Chapter VI: Introduction: The Navy Before 1509 (4)

‘Then I comforted my folk and made them to harness, and because
I had no rails upon my deck I coiled a cable round about the
deck breast high, and likewise in the waist, and so hanged upon
the cable mattresses, dagswayns,[250] and such bedding as I had
within board.’[251]

The form of expression suggests that the absence of rails was unusual.

Of the rate of sailing attained by these ships and their weatherly qualities we know hardly anything. On 22nd March 1513 Sir Edward Howard wrote to Henry, evidently in answer to a royal command to make a report on the subject, describing the merits of the squadron he had been trying, apparently between the Girdler and the North Foreland.[252] The _Kateryn Fortileza_ sails very well; the _Mary Rose_ is ‘your good ship, the flower I trow of all ships that ever sailed;’ the _Sovereign_, ‘the noblest ship of sail is this great ship at this hour that I trow be in Christendom.’ Some time, but not long, before 1525 the _Sovereign_ was in very bad condition, and her repair was urged because ‘the form of which ship is so marvellously goodly that great pity it were she should die.’[253] Her name however does not subsequently occur and she was probably broken up. In 1522 Sir William Fitzwilliam related in a letter to the king that the _Henry_ sailed as well or better than any ship in the fleet, that she could weather them all except the _Mary Rose_, and that she did not strain at her anchors when it was blowing hard.[254] It seems rather late in the day for a trial of a vessel afloat in 1514, but some alterations may have been previously made rendering it advisable. Even when ill and near his end Henry evinced the same interest in the seagoing qualities of his ships, since we learn from a letter of 1546 that he had required to be informed whether ‘the new shalupe was hable to broke the sees.’

[Sidenote: Flags and Signals.]

If carving, gilding, and painting were scant on these ships they shone bravely with flags and streamers. Those of the _Peter Pomegranate_ were banners of St Katherine, St Edward, and St Peter, six of the arms of England in metal;[255] of a Red Lion; four of the Rose and Pomegranate; two of ‘the castle,’ and eight streamers of St George.[256] The _Henry Grace à Dieu_ was furnished with two streamers for the main mast respectively 40 and 51 yards long, one for the foremast of 36 yards, and one for the mizen of 28 yards; there were also ten banners 3½ yards long, eighteen more 3 yards long, wrought with gold and silver and fringed with silk, ten flags of St George’s Cross, and seven banners of buckram, at a total cost of £67, 2s 8d.[257] Banners mentioned in other papers were, of England, of Cornwall, of a rose of white and green, of a Dragon, of a Greyhound, of the Portcullis, of St George and the Dragon, of St Anne, of ‘white and green with the rose of gold crowned,’ of ‘murrey and blue with half rose and half pomegranate, with a crown of gold,’ and of ‘blue tewke with three crowns of gold.’[258] White and green were now the recognised Tudor colours, and there is some indication of their use in that sense in the reign of Henry VII; the Greyhound was the badge of that king, the Dragon of his son. The Portcullis referred to the control of the straits of Dover, the Pomegranate to Catherine of Aragon and Spain; the constant recurrence of the Rose as a badge and as a ship’s name needs no explanation. The banner with the representation of a saint upon it was a survival of the custom existing in earlier times, by which every ship was dedicated to a saint, under whose protection it was placed and whose name it usually bore.

Besides ornament flags had long served the more prosaic purpose of signalling. Even among merchantmen there seem to have been some recognised signals, as in 1517 the _Mary of Penmark_, driven into Calais by bad weather, hoisted ‘a flag in the top,’ for a pilot.[259] This signal must therefore have long been common to at least two seafaring peoples. So far as the Royal Navy was concerned, we can only say that a flag ‘on the starboard buttock’ of the admiral’s ship called his captains to a council.[260] But a system of day and night signalling had long been in existence in the Spanish service, and in view of the close connection between the two countries commercially, and the employment of Spanish ships and seamen by the crown, it would have been extraordinary had it not been known and used here. According to Fernandez de Navarrete[261] a scheme of signals for day and night use was practised in 1430. In 1517 a flag half way up the main mast called the captains to the flagship; sight of land was announced by a flag in the maintop; a strange ship by one half way up the shrouds, and more than one strange sail by two flags placed vertically. A ship requiring assistance fired three guns, and sent a man to wave a flag in her top, while if the admiral’s ship showed a flag on her poop, every captain was to send a boat for orders. A code with guns and lights made the corresponding signals during darkness and fog.[262]

[Sidenote: Fleet Regulations.]

The earliest set of regulations for the government of a fleet in this reign is contained in an undated paper entitled ‘A Book of Orders for the War by Se and Land,’ prepared by Thomas Audley by command of Henry.[263] The articles relating to sea matters, and dealing with the management of a fleet may be thus summarised:—

1. No Captain shall go to windward of his Admiral. 2.
Disobedient captains shall be put ashore. 3. No ship to ride in
the wake of another. 4. If the enemy be met the weather-gage
is to be obtained; only the Admiral shall engage the enemy’s
Admiral, and every ship is, as nearly as possible to attack an
opponent of equal strength. 5. Boarding not to be undertaken
in the smoke, nor until the enemy’s deck had been cleared
with small shot. 6. If a captured ship could not be held the
principal officers were to be taken out of her, the vessel
‘boulged,’ and ‘the rest committed to the bottome of the sea
for els they will turne upon you to your confusion.’ 7. When
going into action the Admiral is to wear a flag at his fore and
main, and the other ships at the mizen. 8. The Admiral shall
not enter an enemy’s harbour, nor land men without calling a
council.

From the last regulation it would appear that only limited authority was left to the admiral, and it was perhaps due to Sir Edward Howard’s actions of 1512 and 1513, the last of which, an attempt to cut out galleys, was a defeat, and cost Howard his life. From the second it seems that little disciplinary power was left in the admiral’s hands, and from the seventh that it was not customary to fly the colours at sea. It will be observed, from the methodical way in which the captains were directed to go into action, that the tendency was still strong to handle a fleet as troops and companies were handled ashore.[264]

The next fleet orders show little alteration.[265]

1. Every ship shall retain its place in the Van, Battle, and
Wing, and every captain take his orders from the commander of
his own division. 2. In action the Van shall attack the French
Van, Admiral engage Admiral, and every captain a Frenchman of
equal size. 3. The Wing shall always be to windward so that it
may ‘the better beate off the gallies from the great ships.’ 4.
The watchword at night to be ‘God save King Henry,’ when the
other shall answer ‘Long to raigne over us.’

This fleet is the first recorded to have been opened into divisions, each section being distinguished by the position of a flag. The Lord Admiral flew the royal arms in the main top and the St George’s cross at the fore, while the other ships of the ‘battaill’ carried the St George at the main. The admiral commanding the Van wore the St George’s cross at the fore and main, and the rest of his command the same flag at the fore. The officer commanding the Wing flew the St George in both mizen tops and those under him in one.

[Sidenote: The Lords Admirals.]

The hour of the professional seamen had not yet come for either admirals or captains. Like most of Henry’s executive or administrative officers they were taken from among the men he saw daily round him at court. It would be unfair to suppose this the cause that the Navy did little during his reign, for the very existence of a powerful fleet is often reason enough why its services should not be needed. It was not until 1545 that the French made any real attempt to contest the command of the sea. In that year John Dudley, Lord Lisle, afterwards Duke of Northumberland, commanded the English forces, and, in a position where some of Sir Edward Howard’s bull like tactics might have been judicious, he failed to come _aux prises_ with his adversary.[266] If we may believe his own confessions he distrusted his powers and recognised his incapacity, but in after years, when the aggrandisement of his family was concerned, he showed no such hesitating modesty. On one occasion he wrote to Henry admitting his want of experience but expressing a hope that ‘the goodness of God’ would serve instead.[267] On another, he said, ‘I do thynck I shuld have doon his Maiestie better service in some meaner office wherein to be directed and not to be a director.’[268] If honestly felt this frame of mind was hardly calculated to inspirit his subordinates.

Although the office of admiral as a commander of a fleet dates from the thirteenth century it was for long only a temporary appointment, obtaining its chief importance from the character of the person holding it. When several fleets were at sea and the principal command was vested in one person he became for the time, Admiral of England, laying down his title with his command. From the beginning of the fifteenth century this office of ‘Great Admiral of England, Ireland and Aquitaine’ became a permanent one, carrying with it the control of all the maritime strength of the crown, and being usually bestowed on a relative of the sovereign. The first of such patents is of 23rd Dec. 1406, and bears a resemblance, in the powers and privileges it confers, to the similar ones of the Admiralship of Castile, that can hardly be accidental.[269] But as far as the navy was concerned his duties were purely militant, and there is no trace of his interference in administration.

The ‘Great Admiral’ also possessed jurisdictive functions, trying, by his deputy, all maritime causes, civil and criminal. The fees and perquisites attached to the exercise of these duties made the post valuable in the fifteenth century, but it does not appear to have ensured any especial political power to its holder during that troubled time.

Frequently it became a mere court title of honour; the Earl of Oxford was Great Admiral during the whole reign of Henry VII, but his name never occurs in naval affairs. In many instances, during the fifteenth century, the Admiral of England did not command at sea at all, but during the reign of Henry VIII the post became one of actual executive control, and, later, of administrative responsibility. The Lords Admirals of this reign were mostly men who, before or afterwards, held other important State or Household appointments and who had no expert knowledge of their duties. The Earl of Oxford was succeeded by Sir Edward Howard by Letters Patent of 15th August 1512; his brother, Lord Thomas Howard, son of the victor of Flodden, was appointed 4th May 1513; Henry, Duke of Richmond, illegitimate son of the King, 16th July 1525; William Fitzwilliam, Earl of Southampton, 16th August 1536; John, Lord Russell, 18th July 1540; and John Dudley, Lord Lisle, 27th January 1543. That most of these men had no experience whatever of the sea was not considered detrimental to their efficiency.

[Sidenote: Royal Ships lost.]

There were not many men-of-war lost during Henry’s reign, but both absolutely and relatively, seeing the little active service undergone by the Navy, the number is much larger than under Elizabeth. The _Regent_ was burnt in action in 1512. In 1513 a ship commanded by Arthur Plantagenet, an illegitimate son of Edward IV, sank after striking on a rock in Bertheaume Bay, near Brest, but we are ignorant whether she was a man-of-war or a hired merchantman, probably, however, the latter. Sometime in or before 1514, a small vessel, name unknown, was wrecked at Rye,[270] but a more important loss was that of the _Great Elizabeth_, in September 1514, at Sandgate, west of Calais, during the passage of the Princess Mary to France when 400 men were drowned.[271] The _Christ_, freighted to the Mediterranean for trade, was, in 1515, captured by Barbary corsairs and all but thirty of those on board killed. Letters patent were issued, authorising a national subscription for their ransom. The next was that of the _Anne Gallant_, in August 1518, on the coast of Galicia while chartered by some London merchants on a trading voyage.

In 1545 several foreign hired fighting ships were wrecked by stress of weather, but the most remarkable loss of the reign was that of the _Mary Rose_ which capsized off Brading on 20th July 1545, when getting under way. Ralegh says that her ports were only sixteen inches above the water line, and attributes the disaster to this circumstance. Beyond the fact that most of Ralegh’s observations on maritime matters, where not doubtful or unintelligible, can be shown to be incorrect,[272] there is the great improbability that after at least fifty years’ experience of gun-ports they should have been cut so low since she had been rebuilt in or before 1536. Moreover Anthony’s drawings show them to have been pierced very much higher in other vessels. A contemporary writer, who obtained his account from an eye-witness, ascribed it to a different cause and makes no mention of the ports.[273]

By the 1st August measures had been taken towards raising her and the persons who had undertaken the work desired,

‘Ffyrst ii of the gretest hulkes that may be gotten, more the
hulk that rydeth withyn the havyn, Item iiii of the gretest
hoys withyn the havyn, Item v of the gretest cables that
may be had, Item x grete hawsers, Item x new capsteynes with
xxᵗⁱ pulleyes, Item l pulleyes[274] bownde with irone Item v
doseyn balast basketts, Item xl lb of talowe, Item xxx Venyzian
maryners and one Venyziane carpenter, Item lx Inglysshe
maryners to attend upon them, Item a greate quantitie of
cordage of all sortes, Item Symonds patrone and maister in the
ffoyst doth aggree that all thynges must be had for the purpose
aforeseid.’[275]

It appears from this that cables were to be passed through her ports, or made fast to her, and that by means of the hulks she was to be bodily hauled up, a course from which rapid success was anticipated. On the 5th August, her yards and sails had been removed and ‘to her mastes there is tyed three cables with other ingens to wey her upp and on every side of her a hulk to sett her uppright.’[276] Two days later the officers at Portsmouth fully expected that she would be weighed within twenty-four hours,[277] but on the 9th

‘Thitalians which had the doying for the wayeing of the _Mary
Roos_ have been with my Lord Chamberlayn and me to signifie
unto us that after this sourt which they have followed,
hithierto, they can by no meanes recover her for they have
alredye broken her foremast ... and nowe they desyer to prove
another waye which is to dragg her as she lyeth untill she come
into shallowe ground and so to set her upright, and to this
they axe vi days’ proof.’[278]

The second way proved as fruitless as the first, but we read that 22 tuns of beer were consumed during the work, which must have made it appear an enjoyable summer outing to the men.[279] Up to 30th June 1547, the whole amount expended in the various attempts was £402, 6s 8d[280] and this may have included £57, 11s 5d to Peter Paul, an Italian, for the recovery of some of her guns, which was paid within the time for which the total was made up but appears in other papers.[281] The last reference to the unfortunate ship is another payment of £50 to Peter Paul for recovering ordnance and then, after four years of effort, any further hope was foregone.[282]

[Sidenote: Royal Ships hired by Merchants.]

During the greater part of his reign, Henry like his predecessors, allowed merchants to charter men-of-war for trading voyages. In 1511, £200 was paid for the _Mary and John_ by two merchants who hired her to go to the Baltic, a five months’ voyage, but out of this sum the king paid the wages of the crew and supplied flags and doubtless other stores.[283] One reason for putting royal officers and men on board may have been to prevent the ship being used for piratical purposes. In the same year the _Anne Gallant_ also went to the Baltic,[284] and from there to Bordeaux before returning to London, and the _Peter Pomegranate_ to Zealand; in 1515 Richard Gresham freighted the _Mary George_, and Richard Fermor the _Christ_, to the Mediterranean. For the _Anne Gallant_ the crown received £300, and for the crew of the _Peter_ 100 ‘jorgnets’ were provided.[285] When the _Anne Gallant_ was wrecked in 1518 the loss seems to have been submitted to arbitration, ‘for the copyinge of the byll of the grosse averies of the same _Anne Gallant_ and the warde of the arbetrers theruppon made iiˢ,’ but there is no trace of the result.[286] In 1524, the _Minion_ and _Mary Guildford_ were at Bordeaux, and in 1533, two other vessels. After that year there is no further instance known of Henry permitting his ships to be hired by private persons.

[Sidenote: Convoys.]

Convoys were provided by the government during war time. In 1513, the Royal Navy being fully occupied on service, £55 was paid to the owner of the _Mawdelin_ of Hull for escorting a wool fleet to Calais, and there are other similar agreements.[287] In the preceding year there was a guard of the herring fleet afloat, although we have no knowledge of its strength.[288] In 1522 we have the first sign of an attempt to patrol the four seas, four vessels were stationed between the Thames and Rye, four others between Rye and the Channel Islands, and three are assigned to the somewhat unintelligible location of between the Channel Islands and the Tweed.[289] Doubtless it was only a temporary measure, but it is important as showing that it was now understood that the Navy had a more continuous purpose than mere attack or defence in fleets.

[Sidenote: Dockyards:—Portsmouth.]

Portsmouth dockyard, with the storehouses and workshops attached to it, and said to have been situated at that portion of the present yard known as the King’s Stairs, was the only one existing in 1509. The enlargement of the Navy necessitated a corresponding increase in the accommodation for building and repairs, and naturally the first references are to Portsmouth. In the first year of the reign there are payments for ‘the breaking up of the dockhead where the _Regent_ lay—having put the said ship afloat out of the same dock into the haven of Portsmouth—making a scaffold with great masts for the sure setting on end of her main mast,’[290] and £1175, 14s 2d was expended there on the _Sovereign_.[291] During the first war with France, additions were made to the establishment,[292] and from a later paper we learn that five of these were brewhouses, the Lion, Rose, Dragon, White Hart and Anchor,[293] while some ‘reparrynge and tylinge of the houses att the dokke,’ was also executed. In other respects the town was cared for, since in 1526, 675 pieces of ordnance were on the walls and in store, and in the same year £20 was spent on repairing the dock.

In 1523, however, the existing dock must have been much enlarged in view of the charges ‘for making a dock at Portsmouth for the king’s ship royal,’ the _Henry Grace à Dieu_.[294] She was brought into the dock with much ceremony,

‘the same day that the King’s Ship Royal the _Henry Grace à
Dieu_ was had and brought into the dock at Portsmouth of and
with gentlemen and yeomen dwelling about the country there
which did their diligence and labour there in the helping of
the said ship, and also with mariners and other labourers in
all to the number by estimation of 1000 persons.’[295]

These assistants consumed during their arduous labours through the day eight quarters of beef, forty-two dozen loaves of bread and four tuns of beer. The method of construction was still the same as under Henry VII, as there are payments for ‘digging of clay for the stopping up of the same dock head,’ and for breaking up these solid fabrics. The next event connected with the Portsmouth yard was the purchase of nine acres of land, in 1527, at twenty shillings an acre; this ground was surrounded by a ditch and hedge with gates at intervals.[296] The dockyard however gradually sank in consideration during this reign. Woolwich and Deptford soon disputed supremacy with it, and the gradual formation of Chatham yard between 1560 and 1570 completed its decay. Its last year of importance was 1545, when the fleet collected there, and when its approaching neglect was so little anticipated that the chain across the mouth of the harbour was renewed and fresh improvements were contemplated. But from that year until the era of the Commonwealth it almost disappears from naval history.

[Sidenote: Dockyards:—Woolwich.]

Woolwich, commonly but erroneously called the Mother Dock, grew up round the _Henry Grace à Dieu_. The accounts[297] show various amounts expended in the hire of houses and grounds there for purposes associated with the ship, and some of these were converted into permanent purchases. One such occurred in 1518 when the king bought a wharf and houses from Nicholas Partriche, an alderman of London, for £100,[298] but the Longhouse, and perhaps others had been built in 1512. In 1546 the yard was again enlarged by the addition of docks and land belonging to Sir Edward Boughton, which were obtained by means of an exchange of property; these docks had been leased by the crown for at least seven years previously at £6, 13s 4d a year.[299]

In connection with Woolwich we find a description of the office formalities necessary when a ship was moved from one place to another. In 1518 the _Henry Grace à Dieu_ and the _Gabriel Royal_ were brought from Barking creek, the first to Erith, and the second to Woolwich, and among the expenses incurred were payments

‘To John Dende scryvenor in Lombarde Strette for certen
wrytyngs and bylls made by hym for the Kyngs lysences to my
office, belongynge, that is to seye, for one warraunte made
to Master Comely, the Kinges attorney, xiiᵈ, and for a letter
to rygge the schippes viiiᵈ, and for a warraunte to have the
schippes owt of Barkyn Creke, viiiᵈ, and for ii comyssions made
to provide all things concernynge the same schippes, iiˢ, and
for divers copyes of the same xviᵈ.’[300]

It is doubtful however whether a dry dock existed at Woolwich at this time. In this particular instance there is a payment to John Barton, ‘marshman,’ for the making ‘of the _Gabriel Rialls_ docke the sixteenth daye of Marche anno dicto in grett when the seid shipp most be browght apon blokks xxxˡⁱ’.[301] Seventeen men were at work and this cannot refer to a dry dock which would have required more men and much more money; it seems to have been a graving place in which the vessel was shored upon blocks. But when the _Henry_ was being built the charges include the travelling expenses of men from Southampton and Portsmouth ‘for the makynge of the dokkehede,’ and ‘to break up the dokhede.’

[Sidenote: Dockyards:—Deptford.]

The formation of Deptford is usually assigned to 1517, when John Hopton, comptroller of the ships, undertook, for 600 marks, to ‘make and cast a pond’ in a meadow adjoining the storehouse, and to build

‘A good hable and suffycient hed for the same pond and also
certyn hable sleysis through the which the water may have entre
and course into the foresaid ponde as well at spryng tydes as
at nepetydes.’[302]

It was to be of sufficient size to take the _Great Galley_, _Mary Rose_, _Great Bark_, _Less Bark_, and _Peter Pomegranate_. There is some evidence that a pond with an inlet communicating with the river, was in existence in the thirteenth century, in which case Hopton only adapted and improved it. The storehouse can be traced back to 1513,[303] but it is possible that the building hired at ‘Greenwich’ in 1485, by Henry VII was really at Deptford, seeing that Deptford Strand was sometimes called West Greenwich; if so its beginnings are older than Portsmouth. Even in 1513 there is a reference to ‘the howse at the dockhede,’ but in 1518, when the _Great Nicholas_ was brought to Deptford for repair, there are charges for putting her into the dock, for ‘making the same dockhed,’ ‘for pylinge of the dockhede,’ and for ‘scouring out the dokk at the este ende of the Kyngis storehouse.’ There was also made ‘a myghty hegge of grete tesarde and tenets[304] along the seid dockside and the retorne of the same;’ in the same year a wharf and two sheds were built.[305] The use made of Deptford grew steadily until by the end of the reign it had become the most important yard. In 1546-7 more storehouses had to be hired at a cost of £17, 18s 8d for the year, while £1, 6s 8d covered the extra payments for the same purpose at Woolwich, and no such temporary augmentation was required at Portsmouth.[306]

[Sidenote: Dockyards:—Erith.]

There seems at one time to have been intention to make Erith a permanent naval station. By Letters Patent of 12th January 1513-4, John Hopton was appointed ‘keeper of the new storehouses at Deptford and Erith for supplying the king’s ships.’ On 18th February £32 was paid to Robert Page of Erith for

‘The purches of a tenement with an orchard and gardeyn and
othir appurtenaunces thereunto belonging, conteigning foure
acres of ground, being and sett in the parish of Erith by us
of hym bought upon the which ground we have newe edified and
bilded a house called a storehouse for the saffe kepyng of
our ordynaunce and habillamentes of warre belonging to our
shippes.’[307]

In 1521 the fittings, guns, and ground tackle of some of the ships were kept here, and shortly before that the sills of the doors had been raised ‘for the keepinge owt of the hye tydis for att every tyde affore ther was ii ffoote depe of water in the seide storrhowsse.’ At this date there were 88 bolts of canvas, 219 cables and hawsers, 27 masts, and 25 guns besides powder, pikes, bows and blocks in the house, which must have been of good size. We do not know the circumstances that led to its disuse, but long before the end of the reign Erith ceases to be mentioned in connection with naval affairs.

If we were to assume that the docks, so frequently spoken of in official papers, were all dry docks, we should have to conclude that there were nearly as many in existence then as now. There can, however, be no doubt that the term was applied indifferently to a complete dock with gates, to a graving place, and even to a temporary protection of timber, fitted round a ship afloat to protect it from the ice. At Erith, in 1512-13 there was ‘a new docke’ made, in which the _Sovereign_ was placed and repaired, the dock and repairs together occupying only eight weeks.[308] But in 1526 the construction of a dock at an estimated cost of £600 was suggested, so that it is certain that one did not exist there previously.[309] In another instance John Barton and twenty-three marshmen were paid for _two_ days’ work while they ‘cast and made a dock for the _Grett Galey_ affore the towne of Depfforde Stronde for the suer keepinge of her ther owt of the ysse.’[310] Subsequently certain ships are said to have been brought ‘into their dock’ after they had been aground for breaming and floated again;[311] in such a case it seems to have meant only a mooring place. At Portsmouth in 1528 a number of labourers were ‘working by tide for the making of a dock for the grounding of the _Mary Rose_, _Peter Pomegranate_, and _John Baptist_,’ which vessels were ‘wound aground by certain devices.’[312] These examples show clearly that the word when found in a sixteenth century paper, must be understood in a far wider sense than is customary to-day. Nevertheless there are references which seem to imply that there were other docks than those in the government yards. In 1513 men were engaged in ‘casting and closing the dockhede with tymber bord and balyste at Ratcliffe,’ and another one at Limehouse is also mentioned.[313]

[Sidenote: Shipwrights and Workmen.]

There was as yet no large resident population of shipwrights and others at the naval centres chosen by the government. For the _Henry Grace à Dieu_ workers were brought from districts far afield. Plymouth, Dartmouth, Bere Regis, Exeter, Saltash, Bradford, Bristol, Southampton, Bodmin, Exmouth, Poole, Ipswich, Brightlingsea, Yarmouth, Hull, Beverley, York, and other places furnished contingents. Most of the men came from the south and west, but of single towns Dartmouth and Ipswich supplied the largest numbers. While travelling to and returning from the scene of their employment they received a halfpenny a mile, known as conduct money, for food and lodging, and the agents sent to press them were paid one shilling a day.[314] Probably the call to the royal service was not unpopular as all classes of workmen were boarded and lodged in addition to their wages; under Henry VII they were victualled, but there is no mention of free lodging.

Shipwrights received from twopence to sixpence a day, sawyers, caulkers, and pumpmakers, twopence to fourpence, smiths twopence to sixpence, and labourers from twopence to fivepence. The staff at Portsmouth included a chip-bearer and a chip-gatherer at sevenpence a day, so that at this time ‘chips’ did not constitute the scandalous perquisite it afterwards became. Of the carpenters working on the _Henry Grace à Dieu_, 141 were supplied with ‘coats’ costing from two to five shillings each, but that was a nearly exceptional expenditure, although 164 were provided for the men building the _Mary Rose_ and _Peter Pomegranate_. The cost of victualling averaged twopence halfpenny a day, and they were given bread, beef, beer, ling, cod, hake, herring, pease, and oatmeal. There were cooks to prepare their food and a ‘chamberlyn’ to make the beds which were bought or hired for their use; flockbeds and mattresses cost from 3s 4d to 5s, bolsters 1s and 1s 6d, sheets 2s to 3s, blankets 1s 4d, and coverlets 1s to 2s.[315] Sometimes flock beds and mattresses were temporarily procured for twopence, and feather beds for threepence a week. The beds were made to hold two or three men, and in at least one instance ten men were packed into three beds. By 1545 wages seem to have risen somewhat, since at Deptford and Portsmouth that year the pay and victualling of all classes—carpenters, smiths, labourers, caulkers, and sawyers—came to ninepence a day.

The principal designers and master shipwrights were John Smyth, Robert Holborn, and Richard Bull, who were in 1548 granted pensions on the Exchequer of fourpence a day ‘in consideration of their long and good service, and that they should instruct others in their feats.’[316] James Baker, the only master shipwright whose reputation outlived his generation, is not mentioned among these men, but he is elsewhere spoken of as ‘skilful in ships,’[317] and he possessed a pension, also from the Exchequer, of eightpence a day. In the reign of James I he was still remembered and said to have been the first who adapted English ships to carry heavy guns, a survival which, whether exactly correct or not, testifies to an exceptional skill in his art. In 1546 Baker got into trouble by being in possession of some forbidden religious books, and it is likely that only his professional ability saved him. Henry ordered that he should be examined, but ‘His Maiestie thynketh you shall find him a very simple man, and therefore wold that without putting him in any great fear you should search of him as much as you may.’ Evidently the king knew him well, and had doubtless often discussed shipbuilding with him.

The famous Pett family who furnished a succession of celebrated shipbuilders between the reigns of Mary I and Mary II, were not yet prominent. In 1523 a Peter Pett is among the shipwrights, pressed from Essex and Suffolk, who were working at Portsmouth, and there is a yet earlier mention of a payment of £38, 1s 4d to a John Pett for caulking the _Regent_ in 1499.[318] A recent writer,[319] in a Pett pedigree, gives Thomas Pett of Harwich as the father of the first well known Peter Pett who died in 1589. It is therefore possible, but scarcely probable, that this was the Peter Pett who was working in 1523 as a boy.

[Sidenote: Officers and Men:—Pay and Clothing.]

By the treaty of 1511, between Henry and Ferdinand, the former undertook to hold the Channel between the Thames and Ushant with 3000 men, of whom some 1600 were sailors and gunners.[320] For the fleet of 1513, exclusive of the crews of 28 victualling ships, 2880 seamen were required;[321] in 1514, during the month ending with 22nd May, there were 23 king’s ships, 21 hired merchantmen, and 15 victuallers in commission manned by 3982 seamen and 447 gunners, exclusive of the soldiers carried as well.[322] When maritime action in force recommenced in 1545, it was estimated that 5000 men would be wanted which ‘wilbe some dyffycultie.’ Beyond this one expression there is no hint of any trouble having been experienced in procuring these men although the numbers were larger than those which Charles I, a century later, found it almost impossible to obtain. As the proportion allowed theoretically was two men to a ton[323] the ships were much more heavily manned than in the seventeenth century, but in practice the crews do not usually work out at one man to a ton, even including soldiers.

Henry’s success was due in a great measure to the fact that the men were punctually paid and fairly well fed, two elementary incentives to loyal service neglected during the two succeeding centuries. In his first war of 1512 he entered into an agreement with the admiral, Sir Edward Howard, by which the latter, being supplied with ships, men, and money, had the whole administration placed in his hands, having to pay wages and find provisions and clothes.[324] In every subsequent expedition the admiral’s duties were only executive. The rate of pay was five shillings a month, and at this it remained during nearly the whole reign, but in addition, a certain number of dead shares, or extra pays, the division of which is somewhat obscure, were allotted to each ship. They are first met with during the war with France in 1492, and, at that time, in connection with the pay of the soldiers serving on board the fleet. Subsequently the favour was extended to the maritime branch, and was perhaps intended to replace the ‘reward’ of sixpence a week in addition to their pay, which had been enjoyed by the seamen in preceding centuries. But if the dead shares were at any time divided among the sailors they speedily lost the privilege, and early in the reign we find the shares, reckoned at five shillings apiece, reserved for the officers. There are a few apparent exceptions, perhaps due to our ignorance of the exact sixteenth century meaning of the words used. The wages bill of the _Katherine_ of London[325] distinctly says that the dead shares are divided between ‘master and mariners,’ and there are some other similar cases, _e.g._ ‘168 dead shares to be divided among the mariners.’[326] But in the vast majority of references they are seen to be meant for the officers.

The number of course depended on the size of the ship, and for the _Henry Grace à Dieu_ they were thus distributed[327]:—Master —; master’s mate, 4; four pilots, 16; four quartermasters, 12; quartermaster’s mates, 4; boatswain, 3; boatswain’s mate, 1½; cockswain, 1½; cockswain’s mate, 1; master carpenter, 3; carpenter’s mate, 1½; under-carpenter, 1; two caulkers, 3; purser, 2; three stewards, 3; three cooks, 3; cook’s mates, 1½; two yeomen of the stryks, 2; their mates, 1; two yeomen of the ports, 2; their mates, 1. The officers’ pay was the same as that of the men, but they received in addition either these dead shares, reckoned at five shillings each, in the proportion shown here, or ‘rewards’ of so much a month. The _Peter Pomegranate_ may be taken as a representative ship, as the _Henry_ carried some officers unknown in the smaller vessels. In the _Peter_ the master obtained one pound ten shillings a month of twenty-eight days; the master’s mate and quartermasters ten shillings; the boatswain twelve shillings and sixpence; master gunner, carpenter, purser, steward and cook, ten shillings, and gunners six shillings and eightpence. Surgeons were paid ten shillings and thirteen shillings and fourpence, and pilots twenty and thirty shillings a month, but neither were always carried.[328] Within certain limits, however, officers’ wages vary considerably, depending on the number of dead shares allotted among them, which, again, was subject to the size of the ship, an indication of the commencing division into rates. But before Henry’s death the formula of pay ran ‘dead shares and rewards included’ for an average, exclusive of captains, of eight shillings a month[329] all round, so that the old system was beginning to be discarded.

For many years of the reign some sort of uniform in the shape of ‘coats’ or ‘jackets’ was supplied to the men, but its exact character is nowhere described. When the _Mary Rose_ and _Peter Pomegranate_ were brought round from Portsmouth to the Thames thirty-five coats in green and white were provided, but as the cost was 6s 8d apiece these could only have been for the officers.[330] Sir Edward Howard, by his agreement in 1512, had to furnish the sailors with them at 1s 8d each, and he appears to have charged for 1616 besides 1812 for the soldiers.[331] Masters and pilots had sometimes coats of damask, every coat containing eight yards.[332] In 1513, we find references to 1244 mariners’, gunners’, and servitors’, jackets,[333] and to 638 coats of white and green cloth, 13 of white and green camlet, 4 of satin, and one of damask.[334] Although indications of uniform for the men have been noticed under Edward IV and Henry VII, the provision was much more liberal when Henry ascended the throne. He had at first an overflowing treasury wherewith to minister to his love of display and carry out more completely a custom he may also have thought useful from the point of view of health and of making the men proud of the royal service. But the allusions to seamen’s clothes are few after the first years. The system appears to have lasted, although perhaps not continuously, until his death, since in 1545 the writer of an estimate of naval charges asks if 1800 seamen are to have coats at two shillings each.[335]

[Sidenote: Sick and Wounded Men.]

Sick men appear to have been kept in pay if landed for that reason, because when Sir Thomas Wyndham proposed to send such members of his crew ashore, the council preferred that he should keep them on board as they would only be receiving pay uselessly on land and might not come back.[336] Those discharged disabled from wounds sometimes received a gratuity; in 1513, sixty men of the _Mary James_ sent home in that condition were given twopence a mile conduct money, the usual rate being a halfpenny a mile, and a gift of £20 among them.[337]

Until 1545, there is no record of exceptional disease in fleets, but in September of that year the plague broke out in the English ships, although as the French were suffering even more and were eventually compelled by it to disband their fleet, it did not adversely affect the result of the operations. In August there were many men sick which was ascribed ‘to the great hete and the corrupcion of the victuall by reason of the disorder in the provision and the strayte and warm lying in the shippes.’[338] On the 28th August Lisle wrote to Paget that there was much illness, ‘those that be hole be veray unsightlie havyng not a ragg to hang uppon ther backes.’ On 3rd September, Lisle landed at Treport in Normandy, and sacked and burnt the town, and it is not until after that date that the word ‘plague’ is used and the terrible disease raged virulently. On 4th September there were 12,000 effective men, soldiers and sailors; on the 13th, 8488, so that in little more than a week 3512 ‘were sick, dead, or dismissed,’[339] By 11th September, Lisle was back at Portsmouth and wrote to the king that the ships were generally infected. Although the fleet was then broken up, it seems to have lingered on in the vessels kept in commission through the winter as there are references to it in the following April.

[Sidenote: Captains.]

The captains of men-of-war were still usually military officers or courtiers who made no attempt to work the ship. They were for the most part, persons holding appointments in the household, but towards the end of the reign, the new feeling that the sea was as important as the land as a field of national effort had trained officers who were almost professional seamen. These men belonged to the class who would earlier have been content to command soldiers during a voyage, but who were now continuously occupied in commanding ships at sea or in attending to administrative details ashore. Nominally a captain’s pay was one shilling and sixpence a day, but there were frequently extra allowances. In 1513, Walter, Lord Ferrers, captain of the _Sovereign_ received five shillings and two pence a day ‘by way of reward’ over and above his one shilling and sixpence,[340] and Sir William Trevilian of the _Gabriel Royal_, three shillings and fourpence a day. On the other hand captains who happened to belong to the troop of ‘King’s Spears’ were paid ‘out of the King’s cofers’ and took nothing from the navy expenses.[341] The King’s Spears were a troop of Horseguards, fifty in number, formed by Henry shortly after his accession. Each of them was attended by an archer, man-at-arms, and servant, ‘they and all their horses being trapped in cloth of gold, silver, or goldsmith’s work.’ Eventually want of money led to the disbandment of this force.

In 1545 the demand for captains exceeded the supply for the smaller ships, the circumstances perhaps promising neither fame nor prize money. The official total of men-of-war and armed merchantmen under Lisle’s command was 104 ships, the strongest fighting fleet as yet sent to sea. About some of these he wrote,

‘As concernynge the meane[342] shippes I know noon other waye
(I meane those that come out of the west parties and such of
London, as were victuallers that want capitaignes) but to place
them with meane men to be their capitaignes as serving men and
yomen that be most mete for the purpose.’[343]

‘Meane men’[344] here signifies those of moderate social status, and serving men the confidants or attendants of noblemen, and who were frequently gentlemen themselves.

In 1546 a Spaniard was retained as captain of the _Galley Subtylle_ and a Venetian as its patron, or master, but as they were provided with an interpreter the crew must have been English.[345] This is a further proof of the little experience native officers had of galley work; apparently the English captain of the preceding year had not been found efficient. Whether the crew were seamen or criminals is not quite certain; the term ‘forsathos’[346] is used but only in connection with the French prize, the _Galley Blancherd_, which was undoubtedly manned by prisoners, its original crew. In more ways than one this prize seems to have been a source of trouble to its captors. To keep the men in condition constant practice was essential, ‘Richard Brooke ... keptt me company as far as Gravesend to kepe the forsados in ure and breth as they must contynewally be otherwyse they wilbe shortly nothing worth.’ Most of the captives were Neapolitans, with the habits of their class, and Brooke desired new clothes ‘for all the said forsados who he saith are most insufferable without any manner of things to hang upon theym. So that I perceyve the same galley will be some chardge to His Maiestie contynewally, yf His Highnes do keep her styll with her suit of forsadoes as she ys now.’[347] Lisle urged that if the _Blancherd_ was restored at the conclusion of the war the prisoners should be granted their liberty. Perhaps he may have thought it advisable to get rid of them on any terms, but the argument he pressed was that such a course would make the French chary, at any future time, of bringing their galleys near English ports or ships if the slaves on board knew that surrender meant freedom.

[Sidenote: Ship Discipline.]

Yet another diplomatist, Dr William Knight, found ‘the ungodly manners of the seamen’ not to his liking, and so far as the scanty material permits us to judge, they appear to have been an unruly and disorderly race. Discipline in the modern sense was of course unknown, and such restraints as existed sat but lightly on both royal and merchant seamen. An undated paper, but which is probably earlier than 1530, discussing the causes of the decay of shipping, describes the men as ‘so unruly nowadays that ther ys no merchantman dare enterpryse to take apon hym the orderyng and governing of the said shippes.’[348] Even the government dealt with them gently, and when in 1513, the crew of a man-of-war were discontented with their captain, Sir Weston Browne, the Vice-Admiral was directed, if he could not pacify them, to replace Browne.[349] Sometimes whole crews went ashore, and when the French attacked Dover in 1514, the king’s ships in harbour there lay uselessly at their anchors for want of men. One sailor, Edward Foster, was examined at Portsmouth in 1539, before the Mayor and two admiralty officials for saying that ‘if his blood and the King’s were both in a dish, there would be no difference between them, and that if the Great Turk would give a penny a day more he would serve him.’[350] One would like to know what happened to this matter-of-fact physiologist.

Regulations existed for the maintenance of order on board ship, and were ‘set in the mayne mast in parchement to be rid as occasion shall serve.’[351] A murderer was to be tied to the corpse and thrown overboard with it; to draw a weapon on the captain involved the loss of the right hand; the delinquent sleeping on watch[352] for the fourth time was to be tied to the bowsprit with a biscuit, a can of beer, and a knife, and left to starve or cut himself down into the sea; a thief was to be ducked two fathoms under water, towed ashore at the stern of a boat, and dismissed. Only a boat from the flagship was to board a stranger to make inquiries, as the men ‘would pilfer thinges from oure nation as well of the kinges dere frends,’ but in a captured ship all plunder, except treasure, between the upper and lower decks was allotted to them. It is interesting, as showing Henry’s desire to avoid giving needless offence, to compare this order, about the manner in which strange ships were to be visited, with another issued at the end of the reign. It was still more impressively worded. Neutrals were to be ‘gently’ examined, and if no enemies’ goods found in them not to be harmed. And ‘the violation of our pleasure in this behaulf is of such importance as whosoever shalbe found culpable therein, we shall not faile so to look upon him as shall be to his demerits.’[353]

In addition to regulations which, if not new as maritime customs, were new as a code of discipline we find that crews were now assigned stations on board ship, an essential towards smartness in work, but one which so far as we know had no previous existence. The station list—or one of them—of the _Henry Grace à Dieu_ has come down to us, and although no similar paper exists for any other ship it cannot be supposed that an improvement in method and working, of which the advantages must at once have made themselves felt, could have failed to have been generally adopted.[354] This list gives:—

The forecastle 100 men; waist 120
In the second deck for the main lifts, 20
In the said deck for the trin and the dryngs,[355] 20
To the stryks[356] of the mainsail, 8 principal men
To the bonaventure top, 2
The little top upon the fore top, 2
For the boat 40; the cok, 20
Main capstandard[357] and main sheets, 80
In the third deck to the topsail sheets, 40
To the bonaventure and main mizen, 20
To the helm, 4 men
To the main top 12; to the fore top, 6; to the main mizen top, 6
The little top upon the main top, 2
The little top upon the main mizen top, 2
The gellywatte, 10.[358]

Notwithstanding these signs of orderly training the loss of the _Mary Rose_ was attributed solely to the insubordination and disorder of those on board. Her captain, Sir George Carew, being hailed when matters looked serious answered that ‘he had a sort of knaves whom he could not rule.’ But these men had been chosen for the Vice-Admiral’s ship as especially good sailors and therefore ‘so maligned and disdained one the other that refusing to do that which they should do were careless to do that which was most needful and necessary and so contending in envy perished in frowardness.’[359]

[Sidenote: Victualling.]

Until very recent times the victualling on board ship was a source of continual anxiety to the authorities, and of grumbling and vexation to the men; and even in the time of Henry VIII it appears to have given more trouble than any of the other details of administration. There was no victualling department until 1550, and either local men were employed at the ports where supplies were to be collected or others were sent from London to make the purchases. Commissions to provide provisions were given to persons attached to the household, or to highly placed officials with sufficient influence to obtain them. In 1496 John Redynge, clerk of the Spicery, was victualling both the land and sea forces on service.[360] In July 1512, Sir Thomas Knyvet, Master of the Horse, was supplying the fleet and undertaking the responsibility of transport; in October, John Shurly, Cofferer of the Household, and John Heron, Supervisor of the London Customhouse.[361] Between 1544-7 numerous agents were employed and were subject to no central control, unless a reference to the Lord Chamberlain, Lord St John, afterwards Marquis of Winchester, as ‘a chief victualler of the army at the seas’ may be held to imply his general superintendence.