently at his own pleasure. Nevertheless Henry recognised that, as fleets were then constituted, the naval strength of the crown was, in the end, dependent on that of the country generally, and acted upon that view in a way that was new in English history. He commenced giving the bounty on the construction of large ships which remained customary for a century and a half, and which did much to encourage the production of vessels fit for war service. Perhaps some similar reward may have been given by earlier kings although the instance of Taverner’s _Grace Dieu_, previously noticed, is the only one which supports that view. If such rewards had been given they could have been only occasional but Henry made the encouragement much more frequent and a part of his policy. On the other hand the plan may have been copied from the usage of a foreign power, and if so that power was Spain. We know the reverential admiration Henry felt for the Spanish monarchs and their methods; in 1494, 1495, and 1498 Ferdinand and Isabella issued ordinances which promised large rewards of 60,000 to 100,000 maravedis, to the builders of ships of from 600 to 1000 tons.[107] These were probably not the first of such regulations, and the service they did may well have been forced on Henry’s notice when an exile. Certainly the Spanish marine at this time was in a flourishing condition. The fleet of 1496, which carried Dona Juana to Middleburgh consisted of 120 seagoing vessels, and in the same year a royal order directed the preparation of two ships each of 1000 tons, two of 500, two of 400, six of 300, four of 200, and four caravels.[108]

The first warrant for the payment of a bounty is dated in 1488,[109] and orders £26, 13s 4d to be allowed to Nicholas Browne of Bristol on the customs of the first voyage, made by a new ship of 140 tons built by him. This is nearly three shillings and tenpence a ton. The next of 16th May 1491,[110] is again in favour of three Bristol men who have built a 400 ton ship, and, ‘we calling to our remembrance the great cost and charge they have sustained about the same ... to encourage them and such others,’ allow five shillings a ton on the customs. Although 400 tons was not an unknown tonnage in the merchant marine, it was as yet exceptional, and when the bounty, a century later, was most vigorously worked, its tendency was to induce the construction of medium ships, somewhat over or under 200 tons, rather than especially large ones. Sir William Fenkyll, an alderman of London, had 100 marks conceded him in the same way as the others, ‘for the encoragyng of othr our true subgetts the rather to apply themself to the makyng of shippes.’[111] By a warrant of 7th January 1502, Robert and William Thorne and Hugh Elyot of Bristol, having bought a French ship of 120 tons and as ‘with the same ship the said merchants offre to doo unto us service at all tymes at our commaundement,’ had £20 allowed them. The sovereign by whose directions these expressions were used was neither ignorant of the importance, nor indifferent to the growth, of the merchant marine although he may have seen no reason for departing from his native prudence in matters of action.

[Sidenote: Henry VII:—Hire of English and Foreign Ships.]

Henry’s caution seems to have calculated on the possibility of his future dependence on a foreign fleet, and he was anxious to make a good impression among shipowners abroad. There is a curiously worded order in 1486[112] for the payment of three hired Spanish vessels ‘withoute any part deteyning or abbrigging as that they may have cause to make goode reporte of our deling with them in these parties and as they may be encouraged and welewilled to serve us semblably hereafter.’ As a matter of fact the king frequently hired Spaniards while the royal ships were unemployed, and when the services demanded certainly threw no strain on native resources; he may have seen in such a course a minor way of knitting more closely the mercantile and other ties which were connecting Spain and England. These Spanish ships were hired at two shillings a ton per month, a rate which was double that obtained by English owners. Sometimes Henry tried to buy a Spanish vessel, but with little success, for Ferdinand and Isabella were making stringent regulations against the sale abroad of vessels owned by their subjects.

One reason explaining Henry’s propensity for foreign ships may perhaps be found in a hint we have of difficulties about the rate of hire of English ones. In 1487 special sums were granted to some English owners, ‘to the entent that noe president shall be taken by us for the waging of the same aftre the portage of every tonne.’[113] According to this they desired to be paid a fixed sum and not hired by the ton, perhaps because the crown estimate of a ship’s tonnage may have differed considerably from the owner’s. If this were so it is the only suggestion we have of dissatisfaction with the normal way of payment, and it was a contention in which the crown soon and finally gained the victory.

[Sidenote: Henry VII:—Portsmouth Dock.]