Chapter VII: Introduction: The Navy Before 1509 (5)

In 1512 the cost of provisioning each man stood at one shilling and threepence a week. There were some complaints that year, but in 1513 Sir Edward Howard, like many a later admiral, was begging earnestly for stores, ‘let provision be made, for it is a well spent penny that saveth the pound.’ A captain, William Gonson, finding that he was running short, wrote to the Council that unless he received fresh supplies for his men, ‘I cannot keep them in order, for if we lack victuals and wages at anytime as well Spaniards as Englishmen shall murmur.’ That also was an experience many later captains were to find commonplace. Most of the victualling difficulties in subsequent reigns were due to want of money or to absolute knavery, but the embarrassments at this date seem to have been as much caused by lack of organisation due to want of experience in the supply of large fleets longer at sea than formerly. There is, however, a letter of Howard’s, belonging to 1512 or 1513, which shows that roguery was already at work: ‘they that receved ther proportion for ii monthes flesche cannot bryng about for v weekes for the barelles be full of salt, and when the peecis kepith the noumbre wher they shulde be peny peces they be scante halfpeny peces, and wher ii peces shulde make a messe iii will do but serve.’[362] Short measure was therefore a frequent experience. In April 1513 a convoy reached the fleet off Brest just in time, ‘for of ten days before there was no man in all the army that had but one meal a day and one drink.’ After Howard’s death, when the captains of the fleet returned to Dartmouth, and they were asked why they had come back, ‘they all replied for default of victuals not having three days allowance.’[363] The pursers, a class who move through naval history loaded with the maledictions of many generations of seamen, were already condemned. It is doubtless in connection with the return of the fleet that two officials wrote on the same day, ‘I fear that the pursers will deserve hanging for this matter,’ and ‘an outrageous lack on the part of the pursers.’[364] It may have been the experiences of 1512 and 1513 that led to an order in September of the latter year, of which there is no previous example that the vessels named for winter service should be provisioned for two months at the time.[365] They were directed ‘to victual at Sandwich from two months to two months during four months.’ Although the regulation remained in force, Surrey complained in 1522 that some of his ships had only supplies for eight days instead of two months.[366] In 1545 the French were said to carry two months’ stores.[367]

Victualling stores and requisites were obtained by purveyance, and there was not consequently much eagerness displayed to sell to the crown. There is a proclamation of 1522 ordering, under penalty of £5, every one possessing casks to put them out of doors that the King’s purveyor might take them at ‘a reasonable price,’ one, that is to say, to be fixed by him. The prices paid for provisions, are, therefore, no absolute indication of the market rates, but the following are some for this period.[368]

Biscuit (1512) 3s 6d and 5s a cwt.
Do. (1554) 7s 6d a cwt.
Salt beef (1512) £1, 11s a pipe
Do. (1544) £3, 12s a pipe
Beer (1512) 13s 4d a tun
Do. (1547) 16s and 21s a tun
Red Herring (1513) 5s the cade
Do. (1547) 9s 6d and 11s the cade
White Herring (1513) 10s a barrel
Do. (1547) 21s a barrel

By 1545 the rate had run up to eighteenpence a week per man, or perhaps more,[369] and two months’ provisions were estimated to occupy 83 tons of space in 100 ton ship with a complement of 200 soldiers and sailors. A pound of biscuit and a gallon of beer a day were allowed to each man, and ‘200 pieces of flesh’ to every hundred men on four days of the week. Beer was the recognised right of the sailor, and the exigencies of warfare had to yield to his prerogative. After Surrey captured Morlaix in 1522, he announced his intention of going on a cruise and of not returning ‘as long as we have any beer, though in return we should drink water.’[370] Evidently it was considered out of the question to remain at sea without beer, and again when Lisle was off the French coast in 1545 he gave pointed expression to the fear that if the victuallers did not arrive ‘a good meynye of this fleet may happen to drynck water.’ The payments for provisions from September 1542 until the death of Henry in January 1547, amounted to £65,610 10s 4½d,[371] and we can still trace the proceedings of the various agents at Sandwich, Lowestoft, Portsmouth, Yarmouth, and Southampton. ‘Necessary money,’ an allowance to the pursers for candles, wood, etc., was in operation according to the ‘old ordinance’ at the rate of twopence a man per month.[372]

[Sidenote: The new Administration.]

The increase in the navy and the additional work caused by the mobilisation of fleets necessitated an augmentation from the first on the administrative side of the department though no systematic and permanent change was made until the close of the reign. Brygandine remained clerk of the ships till about 1523; in that year he was granted a release—a customary proceeding—for all embezzlements or misdemeanours committed while in office, and this probably means that he resigned then or shortly afterwards.[373] But although he had been the chief administrative officer, he was now by no means the only one even during his term of service, though it is not easy to define the exact duties and responsibilities of his associates. The fleets of 1513-14 carried a ‘Treasurer of the Army by Sea,’ in the person of Sir Thomas Wyndham,[374] who was also allowed one shilling and fourpence a day for two clerks, and Brygandine had nothing to do with payments made for stores or wages in these ships.

In 1513 John Hopton, a gentleman usher of the chamber was given charge of the fleet conveying troops to Calais,[375] and from that time until his death Hopton was closely connected with naval affairs. In 1514 he was made keeper of the storehouses at Erith and Deptford, with a fee of one shilling a day, and as such received under his charge the fittings of the ships dismantled and laid up that year; it has been noticed that he contracted for the work required for the formation or enlargement of the pond at Deptford in 1517. He was an owner of ships and sold at least one to the king, and, in the same year, he is called ‘clerk comptroller of the ships.’ His duties must have been mainly clerical and financial, for we have many separate series of payments made by him to Brygandine who seems to have retained the active direction of executive work, and certain passages in the records known as the _Chapter House Books_, seem to imply that they were written under his supervision. Hopton held a definite appointment, but there are others mentioned as employed in purchasing stores, travelling for certain purposes, or in charge of ordnance taken out of the ships, who can only have held temporary and subordinate situations. There were sometimes local clerks of the ships, as at Portsmouth when Thomas Spert was given ‘the rule of all the forsaid ships, maisters, and maryners with the advise of Brygandine.’[376] Here, however, the whole control was really in the hands of the customers of Southampton who were ordered to provide the money requisite, muster the men once a week, and exercise a general oversight. Again, in 1529, Edmund More, of whom nothing is known beyond this single reference, was acting as clerk of the ships at Portsmouth. When there was only one naval centre the clerk of the ships resided there, but after the foundation of Woolwich and Deptford his place was in London, and the local clerk represented the later Commissioner in charge of a dockyard.

Hopton died in or before July 1526,[377] and had been succeeded from 1524 by William Gonson, also a gentleman usher of the king’s chamber, as keeper of the storehouses at Erith and Deptford.[378] Although in 1523 Thomas Jermyn was the recognised Clerk of the Ships,[379] and in 1533 Leonard Thoreton,[380] Gonson, who also commanded ships at sea, soon became the dominant official. He is found equipping men-of-war, directing their movements and making payments for wages, victualling, and the purchase of necessaries, but notwithstanding the extent of his authority he does not seem to have held any titular rank. In 1538 Sir Thomas Spert was Clerk of the Ships,[381] but appears to have had very little to do unless Gonson happened to be suffering from gout. Spert was followed by Edmund Water, another gentleman usher of the chamber, who held his office by patent, neither Jermyn, Thoreton nor Spert acted under Letters Patent, and in the absence of an enrolled appointment, they were doubtless considered merely acting officials.

Large payments to Gonson can be traced down to 1545. Then for the first time we have the titles of ‘Treasurer of the See,’ ‘Paymaster of the See,’ and ‘Treasurer of the See Maryne Causes’[382] as describing John Winter, who, however, died in less than a year. It was possibly the loss of William Gonson’s practised experience, and dissatisfaction with his successors, which helped to move Henry to make in 1546, the most important change in naval administration that had yet occurred. In one day the naval organisation was revolutionised. By Letters Patent of the 24th April 1546, Sir Thomas Clere was constituted Lieutenant of the Admiralty, with a fee of £100 a year, ten shillings a day for travelling expenses when engaged on the business of his office, £10 a year for boat hire and twentypence a day for two clerks; Robert Legge, ‘Treasourer of our maryne causes’ with 100 marks a year, six shillings and eightpence a day for travelling expenses, eight pounds a year for boat hire, and sixteenpence a day for two clerks; William Broke, ‘Comptroller of all our shippes,’ with £50 a year, four shillings a day for travelling expenses, eight pounds for boat hire, and sixteenpence a day for two clerks; Benjamin Gonson,[383] ‘Surveyor of all our shippes,’ with £40 a year, the same travelling allowance and boat hire as the comptroller, but only eightpence a day for one clerk; Richard Howlett, Clerk of the Ships, with £33, 6s 8d a year, three shillings and fourpence a day travelling expenses, and six pounds for boat hire. William Holstock and Thomas Morley were granted annuities of one shilling a day without specific duties, but they were both employed in assisting the other officers. All these fees were paid from the Exchequer. By another patent of the same day, the supply of guns, powder, and other ordnance necessaries for the Navy was placed under the direction of Sir William Woodhouse, called ‘Master of the Ordnance of the ships,’ at a fee of 100 marks a year, six shillings and eightpence a day travelling expenses, eight pounds a year for boat hire, and two shillings and fourpence a day for three clerks. The stores were still kept at the central office in the Tower, and became separate from, if subordinate to, the old Ordnance Office, remaining so until 1589.

It would be of great interest to know exactly the motives moving Henry to the formation of—to use a later name—the Navy Board. Beyond discontent with the administration in 1545, the accessions of 1546 suggest that it was his intention to still further strengthen the Navy, and experience had doubtless shown that the old organisation was too inelastic for more than a limited number of ships acting within a restricted sphere. Hitherto fleets had carried troops, landed them, and returned home; or gone to sea, fought the enemy, and returned home; but now the era of long cruises was commencing, and the transition necessarily involved additional administrative work with which the clerk of the ships or the comptroller could not alone cope. Another subject of inquiry is the model on which the board was formed. It was not derived from any foreign power, for the organisation was then, and long afterwards, superior to and unlike, anything existing abroad. The similarity of many of the titles and of their corresponding duties suggests that it was copied from the constitution of the Ordnance Office, which Henry had also remoulded to suit the altered conditions of warfare. The Lieutenant of the Admiralty, acting under the Admiral of England, as the Lieutenant of the Ordnance acted under the Master General, was intended to be the most important member of the board. But after the death of Clere’s successor, Sir William Woodhouse, the post was not filled up and the Treasurership exercised by an expert official like Benjamin Gonson, or a great seaman like Hawkyns, speedily became the chief administrative office. Another cause of the Treasurer’s ascendancy is to be found in the fact that he had to be a man of some capital, able and willing to advance money to the crown. He was to have allowance for all moneys laid out if his books were signed ‘by two or three’ of the other officers.[384] Originally this may only have been intended to apply to all moneys received from the Exchequer and expended by him, but the yearly accounts show that it soon became a normal condition for the crown to be indebted to him for advances.

Two other officers found their positions altered by the new development. The Lord Admiral had been till now only a combatant officer; from this date he interfered more or less frequently and directly in matters of administration for which he was nominally responsible. But while the members of the Navy Board were men of weight and reputation his action mainly took the course of agreeing with the advice given him. Under the new arrangement the Clerk of the Ships became a very subordinate officer. More than a century later Pepys claimed that the clerk possessed from former times a consultative and equal voice with the other officers. It would be difficult to disprove it, and it is true that the signature of the clerk appears sometimes—but only sometimes—attached to documents with those of his colleagues. In 1600, however, his duties are distinctly said to be confined to registering the resolutions of the board generally.[385] At especially busy periods he shared the active work of superintendence but ordinarily only the Treasurer, Comptroller, and Surveyor, are found to be exercising authority, and the gradual alteration of his title from Clerk of the Ships to Clerk of the Acts is itself a sign that his functions had become purely secretarial.

[Sidenote: Hired Ships.]

Besides English vessels, Henry hired Spanish during the earlier years of his reign and Hanseatic during the later ones, England being on much more friendly terms with Spain in 1509 than in 1547. One or two ‘Arragoseys,’ _i.e._ Ragusans were in pay, that republic being a maritime power of some importance in the fifteenth century. The English ships taken up for the crown were mostly employed as victuallers and tenders, and were therefore not required to be large and do not afford any measure of the magnitude of the merchant navy. In April 1513 there were thirty-nine impressed of 2039 tons, and of these the largest was 140 tons; twenty-eight of them were serving as victuallers, one being usually attached to each of the largest men-of-war.[386] The rate of hire was one shilling a ton per month, for both victuallers and fighting ships, and the wages, victualling, and dead shares were the same as on king’s ships; jackets were frequently provided for the crews as for men-of-war’s men. Another account gives a list of twenty-two English vessels of 3040 tons, and six Spanish of 1650 tons as having served.[387] The Spaniards were manned by 289 Spanish and 181 English seamen, with 869 English soldiers and a majority of English officers. Henry had to pay a hiring rate of fifteenpence a ton for them, and 7s 1d a month to Spanish seamen, 4s 9d to gromets, and 2s 5d to pages, while the dead shares allotted to the foreigners were at six shillings each instead of the five shillings of the Englishmen. The difference of pay must have caused a great deal of jealousy but the king’s attempts to obtain Spaniards at the standard rate had failed.[388] The _Mary of Bilboa_ was taken up at fifteenpence-farthing and a half-farthing a month, terms which imply a good deal of higgling.[389] In 1514 there were twenty-one hired fighting ships and fifteen victuallers engaged. The former measured 2770 tons, and included one of 300, one of 240, one of 200, and three of 160 tons.[390]

In 1544 twenty-two foreign ships, now mostly Hanseatic, of 1465 tons were still obtaining fifteenpence a ton, and 379 men in them seven shillings and sixpence a month, while the English pay remained at five shillings, and thirty-five hired English vessels received their one shilling a ton.[391] In the same year the expedition against Scotland required 117 transports of which London furnished 6, Calais 2, Amsterdam 1, Dordrecht 1, Antwerp 4, Hamburg 5, Lubeck 2, Ipswich 31, Yarmouth 31, Newcastle 6, Hull 6, and Lynn 4.[392] English owners did not show themselves eager to send their ships to join the royal fleet and it was necessary to issue a circular letter in August 1545, to the mayors of the various ports which ran:—

‘Fforasmuch as I understand that dyvers and many of the
adventurers that are appointed for Portsmouth ... do slacke
and drawe back from the same being rather gyven to spoyle
and robberye than otherwise to serve His Maiestie and making
ther excuses for lack of necessaries do showe themselves not
wyllynge to serve the kyng’s Maiestie according to their
diewties’

they were ordered to go to Portsmouth immediately on pain of death.[393] Their disinclination to be shackled by the discipline of a fleet can be understood when we find Lisle writing to Paget that ‘nother Spanyard, Portugell, nor Flemynge that cometh from by south but they be spoylid and robbid by our venturers.’ The successful privateering of 1544, when 300 French prizes were taken,[394] was assuredly joyously remembered and similar good fortune hoped for. If there is no exaggeration in Stow’s account the event is remarkable as the first instance of our sweeping the Channel on an outbreak of war, and signifies the steady growth of a marine able to perform the work.

[Sidenote: The Merchant Navy.]

The materials for an estimate of the strength of the merchant navy are scanty, but we find in this reign a commencement of the plan largely extended under Elizabeth, of obtaining returns of the vessels belonging to various ports. Henry, moreover, followed the example of his father in granting a bounty on large ships. In 1520 an allowance of four shillings a ton was ordered on the customs due for the first voyage of the _Bonaventure_ of London of 220 tons; in 1522 five shillings a ton on the _Antony_ of Bristol, of 400 tons, because she was good for trading purposes and ‘also to doo unto us service in warre.’[395] The wording of the warrant rather implies, however, that the _Antony_ was a purchase from a foreign owner. In 1521 four shillings a ton was paid on the _John Baptist_ of Lynn of 200 tons, and in 1530 five shillings a ton on the _John Evangelist_ of Topsham of 110 tons. If there was any rule regulating the apportionment of the bounty it is impossible to define it now. In 1544 there is a payment of five shillings a ton on the _Mary James_ of Bristol of 160 tons ‘to corage othre our subgetts to like makyng of shippes.’[396] There were doubtless many more similar grants but which were not issued in a form which ensured their survival in the records.

In 1513 Bristol had nine vessels of 100 tons and upwards ready to join the royal fleet. Of these one was of 186 tons, one of 120, one of 130, three of 110 and three of 100 tons.[397] It is significant of the little reliance that can be placed on statements of tonnage that, in another paper, the one of 186 tons is given as of 160, one of 110 as 140 and the one of 120 as of 100. In the case of merchantmen the discrepancies may perhaps be attributed to the fact that it was to the interest of the owner of a hired merchantman to measure his ship at as high a tonnage as possible, as he was paid by the ton, while the navy authorities acting in the interest of the crown desired to rate it as low as they could. In the case of men-of-war the tonnage, unless they had actually performed a trading voyage and stowed goods, could only have been by estimate, which would explain a difference of 100 or 150 tons in the supposed measurement of a large ship.

In 1528, there were 149 vessels engaged in the Iceland fishery all which, with the exception of 8 from London, belonged to the east coast ports. Yarmouth sent 30, Cley, Blakeney, and Cromer 30, and Dunwich, Walderswick, Southwold, and Covehithe 32. To the herring fishery in the North Sea went 222, of which the Cinque Ports sent 110 and the east coast the remainder. Trading to Scotland were 69 ships of which only 6 sailed from London.[398] This return was used years afterwards to show the prosperous condition of these trades as compared with a later period when the number of vessels employed had greatly fallen off; except that it is endorsed in Cecil’s handwriting the date of the comparison is unknown. For 1533, there is a certificate of the ships returned from Iceland that year, 85 in number, of which 6, of from 50 to 100 tons, belonged to London; 10, of from 35 to 95 tons to Lynn; 14, of from 40 to 95 tons to Yarmouth; 7, of from 60 to 150 tons to Orwell haven; and 17, of from 30 to 90 tons to Wells and Blakeney.[399] Unless they were trading vessels, used on occasion for the Iceland fishery, the average tonnage seems very high for North Sea fishing boats of that century. Nearly 700 sail were reputed to enter Calais harbour every year and ‘at the least’ 340 foreign herring boats also traded there.[400] These figures point to a flourishing local trade round the coasts and in the fisheries, but there are only three returns relating to ships of larger size and they do not give particulars for more than a few ports;—[401]

+-------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| |Tons |Tons |Tons |Tons |Tons |Tons |
| | 100 | 110 | 120 | 130 | 140 | 160 |
| +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Minehead | 1 | | | | | |
| Burton[402] | | | 1 | | | |
| Lynn | 1 | | | | | |
| Cley | 1 | 1 | | | | |
| Yarmouth | 6 | | | | 1 | |
| Lowestoft | 1 | | 3 | | | |
| Aldborough | 1 | | | | | |
| Hull | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | |
| Newcastle | 7 | | | 1 | | 1 |
+-------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+

There were 99 other vessels of from 40 to 100 tons also sailing from these ports; but if the table were complete and included London, Bristol, Southampton, and Dartmouth—to name no others—we should infer a surprisingly large total from the 32 belonging to these towns. Foreign observers, men representing a maritime state like Venice, considered the sea strength of England much greater than would be assumed from the few sources of information we possess. In 1531, the Venetian representative reported that Henry could arm 150 sail;[403] in 1551, Barbaro thought that the crown could fit out 1500 sail of which ‘100 decked’[404] and in 1554, Soranzo remarked that there were ‘great plenty of English sailors who are considered excellent for the navigation of the Atlantic.’[405] These Venetians paid especial attention to the English marine and in no instance do they write of it depreciatingly.

[Sidenote: Trade and Voyages.]

Commerce does not appear to have progressed in a ratio corresponding to its growth during the close of the fifteenth century. Trade had been then recovering the position lost through the unsettled political state previously existing, and had benefited under a king who made its expansion the keynote of his policy. Half a century had brought it relatively into line with that of other countries, and thenceforward its increase was no longer a question of regaining a standard already once attained, but of competition with other powers whose trade was marked out on definite lines. This accounts for the comparatively stationary condition of commerce under Henry, and until new factors came into play under different circumstances. According to Hakluyt voyages to the Levant were frequent until 1534 but then fell off.[406] In that year Richard Gonson, son of William Gonson the naval official, undertook a Mediterranean trading voyage, which occupied a year, the usual time allowed for the passage out and home. In the same way English merchants traded with the Canaries and northern ports, but we have no details bearing on the extent of the traffic. William Hawkyns of Plymouth, father of Sir John Hawkyns, made three voyages, of which the last was in 1532, to Brazil and Guinea. From a remark, however, made by Chapuys, in a despatch to the emperor, voyages to Brazil could not have been uncommon.[407]

In 1517 there is said to have been an exploring expedition sent out under the command of Thomas Spert, who had been master of the _Henry Grace à Dieu_ and other ships, and who possessed Henry’s confidence then and afterwards.[408] He was a yeoman of the crown, and by Letters Patent of 10th November 1514, enjoyed an annuity of £20 a year. In 1527 John Rut, another man-of-war officer, left England in June with two vessels for Newfoundland, one, the _Mary Guildford_, being a king’s ship. Rut returned in her without having effected anything; the other was lost at sea. Two other attempts at discovery are also assigned to this year.[409] In 1536 Hore, with the _Trinity_ and the _Minion_, reached Cape Breton Island, and a further voyage was intended in 1541. These enterprises show Henry’s desire to extend English commerce, and a further illustration of the fact is to be found in his endeavour in 1541 to obtain permission for some Englishmen to sail in the next Portuguese fleet for India, ‘to adventure there for providing this realm with spices.’[410]

Doubtless the religious revolt had for the time an injurious influence on our trade, seeing that Englishmen were regarded as heretics by some of their best customers, and that the whole influence of the Roman Church was employed in Spain, and elsewhere, to the detriment of the country. The reaction born of intellectual freedom, and of the moral and material strength which was its natural product, did not make itself felt till later. Moreover as long as England acknowledged the Roman rule she was bound by the division of the new discoveries made by the Popes, a division which fatally hampered her attempts to share the riches of the golden West. When that dividing line was no longer recognised, and individual enterprise or greed had free play, the conditions which brought her into antagonism with other maritime powers were also those which stimulated the growth of national vigour and self reliance. In that sense the Reformation considered as a liberation from restraining ties, was an important factor in the development of English sea power.

There were two statutes, in 1532 and 1539, confirming the navigation act of 1490. In 1540 it was enacted that whoever should buy fish at sea from foreign fishermen to sell on shore, should be subjected to a fine of £10, a statute which seems to point to the commencing decay of the native fishing industry. The cable and hawser manufacture, long associated with Bridport, was protected by the parliament of 1529, and Henry is said to have expended immense sums in the endeavour to make Dover a safe harbour.[411] Another act for the preservation of Plymouth, Dartmouth, Teignmouth, Falmouth, and Fowey havens, from the injury caused by the gravel brought down from the tin works, was passed in 1532. In 1513 a license for the formation of a guild, afterwards the Trinity Corporation, was granted for the ‘reformation of the navy lately much decayed by the admission of young men without experience, and of Scots, Flemings, and Frenchmen as lodesmen;‘[412] in 1536 the Trinity guild of Newcastle was founded.[413] ‘Navy’ is here used in its original sense, meaning the shipping and seamen of the kingdom generally, and not the ‘King’s Navy Royal.’ During the sixteenth century the Trinity House had no connection with the Royal Navy; during the greater part of the seventeenth century, it had an occasional consultative, but no direct connection. It has never had any actual share in the administration of the Navy, nor that close association with it that, trading on the loss and destruction of its early documents, it has claimed.

[Sidenote: Coast Defences.]

Allied to the defence of the kingdom by sea was the protection of the seaboard by the forts or castles, on the south and east coasts, some of which still exist. The initial motive was the threatening political outlook of 1539 when a European coalition against England appeared probable. During the next few years upwards of £74,000, from the spoil of the suppression, was spent for this purpose,[414] and this perhaps does not include £17,498 devoted to the fortifications of Hull. ‘A book of payments,’ made to the garrisons in 1540, enumerates seventeen of these defences, but more were afterwards built.

[Sidenote: Naval Expenditure.]

There is, of course, no chronological series of papers relating to the naval expenditure of the reign. Only isolated accounts for those years when active service was undertaken are to be found. The general disbursements for 1513 came to £699,000,[415] and the naval expenses, from 4th March to 31st October, were £23,000, but this seems to have been almost entirely for wages and hire of ships, only £291, 17s 9½d having been spent on repairs, and neither victualling, ordnance stores, nor the cost of preparation being included.[416] Detailed accounts were strictly kept although so few have survived. In one book it is stated that two copies of the accounts were to be made; one to be retained by the person charged with making payments, the other to be kept ‘in oure owne custodie for oure more perfytte rememberaunce in that behalf.’[417] The first kept as his acquittance by Sir John Daunce, is now in the Record Office, and bears Henry’s signature in numerous places, showing the close personal attention he gave to naval affairs. When William Gonson was acting as paymaster, he received between 21st August 1532 and 25th August 1533, £4169, 10s, from 16th December 1534 to 11th December 1535 £7093, 17s 9½d, and from 4th April 1536 to 29th June 1537, £3497, 3s 2d.[418] As a whole, on these years, the crown was indebted, beyond the money paid out to Gonson, £1487, 12s 9d, and the expenditure was almost entirely for dockyard work and stores, although there must also have been the cost of ships in commission, not here entered.

During the years of warfare between 1544-7 the amounts expended became very large. Richard Knight, who describes himself as ‘servant’ of Lord St John, received between 12th February 1544-5 and 30th June 1547, £101,127, and of this £84,000 was devoted to seamen’s wages and victualling.[419] Of the total sum £40,000 came from the Exchequer, £20,500 from the Court of Augmentation, £1600 benevolence money in Norfolk, and £8000 from the court of Wards and Liveries. Coincidently many thousands of pounds were paid through William Gonson, John Wynter, and his successor, Robert Legge, and doubtless through other persons. The new system of administration did not at first work altogether successfully as far as bookkeeping was concerned. From the following letter of Lisle’s we find that Sir William Paget, a Secretary of State, had written to him making inquiries, and he answers

‘You write unto me that the Tresawrer of thadmyralltie being
called to accompt his reckoning is so illfavoridly mad that
there semith a want of £2000 wich you cannot well se what is
become of hit.’

and goes on to explain a series of transactions, but both Legge and Wynter appear to have been performing the duties of Treasurer which may be a reason for the entanglement of figures.[420] It was stated that during 1544-5, the crown had expended £1,300,000,[421] and the naval expenses from September 1542 to the end of the reign are fully detailed in a later paper.[422]

Cordage, timber, and other stores, £45,230 18 8
Coat and conduct money, 2,415 13 2
Wages of seamen, soldiers, shipwrights, dockyards, etc., 127,846 10 7
Victualling, 65,610 10 4½
Ordnance and ammunition, 19,276 13 10½
Furniture[423] of ships, 1582 14 7
Hire of docks, storehouses, riding and posting charges, 502 4 6

[Sidenote: Piracy and Privateering.]

Great stress has been laid on the prevalence of piracy in the sixteenth century as the chief school of English seamanship. Of course it was practised during this reign to an extent that would now be thought monstrous, but it did not attain the proportions of a few years later, nor were English seamen dependent on its development for a knowledge of their art. When religious and political motives impelled them to a guerilla warfare, they became pirates because they were already good seamen, with the training of centuries behind them, and the sea was their natural field of action. The succession of conflicts between France and the Empire induced an internecine maritime war between those powers, in the shape of privateering, which sometimes smouldered but never died out. Convoys for the Spanish American fleets were instituted in 1522 on account of the depredations of French privateers. The despatches of the Imperial ministers show that France, during the reign of Henry and his immediate successors, was, much more than England, a source of injury to Spanish trade. The success of French privateering, together with the voyages for purposes of discovery and settlement, of Verazzani in 1523, of the brothers Parmentier in 1529, of Jacques Cartier and Roberval in 1534 and 1549, of Villegagnon 1555, of Bois-le-Compte in 1556, of Jean de Ribaut in 1562, and of René de Laudonnière in 1564, a succession of efforts which only closed with the outbreak of the wars of religion, seemed to point to France rather than to England as destined to challenge Spanish maritime supremacy. In 1551 France sent a fleet of 160 sail to Scotland, and it is doubtful whether England could have collected one of equal strength to act at a similar distance.

Englishmen, however, joined in the game to a sufficient extent even now. In 1540 the Emperor was informed that a Spaniard, with gold and amber on board, had been seized by two English ships, and a few such successful and profitable incidents must have acted as a strong incentive to ventures which promised large profits on a moderate outlay. There was very little police of the seas, nor could the guardians themselves be trusted in face of temptation. In 1532 some captains sent out on this service plundered Flemish merchantmen they met.[424] As early as 1515 a commission of Oyer and Terminer was issued to the Earl of Surrey and two others to hear and decide piratical offences[425]; in one case eighteen soldiers serving on a man-of-war stole a boat with the intention of seizing a ship at sea. The French had, during the first quarter of the century, a reputation for fair play, and Wolsey in 1526, wrote to Henry that ‘though many English have been taken at sea by the French, they have always made full restitution,’[426] but when the Scotch began to interfere in the trade, proceedings became embittered by competition. By 1532 the narrow seas were said to be full of Scotch privateers and the customary ransom of prisoners was twenty shillings for a sailor and forty for a master.[427] Both Spaniards and Frenchmen attacked each other in English ports, which, until 1539, were mostly unarmed and plunder was openly sold in the coast towns. That from a Portuguese ship was purchased by the mayor and others of Cork, and in 1537 the owners had been for three years vainly endeavouring to obtain redress.[428]

Ordinary merchantmen, sailing with cargo, took advantage of any favourable chance without necessarily acting on a premeditated plan. One vessel, crossing the Channel, met three Bretons and it then occurred to the owner and master that they had lost £60 by Breton pirates and could obtain no redress. Not to lose the opportunity they captured one and sold the cargo at Penryn.[429] Piracy had not yet taken the savage character with which a few more years were to see it imbued; the theological bitterness was as yet wanting. Cases of bloodshed were very rare, and so far at any rate as Englishmen were concerned, the pirate was also sometimes a respectable tradesman on shore.[430] In 1543 the prisons were said to be full of pirates and the Council adopted the plan of requiring sureties before issuing letters of marque. The port towns flourished, at least some of them, then and long afterwards far more on the traffic with pirates, who visited them and sold the proceeds of robbery to the inhabitants, than by legitimate trade. Consequently no victim could rely on obtaining assistance even from the civic authorities. A French ship was ransacked in Plymouth Roads in August 1546—peace with France had been signed on 7th June—notwithstanding her captain’s appeal for help in the town, which seems to imply that the work was very leisurely and thoroughly done. The Council ordered that unless the goods were recovered and the pirates captured the inhabitants of Plymouth were to be made pecuniarily liable for the damage.[431] The wording of the Council order suggests that the Frenchman was boarded from the town, in which case the refusal of the mayor to interfere is still more significant.

Only one statute relating to piracy was passed by Henry. Before 1535 offenders frequently escaped because, if they did not confess, it was necessary to prove the crime by the evidence of disinterested witnesses and this was usually an impossibility. A fresh act therefore rendered them liable to be tried before a jury under the same conditions as ordinary criminals.[432]

[Sidenote: Ordnance, Powder and Shot.]

Soon after Henry’s accession he gave large orders for ordnance to foreign makers, chiefly at Mechlin, but the guns so obtained seem to have been for land service. There is only one paper which gives us the weight of the ship serpentine as used in 1513, and here it works out at 261¼ lbs. exclusive of the chamber or loading piece which weighed 41 lbs.;[433] the chamber contained the powder only, not the shot.[434] These were made by Cornelius Johnson ‘the king’s iron gunmaker,’ and who was one of the twelve gunners attached to the Tower with a fee of sixpence a day; as king’s gunmaker he also received eightpence a day. The sling, one of the heavier ship guns, weighed with its two chambers 8½ cwt. and 27 lbs., and there were also half and quarter slings; but there does not appear to have been any standard weight for these or other guns.[435] The serpentines bought in Flanders, for field use, weighed from 1060 lbs. to 1160 lbs. each. Guns were mounted on two or four-wheeled carriages, or, sometimes, on ‘scaffolds’ of timber; leaden shot and ‘dyse’ of iron were used with serpentines and iron shot with curtalls. In one instance 200 iron dice weighed 36 lbs., and they seem to have usually been one and a half inch square. The Artillery Garden at Houndsditch was granted for practice with ‘great and small ordinance,’ and persons with such English names as Herbert, Walker, and Tyler are noticed as gunfounders early in the reign, although, according to Stow, cast iron guns were not made in England till 1543. Some writers assert that they were used in Spain in the fourteenth century; if so it is probable that they were made here before the date given by Stow.

Serpentine powder cost from £4, 13s 4d to £6, 13s 4d and ‘bombdyne’ £5 a last; corn powder tenpence a pound.[436] Serpentine was a fine weak powder and probably midway in strength between bombdyne and corn. During 1512-13, 51 lasts, 12 barrels, 12 lbs. were used at sea, and 37 lasts during the succeeding year. For saltpetre we were dependent on importation, and between 1509-12 there are two contracts for quantities costing £3622, at sixpence a pound, with John Cavalcanti and other Italian merchants who were the usual purveyors, but gunpowder was made at home. Shot, whether of stone or iron, were called gunstones, round shot of iron costing £4, 10s to £5, 10s a ton, and of stone 13s 4d a hundred. Cross bar shot were in common use, _e.g._ ‘gun stones of iron with cross bars of iron in them.’[437] There are ‘ballez of wyldfyre with hoks of yron,’ and ‘bolts of wyldfyre’ both, like the arrows of wildfire, to set the enemy on fire. ‘Tampons’ were wads, sometimes of wood, and not the tompions now known: 16,000 were bought for the _Henry Grace à Dieu_ at ten and twenty shillings the thousand.[438] From an entry ‘for two sheepskins to stop the mouths of the guns,’ we may infer that they were stuffed into the muzzles, or tied over them. Sheepskins were also used for gun sponges, and ‘cartouche’ or cartridge cases were made of canvas.[439]

In 1536 there were only 39 lasts, 11 barrels of powder in the Tower, 33,000 livery arrows,[440] ‘decayed,’ all the bows in the same condition, and the morrispikes wormeaten.[441] But the construction of the forts round the coastline in 1539-40, and the events that followed, gave an impetus to the demand for war material.

[Sidenote: Stores.]

In 1546 the Council querulously complained that ‘the general rule is whenever the King’s Maiestie shuld bye al is dere and skase, and whenever he shuld sel al is plentye and good chepe,’ an experience not confined to sovereigns. Stores such as timber, pitch, tar, oakum, ironwork, etc., necessary for building or repairs were mostly obtained from tradesmen at or near the dockyard towns. One reason for the adoption of Portsmouth is perhaps to be found in its nearness to Bere Forest and the New Forest, but nearly everything but timber, if not to be obtained at Southampton, had to be sent from London. Naval officials, like Gonson, sold necessaries to the crown, while acting as its representatives, and such transactions appear in the accounts as quite legitimate and customary. About 1522 oak timber from Bere was costing one shilling a ton rough and unhewed, one and eightpence seasoned, and three and fourpence ready squared. Ash was one shilling and beech sixpence.[442] Carriage cost twopence a ton per mile, and the work of felling and preparing the wood was performed by the king’s shipwrights who were sent into the forests for that purpose. Iron was £4 to £5, 10s a ton, the Spanish being of a better quality than the English and costing the higher price. Cables were used up to seventeen inches in circumference, ordinarily described as Dantzic, but sometimes from Lynn and Bridport, and bought of both English and foreign merchants. The price averaged about £12 a ton. The establishments did not, in 1515, possess any means of weighing cordage delivered, and there is a charge of 3s 4d for scales ‘hyrede of a belle ffundere dwellynge at Hondise Diche,’ and sent down to Deptford to weigh purchased cables. The following are the prices of miscellaneous requisites:—

{ Olron[443] (1515), 14s 4d and 15s a bolt[444]
Canvas { do. (1518), 10s a bolt
{ Vitery[445] (1515), £4, 13s 4d the balet[446]
{ Poldavys[447] (1515), 18s a bolt

Hemp (1523), 9s per cwt.
Lead (1513), 6s per cwt.
Rosin (1523), 10s per cwt.
Do. (1544), 8s per cwt.
Raw Tallow (1523), 6s per cwt.
Purified Tallow (1523), 9s per cwt.
Tallow (1544), 7s and 10s per cwt.
Flax (1513), 8s per cwt.
Do. (1523), 10s and 12s per cwt.
Oakum (1523), 8s to 14s per cwt.
Pitch (1514), 4s a barrel
Do. (1523), 6s a barrel
Do. (1544), 8s a barrel

[Sidenote: Henry VIII and the Navy.]

It is of course beyond the scope of this work to enter into the vexed question of Henry’s merits or demerits as a ruler, in its widest sense. But the arming of his kingdom was an important part of the office of a sixteenth century king, and the views on which it was planned, and the way in which it was carried out, must form a weighty element in the final judgment of his fitness for his post. So far as the Navy is concerned there is little but unqualified praise to be awarded to Henry. That his action was due to a settled policy and not the product of a momentary vanity or desire for display is shown by the fact that it commenced with his accession and was still progressing at his decease. For almost thirty-eight years nearly every year marked some advance in construction or administration, some plan calculated to make the Navy a more effective fighting instrument. So far as numbers went he made it the most powerful navy in the world, remembering the limited radius within which it was called upon to act. He revolutionised its armament and improved its fighting and sailing qualities, he himself inventing or adapting a type thought fit for the narrow seas. He enlarged the one dockyard he found existing and formed two others in positions so suitable for their purpose that they remained in use as long as the system of wooden ships they were built in connection with. Regulations for the manœuvring of fleets and the discipline of their crews were due to him. He discarded the one mediæval officer of the crown and organised an administration so broadly planned that, in an extended form, it remains in existence to-day. He built forts for the defence of the coasts, a measure that might now be criticised as showing ignorance of the strategical use of a fleet, but a criticism which is inapplicable to the middle of the sixteenth century when the Navy had yet to fight its way not only to supremacy but to equality. It may be said that events pointed to, and almost enforced, the new direction given to national endeavour and the new value attached to the naval arm. Allowing due weight to the altered conditions the fact remains that Henry accepted them and carried out the innovations they involved with an energy and thoroughness akin to genius. The maritime systems of France and Spain, whether in details of shipbuilding or the larger methods of administration, remained unchanging and inelastic, ignoring the mutations of a century remarkable for activity and progress. Spain tried to hold the command of the sea in the sixteenth century with an organisation little altered from that found sufficient in the previous one. Circumstances brought England into conflict with her and not with France, and she had to pay for her blunder of pride or sluggishness with the ruin of her empire.

In these changes history gives no sign of there being any extraneous influence acting through the king. Ministers might come and go but the work of naval extension, done under his personal supervision and direction, went on methodically and unceasingly. He trod a path that some of his predecessors had indicated but none had entered. The errors he committed were those inevitable to a new scheme, a plan which was not an enlargement but a reconstruction, and in which he was a pioneer. His mistakes were those of the scientific ignorance and feudal spirit of his age; his successes were of a much higher order and informed with the statesmanship of a later time.

EDWARD VI

1547-1553

[Sidenote: Changes in the Navy List.]

It is usually said that during the reigns of Edward VI and Mary the Navy was neglected. As a generalisation this is incorrect, although it is true that the number of ships fell off and that the results of naval undertakings were not commensurate with the efforts made, or the money expended upon them. But the administration of both reigns will compare favourably with that of long periods of the seventeenth century. Considering the tardy acceptance of new ideas it would have been marvellous had Henry’s policy been at once consistently and continuously carried on. The factious struggles which occupied the reign of Edward and the religious difficulties of that of Mary were not conducive to perseverance in any settled design, but at least the Regency did not make it their business to at once sell off the Navy. Moreover many of the disappearances from the Edwardian navy lists are of the purchased vessels of the later years of Henry’s reign, and of the small rowbarges he had built from his own design and for a special purpose. The former, we may be certain, had not been constructed with the strength and solidity characterising English ships, and some were perhaps old when bought into the service for which they were momentarily desirable.

The earliest navy list subsequent to Henry’s death is of 5th Jan. 1548.[448] This contains 32 large vessels, having an aggregate of 10,600 tons, besides the _Galley Subtylle_, 13 rowbarges of 20 tons each, and 4 barks of 40 tons. Of other ships belonging to the last reign the _French Galley_ or _Mermaid_ is omitted, but was in the service then and long afterwards, the _Artigo_ had been sold by an order of 14th April 1547, and the _Minion_ had been given to Sir Thomas Seymour. Comparing this with the next list of 22nd May 1549[449] we find that not only are all the large vessels of 1548 still carried in it but that it is increased by the presence of the _Mary Willoby_, recaptured in 1547, two French prizes of 200 tons each, and ‘the three new pinnaces unnamed,’ and evidently just built.[450] Eleven ships were cruising in the North Sea and eighteen in the Channel, which does not give the impression of a cessation of activity notwithstanding the intrigues of Somerset, Seymour, and Northumberland, Kett’s rising, and similar distractions. During 1548 and 1549 ten of the rowbarges, being doubtless found useless, were sold for £165, 4s.[451] The next list is of 26th August 1552[452]; of the before-named 32 vessels the _Murryan_ had been sold in December 1551 for £400, the _Struse_ for £200, the _Christopher_ and _Unicorn_ are ordered to be sold, the _Grand Mistress_ is considered worthless, and the _Less Bark_, _Lion_, and _Dragon_ are to be rebuilt. The remainder are still serviceable, or require only slight repair, while the names of the _Primrose_ and _Bark of Bullen_ reappear attached to new ships and the _Mary Willoby_ has been rebuilt.[453] A French prize, the _Black Galley_, captured in 1549, is not found in this list, and the _Lion_, a Scotch man-of-war taken by the _Pauncye_, was lost off Harwich. In January 1551 a fleet of twelve vessels was at sea, and in 1552 at least eight vessels were in commission, so that altogether up to 1552 there was no great reduction in the effective strength or want of energy in its use. There were now three galleys belonging to the crown and they were not favourably regarded. In 1551 a note of the debts incurred in relation to them was required and the crews were to be discharged as the vessels were very expensive and ‘serve indede to lytle purpose.’[454] This was followed by a warrant on 30th March for £231, 12s to pay them off, and £55 ‘to be divided equallie amonge the Forsares nowe disarmed.’

[Sidenote: Gillingham.]