Chapter VIII: Introduction: The Navy Before 1509 (6)

Edward died on 6th July 1553, therefore it is not strange that there is no later navy list of his reign than that of August 1552. Not only was there no deterioration during his short rule, but two important steps were taken in furtherance of the work of organisation that was Henry’s legacy. The commencement of the great Chatham yard, and the formation of the Victualling into a separate and responsible department, were due to the action of the Council. The Medway anchorage was then, and for some years afterwards, called Gillingham, or Jillingham, Water, and the first order for its use is of 8th June 1550, when the Council directed that all the ships laid up were to be, after the discharge of their officers and crews, ‘herbarowed’ there.[455] On 14th August they further ordered that the men-of-war at Portsmouth were to be brought round to Gillingham, and on 22nd August William Wynter, then ‘Surveyor of the Ships,’ was sent down to superintend their removal.[456] This of course could have been no sudden determination, but there is no hint of the discussions that must have preceded it. Considerations that may have favoured the measure were the limited anchorage space afforded by Woolwich and Deptford, and the distance of Portsmouth from the centre of government and the merchants supplying stores, of which nearly all had to be sent from London. Another reason was the ease with which the work of grounding and graving could be carried on in the Medway with its banks of mud and large tidal rise and fall; this, in fact, is the only one given in the Council order of 14th August 1550. Years were yet to elapse before the beginning of the dockyard appears, and the victualling storehouses for the men employed were at Rochester. That there were a large number of men there is shown by the victualling accounts between 28th June 1550 and 29th September 1552. Rochester stands for £6137 of the total, while Woolwich and Deptford cost £8382, Portsmouth £2407, and Dover £646.[457] The Admiralty branch, represented by the Treasurer, spent, up to 24th October 1551 £6600, at Gillingham in wages and necessaries. Portsmouth, however, only slowly lost its comparative pre-eminence although it was now far less important than Deptford; in 1556 there were still more vessels laid up there than at Gillingham, and its victualling charges, the only test remaining, were £2472, against £1526 at Gillingham. The choice of the Medway was followed by an order, on 16th January 1551, to build a bulwark at Sheerness for its defence.[458]

[Sidenote: Naval Expenditure.]

The only accounts of the Navy Treasurer which have survived for this reign are from 25th December 1546 to 25th December 1547, and from 29th September 1548 to 24th October 1551.[459] During the first period his expenses were nearly £41,000, of which sea-charges (wages) were £6926, Deptford £18,824, Woolwich £3439, Gillingham £4167, Harwich £1631, Colne £484, and Portsmouth £1211. It will be noticed that there are heavy payments in relation to Gillingham nearly three years before the action of the Council, in 1550. There is no obvious explanation of this; the body of the account does not show what particular work was carried on there but it may have been done by way of experiment. In the second period the Treasurer received £65,809 and spent £66,250. Of this sum sea-charges were £14,400, press and conduct money £2900, Deptford £30,300, Woolwich £2054, Gillingham £6600, and Portsmouth £1157. Edward VI inherited his father’s interest in maritime affairs and appears to have been continually at Deptford. There is a charge of £88, 6s 2d for paving ‘the street,’ presumably the High Street, which was ‘so noysome and full of fylth that the Kynges Maiestie myght not pass to and fro to se the buylding of his Highnes shippes.’[460] Deptford, it is seen, was now the leading dockyard, a position it retained for the remainder of the century.

All such improvements as seemed beneficial were adopted that the service might be rendered more efficient. A warrant for £70, 11s was issued to pay for ‘bringing over certain Bretons to teach men here the art of making polldavies.’ From another document we find that two of these Bretons were attached to Deptford. Lead sheathing was newly applied to English ships in 1553, but had been since 1514 in use in the Spanish marine.[461]

There can be little doubt that Henry VIII had intended the formation of a Victualling Department, and that the Council only executed a set purpose already fully discussed and resolved upon. To a man with Henry’s clear perception of the needs of the growing Navy, and his liking for systematic and responsible management, the haphazard method of a dozen agents acting independently and uncontrolled by any central authority, must have been peculiarly hateful. Edward Baeshe who, until 1547, had been merely one of the many agents employed, was chosen in that year to act with Richard Wattes, the two being appointed ‘surveyors of victuals within the city of London,’ with power to press workmen, seamen, and ships, and with a general superintendence over their local subordinates. They supplied not only the fleet but the troops acting against Scotland. This was a tentative movement onwards, but by Letters Patent of 28th June 1550, Baeshe alone was appointed ‘General Surveyor of the Victuals for the Seas,’ with a fee of £50 a year, three shillings and fourpence a day for travelling expenses, and two shillings a day for clerks. Provisions were obtained by exercising the crown prerogative of purveyance, and the money required was received from the Treasurer of the Navy and included in his estimates, although Baeshe also kept separate accounts which were examined and signed by not less than two of the Admiralty officers. Between 1st July 1547, and 29th September 1552, £51,500 passed through his hands and his inferior officers were acting under his directions wheresoever ships were stationed.

[Sidenote: Admiralty Officers.]

Death and other accidents soon altered the arrangement of the Navy Board as appointed by Henry VIII. Robert Legge, the first Treasurer by patent, died some time in 1548, and his accounts determined on 29th September. He was succeeded by Benjamin Gonson, although Gonson’s Letters Patent bear the date of 8th July 1549. William Wynter, son of John Wynter the first Treasurer, and who was making a name as a seaman, succeeded Gonson as Surveyor by Letters Patent of the same date. William Holstock, formerly an unclassified assistant, became keeper of the storehouses at Deptford by patent of 25th June 1549, at a salary of £26, 13s 4d a year and £6 for boat hire. Sir William Woodhouse, originally Master of the Ordnance of the Navy, succeeded Sir Thomas Clere as Lieutenant of the Admiralty by a patent of 16th December 1552, and on the same day Thomas Windham replaced Woodhouse as Master of the Ordnance of the Navy. From the date of the institution of the Admiralty the post of Lord Admiral, hitherto one of dignity and occasional high command, became an office necessitating work of a more everyday character. Although there is no precise order bearing on the subject it is evident that its holder was at the head of the Board and decided questions referred to him by the inferior officers. Thomas, Lord Seymour of Sudeley, was appointed on 17th February 1547, and was beheaded on 20th March 1549. John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, who, under his earlier title of Lord Lisle had held the post under Henry VIII was again nominated for a short time from 28th October 1549, but from 4th May 1550 Edward, Lord Clynton, became High Admiral.

[Sidenote: Piracy and Privateering.]

Strangely as it may read, there was for the moment a direct connection between this great office of the crown and piracy, for Lord Seymour was implicated in several nefarious transactions of the kind. But the government itself, while publicly denouncing pirates and equipping ships to apprehend them, was secretly encouraging acts which were only to be faintly distinguished from open robbery. In August 1548 certain vessels were sent out against the Scots and pirates, but private instructions were given to the captains that, because we were on very doubtful terms with France, they were to seize French ships, ‘saying to them that they have been spoyled before by frenchemenne and could have no justice, or pretending that the victualles or thinges of munition found in any such frenche shippes weare sent to ayde the Scottes or such lyk.’[462] It is true that if peace continued all such cargoes were to be restored and the captors’ expenses discharged by the government, but in face of such teaching it cannot be a matter for surprise that the generality of owners and captains bettered their instructions and failed to draw the line at the exact point marked for them. One of the articles against Seymour at his trial included accusations that goods taken by pirates were seen in his house and distributed among his friends; that when plunder had been recaptured from the freebooters the captors were sent to prison, and that pirates taken and committed to prison were set free. As a rule the charges made in an indictment of a fallen minister require to be very closely scanned, but for these there is a good deal of corroborative evidence. As early as 20th September 1546, the Council were hearing the complaint of ‘oon that sueth against a servant of Sir Thomas Semars for a pyracie.’ After his death the Council awarded £40 to a Frenchman in compensation for losses sustained through ‘the ministres of Lord Seymour.’[463] There is a distinct statement that when pressed for money after the death of his wife, the Dowager Queen, he was, among other things, in partnership with many pirates and received half the booty.[464] Although some of the details of the complaints made against him may be inexact there can be no doubt that the charges as a whole were well founded, and it is significant that the Council dealt with the trouble more successfully after his execution.

In view of the proceedings of the government and the Lord Admiral, it is not surprising that piracy advanced in popularity. Ships, either of the Navy or hired, were being continually sent to sea to keep order; sometimes the latter joined in the business themselves[465] and the former often gave but half-hearted service. As many of the company of a man-of-war might, a month before, have been members of a pirate’s crew, and perhaps expected at their discharge to again tread a rover’s deck, no great ardour was to be expected from them. At times they seem to have been unable even to wait for their discharge. When Tyrrel and Holstock were serving in the Channel, their men, when they boarded foreigners for inquiry, robbed them of property and provisions.[466] The superior officers had to be spurred on to their duty. On one occasion it was necessary to order the Admiral commanding in the Channel to attend to his business, ‘and not lye in the haven at Dover idlye as the Navye doth.’[467] When a leader of the fraternity was caught, the haul usually proved expensive and useless, as he was speedily free again; £300 was granted to the captors of Cole, a well-known name about this time, but Cole is soon found to be at work once more. Strangeways who later died in Elizabeth’s service at Havre, Thomson, and Thomas and Peter Killigrew were others whose names were too familiar to the Council. English, Irish, and Scotch pirates swarmed in the narrow seas, a fleet of twenty sail were on the Irish coast, and the Scotch seem to have been particularly active.

These adventurers, whether licensed or unlicensed, were usually gallant enough and thought little about odds. A privateer of 95 tons and 28 officers and men fell in with a fleet of 27 Normans and Bretons returning from Scotland where they had served for six months. Nothing daunted, ‘althugh our powr were litle yet as pore men desyrus to do our dewtye,’ they closed with one and drove it ashore where they left it ‘rolling uppon the terrabile waves,’ then drove two others ashore and captured a fourth. The French fleet carried 120 guns and 1100 men.[468] The incident is remarkable as showing the careless indifference, born of centuries of struggle with the sea and the enemies it carried, with which our seamen regarded superior strength, long before the outburst of successful piracy on a large scale, which is supposed to have taught them their peculiar faculty.

[Sidenote: The Salute to the Flag.]

In other ways the members of the Regency showed themselves desirous of upholding the honour of their country. There is no especial reference during the previous reign to the claim to the salute, but it was now stringently enforced when possible. It was not yielded however without protest, ‘the Fleming’s men-of-war would have passed our ships without vailing bonnet, which they seeing, shot at them and drove them at length to vail the bonet.’[469] A year later they were more tractable, since the Flemings riding at Dieppe lowered the sail to an English man-of-war which came into the port.[470] With France the question was less easily settled. When Henry Dudley and the Baron de la Garde were both at sea, the former, having the weaker fleet, desired instructions about the salute. The Council wrote that ‘in respect of thamitie and that the sayd Baron is stronger upon the sees sume tymes yelde and sume tymes receyve thonnour.’[471]

[Sidenote: Rewards and Peculations.]

There was no change in the pay or position of the seamen, but they appear to have been liberally treated. The crew of the _Minion_, 300 in number, were given £100 among them for capturing a Frenchman, probably the _Black Galley_,[472] William Wynter, Surveyor of the Navy, commanded the _Minion_ on this occasion, and neither now nor afterwards did the duties of their posts prevent the four principal Officers commanding at sea, sometimes for long periods.

We do not find any mention of embezzlements and thefts during the reign of Henry VIII, not, probably, because they did not occur, but because the Navy papers are comparatively scanty and mostly financial accounts made up in their final form. With Edward VI they begin to appear, and grow rapidly in number subsequently. It was found necessary to pass an act forbidding the Lord Admiral, or any of his officers, to exact payments of money or fish from the Newfoundland or Iceland fishermen under pain of a fine of treble the amount levied.[473] It was said to be a practice of ‘within these few years now last past,’ but abuses usually have to be of long existence before they attain the honour of an Act of Parliament for their suppression. A victualling agent, Henry Folk, was committed to the Fleet prison for embezzling money received for navy victualling, ‘which he hath not answered againe to the poore men but converted the money otherways and suffered them to remayne unpayed and in exclamacion,’ The ‘poore men’ here referred to are more likely to have been persons from whom provisions had been purchased than seamen. The decline of the fishing industry was attributed, among other causes, to the action of the crown purveyors in seizing quantities of fish at nominal prices.

[Sidenote: Merchant Shipping and Trade.]

There is no return of merchant shipping for this period, but the bounty of five shillings a ton on new vessels was paid in several cases. Lord Russell, the Lord Privy Seal, received it on the _Anne Russell_ of 110 tons and there are other similar warrants. There is, however, a paper calendared under the next reign which gives a list of merchantmen of 100 tons and upwards, ‘decayed’ between 1544-5 and 1553. It names seventeen belonging to London of 2530 tons, thirteen of Bristol of 2380 tons, and five owned in other ports.[474] This does not necessarily mean that the merchant navy had decreased to the extent of thirty-five such ships but may refer to those worn out by age and service and possibly replaced. Royal ships were still chartered by merchants for trading purposes; £1000 was paid for the _Jesus of Lubeck_ and another, for a voyage to the Levant in 1552.[475] Later in the reign two of the navy officers, Gonson and Wynter, were indulging in similar speculation, and obtained the _Mathew_ valued at £1208, for which they were required to give sureties.

A commercial treaty with Sweden was on foot in 1550, but as the King of Denmark was urgently complaining of the English pirates who infested the Sound it was not likely to be of much advantage. The formation of the Russia company in 1553, although it was not incorporated until 1555, marked the inception of the great trading companies which did much, directly and indirectly, to increase both the number of ships and their size. Attention was given to the fishing trade and its growth stimulated by an enactment[476] which made Fridays, Saturdays, and Ember days, fish days, under penalty of ten shillings fine, and ten days’ imprisonment for the first, and double for the second and every following offence.

[Sidenote: The circumstances under which the Navy was maintained.]

All through the reign regard was paid to naval requirements under financial conditions which, during many other periods, would have ensured their relegation to a future time. On the 4th November 1550, the Officers of the Navy appeared before the Council and brought books with them, one relating to the docking and repair of certain ships, a second ‘concerning things necessary to be done,’ and a third containing an estimate of stores required. The money wanted for these purposes was £2436, and the department was already in debt to the amount of £4800. Two years later the crown owed £132,372 abroad and £108,826 at home, of which only £5000 was due by the Admiralty.[477] The naval expenses from January 1547 to September 1552 are tabulated as:—[478]

Cordage, timber, etc., £51,152 11 5
Coat and conduct money, 5070 1 5
Wages of soldiers, sailors, dockyards, shipwrights, etc., 78,263 3 8½
Furniture of ships and carriage, 2451 14 10
Riding and posting charges, hire of docks and storehouses, 1609 4 6
Victualling, 64,844 17 3½
Ordnance and ammunition, 10,445 16 8½

These were very large amounts, taken with those of the last years of Henry VIII,[479] for the England of 1552, and we know that the public debt of £241,000 was the result of heavy borrowings at home and abroad. Some progress however was made towards the liquidation of the debt, since it had sunk to £180,000 at the accession of Mary. But as, in this financial situation, the Navy was not allowed to materially retrogress the imputation usually made against the Regency of indifference to its strength is one certainly not justified by facts.

MARY AND PHILIP AND MARY

1553-1558

[Sidenote: The Royal Ships.]

There is no complete navy list for the reign of Mary therefore the changes that took place in the royal ships can only, in most cases, be ascertained by comparison with earlier and later lists. There is, however, a record of the sale of certain ships in 1555; the _Primrose_ for £1000, the _Mary Hambro_ £20, the _Grand Mistress_ £35, the _Hind_ £8, the _Christopher_ £15, the _Unicorn_ £10, and four of the smallest pinnaces or rowbarges.[480] The prices obtained show that, with the exception of the _Primrose_, they must have been in very bad condition. The _Bark of Bullen_ was delivered in 1553 to Jeffrey Coke, on condition of his carrying the Lord Deputy and the royal despatches to and from Ireland when necessary.[481] The _Henry Grace à Dieu_ was burnt by accident at Woolwich on 25th August 1553.[482] Comparing the first complete navy list of Elizabeth with the Edwardian of 26th August 1552, we find that, besides the above mentioned vessels, only the _Pauncye_, _Mathew_, and _Less Bark_, are wanting of the larger ships. On the other hand the _Sacrett_, a French prize of 160 tons, a new _Mary Rose_ of 500 tons in 1555, the _Philip and Mary_ in 1556 of 450 tons, the _Lion_ rebuilt in 1557, a new _Bark of Boulogne_, and the _Brigantine_ replace these deficiencies. When we read that Henry VIII left a fleet of 53 vessels, and that it rapidly diminished after his death, it must be remembered that thirteen of them were twenty-ton rowbarges immediately cast off as useless, and that only twenty-eight, excluding the galleys, were of 100 tons and upwards. A navy list of February 1559 names twenty-five of this class, serviceable and unserviceable, and the next, of 24th March 1559, twenty. Accepting the last, as affording the most unfavourable comparison, it does not warrant the severe condemnation of the naval administration of Mary’s reign to which we are accustomed. Moreover many of the men-of-war dated from the years 1544-6, and were now approaching the time when they required rebuilding. The long ‘life’ of wooden as compared with iron ships has become proverbial but did not apply to sixteenth, and hardly to seventeenth century vessels. Doubtless the absence of proper sheathing, and the bad adjustment of weights, which caused excessive straining in a seaway, had much to do with it, but whatever the cause men-of-war are found to need rebuilding within, at the most, every twenty-five years during the Tudor and Stewart reigns.

There is an Elizabethan paper of 1562[483] which, if it can be even partially trusted, shows that the closing months of Mary’s reign were characterised by great dockyard activity. The _Hart_, _Antelope_, _Swallow_, _New Bark_, _Jennett_, _Greyhound_, _Phœnix_, and _Sacar_ are assigned to 1558 as new ships, that is to say as rebuilt, for in these early documents distinction is seldom drawn between one really new and one merely rebuilt. Mary died on 17th November 1558, and if the year were reckoned by the New Style there would be no question but that they must have been begun during her lifetime and finished at least shortly after her death. But at this time the year ended on 24th March, and the unknown writer of the paper in the _Cecil MSS._ when he assigns these vessels to 1558 means a period ceasing on 24th March 1559, when Elizabeth had been nearly four-and-a-half months on the throne. It is known that the dockyards were working busily shortly after Elizabeth’s accession, but assuming the 1562 writer to be correct in his dates, and as a whole there is some corroborative evidence of his general accuracy, it seems quite impossible that these eight ships could have been rebuilt between 17th November 1558, and 24th March 1559. That being so Mary’s government must be allowed the credit of recognising the decline in the effective force and of the measures taken for its renewal.

There is another test that can be applied to the question of the activity or inactivity of the government, and that is the number of ships sent to sea during these years. In 1554 twenty-nine men-of-war, manned by 4034 men, were in commission;[484] during 1555-6 thirty-eight, several of them of course twice or thrice over;[485] in 1557 twenty-four, and in December eight others were in preparation.[486] Yet, again, if we take the squadrons especially sent out pirate catching, we find that during 1555-6 eight vessels were equipped to search for Cole and Stevenson, two well known adventurers, and there are many other references to men-of-war commissioned with the same object. In another way the naval history of this reign is noteworthy. Although it was not unknown for ships to be at sea in winter it was as yet exceptional, but we now find it occurring more frequently during these few years than through the whole reign of Henry VIII. No fewer than eight were cruising during the first four months of 1556;[487] in October 1557, ten;[488] and ten in February and March of the same year.[489]

[Sidenote: Admiralty Officers and Administration.]

Lord Clynton was still Lord Admiral at the death of Edward VI. He was then unfortunate enough to be on the wrong side, and his influence with the men seems to have been small, as the crews of six vessels, sent to the Norfolk coast to prevent the flight of Mary, went over to her side. Clynton was replaced by William, Lord Howard of Effingham, from 26th March 1554. The first named, however, regained the Queen’s favour by the efficient aid he gave in Wyatt’s rising and was reappointed on 10th February 1557; thenceforward he retained the office till his death on 16th January 1585. The only other change among the chief officers was the nomination of William Wynter to be Master of the Ordnance of the Navy from 2nd November 1557;[490] he was already Surveyor and now held both offices for the rest of his life. The salary of the conjoined appointments was £100 a year, with the usual 6s 8d a day travelling expenses, 2s 4d a day for clerks, and £8 a year for boat hire. The management of the Admiralty was, if not exactly reformed, subjected to close scrutiny. In 1556 Lord Howard was ordered ‘to repayre himself forthwith on receipte hereof,’ without the knowledge of the other officers, and take ‘a secret muster’ of the men on board the ships, to search the ships for concealed men and victuals, and to arrange for a monthly muster on the cruisers in the narrow seas.[491] Regulations were also established for the supply of stores and provisions and their economical use, and a first attempt was made to check the waste of ammunition in saluting by an order that it was not to be consumed in ‘vayne shot.’[492]

A year later a further alteration followed, which took the form of allowing a fixed yearly sum for ordinary naval expenses, a rule which remained long in force. There may also have been other reasons for some additional changes made. Clynton may not have been entirely trusted, or some suspicion, perhaps, was taking shape concerning the provident or honest conduct of the Officers. The order ran:—

‘Wheare heretofore the Quenes Maiestie hath ben sundrie tymes
troubled with thoften signing of warrantes for money to be
defraied about the necessarie chardges of her Highnesses navie
and being desierouse to have some other order taken for the
easyer conducting of this matter heareaftyr: Dyd this daie upon
consultacion had with certayn of my lords of the Counsell for
this purpose desyere the Lord Treasurer[493] with thadvise of
the Lord Admyrall to take this matter upon hym who agreinge
thareunto was content to take the chardge thereof with theis
conditions ffollowinge; ffirst, he requyred to have the some of
£14,000 by yere to be advaunced half yerely to Benjamyn Gonson
Threasarer of Thadmyraltie to be by hym defrayed in such sort
as shalbe prescribed by hym the sayed Lord Threasowrer with
thadvise of the Lorde Admyrall.’

For which sum the Lord Treasurer will

‘cause such of her Maiesties shippes as may be made servicable
with calkeinge and newe trymmynge to be sufficiently renewed
and repaired Item to cause such of her Highnes saied shippes as
must of necessitie be made of newe to be gone in hand withall
and newe made with convenyent speede Item he to see also all
her Highnes saied shippes furnysshed with sailles, anchors,
cables, and other tackell and apparell sufficientlye Item he
to cause the wagis and victuallinge of the shipp keepers and
woorkmen in harborough to be paied and dischardged Item he to
cause a masse of victual to be alwayes in redynes to serve for
1000 men for a moneth to be sette to the sea upon eny sodeyne
Item he to cause the saied shippes from tyme to tyme to be
repaired and renewed as occasion shall requiere Item whenn
the saied shippes that ar to be renewed shalbe newe made and
sufficientlie repaired and the hole navie furnyshed of saylles,
anckers, cables, and other tackell then is the saied Lord
Treasowrer content to contynue this servis in fourme aforesaied
for the some of £10,000 yerely to be advaunced as is aforesaied
Item the saied Benjamyn Gonson and Edward Bashe Surveyor of the
Victuells of the shippes shall make theare severall accomptes
of the defrayment of the saied money and of theare hole doinges
herein once in the yere at the least and as often besydes as
shall be thowght convenyent by my Lordes of the Counsell.’

Any surplusage was to be carried forward towards the next year’s expenses; the division of the money was, by estimation, £2000 for stores, £1000 for rigging, £6000 for harbour wages and victualling, and £5000 for the building and repair of ships.[494] By 1558 the allowance was reduced to £12,000 a year, but even the proposed minimum of £10,000 was much above anything allowed by Elizabeth during the greater part of her reign. Moreover, the large scheme of rebuilding outlined in this paper indirectly confirms the statement of the writer in the _Cecil MSS._[495] in assigning numerous new, _i.e._ rebuilt, ships to 1558. Obviously the circumstance of the Queen being overworked was not by itself any reason why the real control should be taken from the Lord Admiral and other Officers and given to the Lord Treasurer. The fact that payment was now to be made in gross to Gonson of so many thousands a year instead of, as formerly, by warrant for each separate matter, will explain the necessity for some new check on the Navy Treasurer, but will not explain the practical supersession of the Lord Admiral. As long as Burleigh was Lord Treasurer he also remained the final authority on naval matters, practically exercising the authority of a First Lord of the Admiralty of the present day. The system of accounts now adopted endured, with some modifications, for nearly a century, and to the order which prescribed the rendering of a full statement once a year we owe the series of _Audit_, or _Pipe Office Accounts_, an invaluable source of information for naval history.

[Sidenote: Expenditure and Establishments.]

The average of wages all round had risen to 9s 4d a month ‘dead shares and rewards included;’ this, judging from the early years of the next reign, meant 6s 8d a month for the seamen. The custom of providing the men with coats and jackets was dying out. There are no references to these articles in the naval papers of the reign, but in a semi-official expedition, that of Willoughby and Chancellor in 1553, the instructions direct that the ‘liveries in apparel’ were only to be worn by the sailors on state occasions. At other times they were to be kept in the care of the supercargoes and ordinary clothes were to be sold to the crews at cost price.[496]

The one return of expenses remaining shows an extremely heavy naval expenditure.[497] Between 1st January 1557 and 31st December 1558 £157,638 was spent, of which victualling took £73,503, Deptford £22,120, Woolwich £4048, Gillingham £408, Portsmouth £7521, and wages of men at sea £43,492. Stores, such as timber, pitch, tar, cordage, etc., absorbed nearly £20,000, included under the dockyard headings. From this account it also appears that Legge when Treasurer, probably therefore in the reign of Henry VIII, had advanced £100 to two Lincolnshire men for seven years in order to assist the creation of another centre of the cordage industry. The experiment was not successful and the item is carried over formally in each successive account until dropped as a bad debt. Victualling storehouses for the government had been built or bought at Ratcliff, Rochester, Gillingham and Portsmouth; ordnance wharves at Woolwich, Portsmouth and Porchester. Portsmouth was momentarily regaining favour, and the Council recommended that ships should be laid up there because the harbour afforded better opportunity for rapid action in the Channel than did the Thames. The chief shipwright was now Peter Pett who was receiving a fee of one shilling a day from the Exchequer in addition to the ordinary payments made to him by the Admiralty.

[Sidenote: Disease on Shipboard.]

War was declared with France on 7th June 1557, but the operations of 1558 were nullified by an outbreak of disease in the fleet as severe as that of 1545. In 1557 Howard informed the Council that he could not obtain at Dover ‘in a weke so moche victulls as wold victull ii pynnesses,’ and although the complaint is a year earlier the character of the supplies and the hardships it connotes, are very likely the key to the visitation of the following summer. From the 5th to 17th August Clynton lay at St Helens with the fleet, having returned from the capture and destruction of Conquet. On the 18th he put to sea, and on the 20th was near the Channel Islands, when so sudden an outburst occurred ‘that I thinke the lieke was never syne ffor ther wer many ships that halfe the men wer throwen downe sick at once.’[498] After holding a council with his captains, which the masters of his ships also attended, he returned to Portsmouth.

[Sidenote: Privateering and Piracy.]

Privateering was encouraged by a proclamation of 8th July 1557, permitting any one to fit out vessels against the royal enemies, and allowing possession to be retained of all ships and goods captured ‘withoute making accompte in any courte or place of this realme,’ and without payment of any dues to the Lord Admiral or any other officer. This entire abrogation of control increased the tendency to illegal acts even among the more honest adventurers; while Carews, Killigrews, Tremaines, and the ubiquitous Strangways, and Thomson, industriously working for themselves, the government had always with them. Thomson was off Scilly in 1556, with three ships, and was taken. When tried only he and four others were condemned and the Council loudly complained of the partiality of the jury, a partiality which better explains the prevalence of piracy during these years than the accepted explanation of the inefficiency of the Navy. The two Killigrews, Thomas and Peter, were, if not the worst, the most successful offenders and in 1556 were sufficiently enriched by their plunder to think of retiring to ‘some island’ for the winter. They were frequently chased into French ports, but to keep them there was beyond the power of the men-of-war, and the French authorities treated them with a neutrality more than benevolent.

When we find a privateer belonging to the Lord Privy Seal attacking neutral vessels, and man-of-war officers boarding and robbing a Flemish merchantman at Tilbury, it seems wonderful, in view of the excesses such incidents suggest among the majority with no sense of legal responsibility, that commerce could have been carried on at all.

ELIZABETH

1558-1603

[Sidenote: The Naval Policy of Elizabeth.]

Her subjects were occupied, during the greater portion of Elizabeth’s reign, in teaching their Queen the use of a navy, instruction that she was the first English sovereign to put into practice on strategic principles. Yet study of the forty-five years of glorious naval history on which her renown is mainly based, leaves the impression that more might and should have been done with the Navy. That she preferred diplomacy to force would have been a merit had the choice been founded on an ethical detestation of the cruelty of war, instead of an ingenuous belief in her own skill and the obtuseness of her antagonists. Under conditions more favourable to ascendancy at sea than have ever existed for England, before or since, the successes of the Navy itself, as distinguished from the expansion of the commercial marine, were, although relatively great, limited by the hesitation with which the naval arm was employed, the way in which the service was pecuniarily starved, and the settled doctrine underlying her maritime essays that an expedition should be of a character to return a profit on the outlay. And perhaps the severest comment on her government lies in the fact that she was more liberal in her treatment of the Navy, than of any other department of the State. In February 1559 she possessed twenty-two effective ships of 100 tons and upwards, in March 1603, twenty-nine; practically, therefore, she did little more than replace those worn out by efflux of time, for only two were lost in warfare. If Henry VIII created a navy under the stimulus of a possible necessity it requires little imagination to conceive his course when the time had come, as it never came for him, to put forth every effort in using it for the preservation of England.

When Elizabeth succeeded to the throne, the possession of a fleet and an organised administration, the French royal navy, only a few years before an apparently serious competitor, had ceased to exist; the rivalry of Holland had not yet begun, and it is hardly an exaggeration to say that a Spanish royal navy had never existed, in the sense of an ocean going service organised on a basis enabling it to act vigorously and effectively in any direction.[499] The opportunity had come therefore to a power with maritime ambition, the only one possessing an efficient fleet and naval control, and incited by religious differences and commercial emulation. The altered situation brought to the front a band of men who, in the preceding century, would have been military adventurers in France, but who now, half traders, half pirates, handled their ships with the same strategic and tactical skill their ancestors exercised on land, and who, if they had been allowed a free hand, would have brought Spain down in ruin instead of merely reducing her to a condition of baffled impotence. They were not allowed a free hand. When acting for themselves they had the knowledge that if it suited the royal policy of the moment repudiation of their deeds might mean, if not loss of life, at least loss of property and reputation. When in command of royal fleets they were kept in touch with the government, hampered by voluminous and contradictory instructions, and, above all, their efforts and successes rendered nugatory by the parsimony which kept the depots always on the brink of exhaustion.

In naval, as in other matters, Elizabeth tried to make her subjects do the work of the crown and therefore she frequently confined her action to taking a share with several ships in a privateering expedition, prepared by private individuals for their own profit. Such expeditions swell the list of ships employed at sea, and privateering as a source of injury to an enemy has its value, but such enterprises when forming the whole effort of the State for a particular year show an insufficient acquaintance with the character of the operations required. Privateers were equipped not with large objects but to secure profits for owners and crews. It sometimes happened that this purpose was at issue with the wider views of the admiral in command, and the voyage became ineffective where a similar number of men-of-war subject to discipline might have done important service. The enormous increase in the merchant marine which, it will be shown, characterised the reign, was in one way disadvantageous since it induced the government to rely more on a _guerre de course_ than on the sustained and systematised action of the Royal Navy. Even when a great fleet was sent out the light in which Elizabeth regarded it is instructively shown in a letter to Nottingham, after the Cadiz voyage of 1596, when he had asked for money to pay the men’s wages:

‘though we have already written you divers letters to prevent
the inconvenience which we suspected would follow this journey
that it would be rather an action of honour and virtue against
the enemy and particular profit by spoil to the army than any
way profitable to ourself yet now we do plainly see by the
return of our whole fleet that the actions of hope are fully
finished without as much as surety of defraying the charge past
or that which is to come.[500]

The blow to Spanish power and prestige, or an ‘action of honour and virtue,’ counted for nothing if a fleet did not pay its expenses and make some profit over and above.

It may be asked then in what respect was Elizabeth personally deserving of praise? The answer is that it fell to her to use for the first time an untried weapon—untried in the sense that never before had England relied on it as the right arm of attack or defence. For centuries the defence of the country had depended on the mail-clad horseman and the yeoman archer; from the first days of her accession she recognised that the enemies of England were to be fought at sea, a doctrine which is a commonplace now, but was then being only slowly evolved in minds even yet dazzled by memories of invasions of France. She accepted and proved the truth of the theory on which the policy of Henry VIII was grounded, and, if she failed to carry it out fully, it was perhaps more from ignorance of the might of the weapon in her hand than from want of statesmanship. Notwithstanding her niggardliness, which nearly ruined England in 1588, she expended money—for her lavishly—on the Navy, while the military and other services were remorselessly starved. Sooner or later the naval authorities obtained at least part of their requirements, in striking contrast to the fortune of other officials who thought, and whose contemporaries probably thought, their needs of equal or more importance. If she did not use the fleet as some of the great seamen who served her would have had her use it, she at anyrate extended its field of action in a manner hitherto unknown, and sealed the direction of future English policy.

The following abstract, compiled from the pay and victualling lists and the State Papers, will show the number of vessels of the Royal Navy in commission each year, that it was used continuously as never before, but also that it was seldom used up to its possible capacity. In every case there were hired merchantmen as well if a fleet was engaged in an over-sea expedition, but unless there was a prospect of plunder the brunt of the work always fell on the men-of-war. As an arbitrary division, for the purpose of the table, first-rates are taken as those above 600 tons; second-rates from 400 to 600 tons; third-rates from 200 to 400 tons; fourth-rates from 100 to 200 tons; fifth-rates from 50 to 100 tons; and sixth-rates under 50 tons. Owing to technical difficulties connected with the lists used it is probably not exactly correct but is sufficiently so to give a just impression:—

+-----------+---+---+---+---+---+---+--------+
| |1st|2nd|3rd|4th|5th|6th|Galleys.|
+-----------+---+---+---+---+---+---+--------+
| 1559 | | | | 2 | 4 | | |
| 1560[501] | | | | | | | |
| 1561 | | | 1 | 1 | 2 | | 1 |
| 1562 | | 2 | 4 | 1 | 5 | | |
| 1563 | 2 | 1 | 9 | 1 | 7 | 4 | 3 |
| 1564 | | | 1 | 2 | 3 | | |
| 1565 | | | | 2 | | | |
| 1566 | | | | 1 | 2 | | |
| 1567 | | 1 | | 1 | 1 | | |
| 1568 | | | 2 | 1 | 1 | | |
| 1569 | | 3 | 4 | 2 | 2 | | |
| 1570 | | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | | |
| 1571 | | | | 2 | 1 | | |
| 1572 | | | | 2 | 2 | | |
| 1573 | | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | | |
| 1574 | | | | 2 | 1 | | |
| 1575 | | | | 2 | 1 | | |
| 1576 | | 1 | 3 | 2 | 2 | | |
| 1577 | | 1 | 2 | 2 | | | |
| 1578 | | 2 | 3 | 1 | | | |
| 1579 | | 1 | 3 | 3 | 1 | | |
| 1580 | | 1 | 6 | 2 | 1 | | |
| 1581 | | | 2 | 5 | 1 | | |
| 1582 | | | 1 | 2 | 1 | | |
| 1583 | | | | 2 | 1 | 1 | |
| 1584 | | | | 2 | 1 | 1 | |
| 1585 | | 1 | 2 | 4 | | | |
| 1586 | | 3 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 7 | 1 |
| 1587 | | 3 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 6 | |
| 1588[502] | 5 |10 | 5 | 3 | 7 | 3 | 1 |
| 1589 | | 4 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 4 | |
| 1590 | | 8 | 4 | 6 | 2 | 5 | |
| 1591 | | 8 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 4 | |
| 1592 | | 2 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 3 | |
| 1593 | | 1 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | |
| 1594 | | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 4 | |
| 1595 | | 4 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| 1596 | 4 | 9 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 1 | |
| 1597 | 6 |11 | 6 | 1 | 2 | 2 | |
| 1598 | | 5 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 4 | |
| 1599 | 6 |10 | 6 | 2 | 2 | 7 | 1 |
| 1600 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 5 | |
| 1601 | 2 |11 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| 1602 | 3 | 9 | 5 | | 1 | 1 | |
+-----------+---+---+---+---+---+---+--------+

From this it is evident that vessels of from 400 to 600 tons were the favourites; they were handier, better seaboats, and represented the latest improvements in shipbuilding. Of the eleven first-rates on the navy list in 1603, two were Spanish prizes of 1596, four dated from the beginning of the reign, while the remaining five were of 1587 and later years; it was these latter that were used from 1596 onwards. The four earlier ones, built before Hawkyns came into office, were of an old type and seem never to have been commissioned unless the services of the whole Navy were required. The _Victory_, for instance was only at sea in 1563, 1588, and 1589, although she is not entered in the foregoing table under 1589, because lent to the Earl of Cumberland for a private venture. The stress of the work fell therefore on the smaller vessels. The _Bonaventure_, for instance, was at sea every year from 1585 to 1590 inclusive. During the greater part of 1591 she was in dock at Woolwich for repairs, but at Portsmouth in October, and then sent to sea. Again in 1592, 5, 6, 7, and 1599. The _Dreadnought_, launched in 1573, was commissioned during each of the six years 1575-80, and in 1585, 7, 8, and 1590. She was then, for nearly a year, in dry dock, recommencing service in 1594, continuing it in 1595, 6, 7, 9, 1601, 2, and 1603. It must also be noted that many of these years included more than one commission. Excluding the fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-rates, which were serviceable for privateering purpose, but could not take a place in any form of attack requiring ships of force, it will be seen by how very few vessels the naval warfare was really carried on, and that a succession of serious descents on the Spanish coasts and transatlantic settlements, such as were urged on Elizabeth, would have necessitated very large additions to the Royal Navy.

Shortly after the Queen’s accession she possessed, according to one account thirty-five,[503] and according to another thirty-two[504] vessels of all classes and in good and bad condition. Some ships had been under repair before Mary’s death,[505] but the dockyards were working with redoubled vigour since Elizabeth’s succession. At Deptford, in March, 228 men were at work on five ships; at Woolwich 175 men on eight others, and at Portsmouth 154 men on nine more.[506] Some of these were rebuildings, others could have been but trifling repairs, but the list shows with what energy Elizabeth and her Council applied themselves to the maintenance of the fleet. From that time the yards, with the exception of a few years, were kept fully occupied, and the following is a list of the new ships built at them or otherwise added to the Navy. The dates are New Style:—

+-----------------------+----+---------+-----------+-------+------+-----+
| Built| At | By |Rebuilt|Bought|Prize|
| +----+---------+-----------+-------+------+-----+
|_Elizabeth Jonas_[507] |1559|Woolwich | |1597-8 | | |
|_Hope_[508] |1559| | |1602-3 | | |
|_Victory_[509] | | | | | 1560 | |
|_Primrose_[510] | | | | | 1560 | |
|_Minion_[511] | | | | | 1560 | |
|_Galley Speedwell_[512]|1559| | | | | |
|_Galley Tryright_[513] |1559| | | | | |
|_Triumph_[514] |1561| | |1595-6 | | |
|_Aid_[515] |1562| | | | | |
|_Galley Ellynor_[516] | | | | | |1563 |
|_Post_[517] |1563| | | | | |
|_Guide_[517] |1563| | | | | |
|_Makeshift_[517] |1563| | | | | |
|_Search_[517] |1563| | | | | |
|_White Bear_[518] |1564| | |1598-9 | | |
|_Elizabeth | | | | | | |
| Bonaventure_[519] | | | | 1581 | 1567 | |
|_Foresight_[520] |1570| | | | | |
|_Bull_[521] | | | | 1570 | | |
|_Tiger_[522] | | | | 1570 | | |
|_Swiftsure_[523] |1573|Deptford |Peter Pett | 1592 | | |
|_Dreadnought_[524] |1573| do. |Math. Baker| 1592 | | |
|_Achates_[525] |1573| do. |Peter Pett | | | |
|_Handmaid_[526] |1573| do. |Math. Baker| | | |
|_Revenge_[527] |1577| do. | | | | |
|_Scout_[528] |1577| do. | | | | |
|_Merlin_[529] |1579| | | | | |
|_Antelope_[530] | | | | 1581 | | |
|_Golden Lion_[531] | | | | 1582 | | |
|_Brigantine_[532] |1583| | | | | |
|_Nonpareil_[533] | |Deptford | | 1584 | | |
|_Galley Bonavolia_[534]| | | | 1584 | | |
|_Greyhound_[535] |1585| | Wm. Pett | | | |
|_Talbot_[536] |1585| |R. Chapman | | | |
|_Cygnet_[537] |1585| |Tho. Bowman| | | |
|_Makeshift_[538] |1586|Limehouse| Wm. Pett | | | |
|_Spy_[539] |1586| do. | do. | | | |
|_Advice_[540] |1586|Woolwich | M. Baker | | | |
|_Trust_[541] |1586| | | | | |
|_Sun_[542] |1586|Chatham | M. Baker | | | |
|_Seven Stars_[543] |1586| | | | | |
|_Tremontana_[544] |1586|Deptford |R. Chapman | | | |
|_Moon_[545] |1586| do. |Peter Pett | | | |
|_Charles_[546] |1586|Woolwich | M. Baker | | | |
|_Vanguard_[547] |1586| do. | do. | 1599 | | |
|_Rainbow_[548] |1586|Deptford |Peter Pett | 1602 | | |
|_Ark Royal_[549] |1587| do. |R. Chapman | | | |
|_Popinjay_[550] |1587| | | | | |
|_Nuestra Señora del | | | | | | |
| Rosario_[551] | | | | | |1588 |
|_Mary Rose_[552] | | | | 1589 | | |
|_Merhonour_[553] |1590| | M. Baker | | | |
|_Garland_[554] |1590| |R. Chapman | | | |
|_Defiance_[555] |1590| | P. & Jos. | | | |
| | | | Pett | | | |
|_Answer_[556] |1590| | M. Baker | | | |
|_Quittance_[557] |1590| | do. | | | |
|_Crane_[558] |1590| |R. Chapman | | | |
|_Advantage_[559] |1590| | P. & Jos. | | | |
| | | | Pett | | | |
|_Lion’s Whelp_[560] |1590| | | | | |
|_Primrose Hoy_[561] |1590| | | | | |
|_Black Dog_[562] | | | | | |1590 |
|_French Frigott_[563] | | | | | |1591 |
|_Flighte_[564] |1592| | | | | |
|_Mercury_[565] |1592|Deptford | M. Baker | | | |
|_Eagle_[566] | | | | | 1592 | |
|_Adventure_[567] |1594|Deptford | M. Baker | | | |
|_Mynikin_[568] |1595| | | | | |
|_Warspite_[569] |1596|Deptford |E. Stevens | | | |
|_Due Repulse_[570] |1596| | | | | |
|_St Mathew_[571] | | | | | |1596 |
|_St Andrew_[571] | | | | | |1596 |
|_Lion’s Whelp_[572] | | | | | 1601 | |
|_Superlativa_[573] |1601|Deptford | | | | |
|_Advantagia_[573] |1601|Woolwich | | | | |
|_George Hoy_[574] |1601| | Adye | | | |
|_Gallarita_[575] |1602|Limehouse| | | | |
|_Volatillia_[575] |1602|Deptford | | | | |
+-----------------------+----+---------+-----------+-------+------+-----+