CHAPTER XIII

SHIPS AND MEN. ENGLISH PORTS

The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries witnessed great developments in English shipbuilding. In the former the feeble, untrustworthy vessels of the Middle Ages were improved and strengthened until they were sufficiently sound for regular voyages to all the waters of Europe, the Mediterranean included; and in the latter an ocean-going type was evolved, capable of keeping the sea for weeks and months at a stretch, and of making such voyages as those of Drake and Cavendish, which constituted an astonishing advance on anything that had previously been possible.

At the commencement of this improvement in shipping England lagged far behind her competitors. The Venetians were regularly voyaging to the North Sea for at least two centuries before there was any established English trade to the Mediterranean. The Portuguese had commercial posts on the Guinea coast a hundred years before Wyndham sailed the first English vessel there; and their successive advances on the route to India, spread over a long period of years and culminating in Vasco da Gama’s arrival at Calicut in 1498, gave them a long start in the acquisition of the experience necessary to the advance of shipbuilding. Yet by the end of the sixteenth century the positions were reversed, and English ships were excelled by none in durability and handiness and general efficiency for the purposes for which they were designed.

It would seem that this rapid advance in excellence was largely due to the interest in the navy displayed by Tudor governments. The development of the warship preceded in most respects that of the merchantman; and, owing to the peculiar conditions of the time, every merchantman which was to be of use for anything beyond mere coasting had to be provided with some fighting gear. For distant voyages in fact, such as those to the Mediterranean, merchants preferred to charter a man-of-war from the State whenever one was available. Throughout the period in question England was exposed to constant wars or threatenings of war with France or Spain, with the result that the improvement of fighting-ships was vigorously pressed. The fleet became a leading care of the State to an extent never before dreamed of; and the mercantile marine, fostered by a system of bounties, shared in the general enlightenment, and steadily extended the scope of its activities to the accompaniment of an unprecedented advance in the construction of ships and the study of all things pertaining to shipping.

Mediaeval vessels fall largely into two classes: the long, low and narrow galley; and the short, broad, almost basin-shaped sailing-ship, propelled usually by a single square sail. In northern waters the galley, common until the twelfth century, gradually gave place to the sailing-ship, on which all progress was concentrated, so that by the close of the Middle Ages the oared vessel was practically extinct outside the Mediterranean. In that sea, however, natural conditions were more favourable to the galley, which survived side by side with the sailing-vessel and which, although costing more in working expenses, was preferred for its swiftness and reliability.

In England the first great improvement of the mediaeval sailing-ship consisted in fitting two or more masts in place of the one which had hitherto been considered sufficient. The exact date of this advance is unknown, but it probably occurred before the beginning of the fifteenth century, when the increasing frequency of voyages to Bordeaux and Iceland began to demand more navigable vessels for their safe accomplishment. A natural concomitant of this change was an increase of length and a modification of the extreme basin-shape of the single-masted cogs, which were only suited for short, fair-wind trips across the narrow seas to France or Flanders. At some time also in the same century occurred the introduction of the lateen sail in place of the square sail on the aftermost mast of the ship. This device doubtless came from the Mediterranean, where small craft were fitted exclusively with such sails.

A modification in the shape of the hull, which was destined to be of long enduring influence, was due to the needs of warfare. In early vessels there was no raised poop or forecastle, but the deck ran in unbroken sweep from prow to stern, at which extremities the timbers of the side curved upwards to a point. For fighting purposes it became customary to fit such ships with raised platforms or castles, built on temporarily at either end, and occupied by archers, slingers, and stone-throwing engines. The latter, from such a high vantage-point, could do great execution on an enemy’s decks and could, moreover, assist in repelling boarders from the waist of their own vessel. The efficacy of the new departure was speedily proved, and it became permanently incorporated into the design. Ships were now built with a strong square forecastle and ‘summercastle’, as the after-edifice was named, as integral parts of the structure. The additional weight thus placed at either end necessitated an increase of length to avoid excessive pitching. The pitching motion was nevertheless very severe, as was proved when a full-sized model of Columbus’s caravel, the _Santa Maria_, was sailed across the Atlantic in 1893.[303]

In a late fifteenth-century manuscript in the British Museum,[304] the author of which died in 1491, there are numerous illustrations of ships which may be taken as representing the state of marine construction at the opening of the Tudor period. On folio 5 is a drawing of a sailing-ship, probably the type of vessel with which the longer voyages, such as those to Bordeaux or Spain, were made. She has a platform-shaped forecastle, not of excessive height, and a long poop sloping upwards towards the stern. The masts are three in number, the foremast being very short and the mainmast twice its height. Each of these is intended to carry one square sail, although the mainsail only is shown. The mizen-mast is short and carries one lateen sail. There is a bowsprit but no sprit-sail such as was afterwards used. None of the drawings in this manuscript shows any signs of a sprit-sail yard on the bowsprit; and it is possible that they had not been introduced at that date, although they were in use before the close of the century. The same may be said of top-sails and topmasts; they occur nowhere in these drawings, but they were certainly fitted to warships built for Henry VII not long after his accession. The drawing on f. 5 has been frequently reproduced, but generally so badly as to make it appear that the ship has only two masts instead of three.

On f. 25 of the same manuscript is a very clear drawing showing a large ship in harbour with sails furled. This vessel has a short, high forecastle and a long poop rising in two tiers. The bowsprit and foremast are short. The mainmast is high and very thick, while there are two mizen-masts each with a yard for a lateen sail. When two mizen-masts were fitted to a ship the foremost was called the main mizen and the aftermost the bonaventure mizen. This is the earliest drawing showing a four-masted ship which has been met with. On the other side of the sheet (f. 25b) the same vessel is shown in a storm at sea. There are guns on deck in the waist and a row of oval openings in the poop and forecastle which are evidently intended for ports for smaller pieces. On f. 18b is a representation of a sea fight, one ship engaging two others at close quarters. Long-bows, cross-bows, spears, and stones are the principal weapons used; and marksmen are placed in the tops to sweep the enemy’s decks. The mainmasts, and occasionally the other masts, of ships of the time were fitted with circular tops for fighting and look-out purposes, and large enough for two or three men to stand in. At a later period small guns were mounted in them. All the vessels in this manuscript show an immense advance on the old mediaeval cog, and indicate the great improvements which had been going on during the fifteenth century.

[Illustration:

WARSHIP, _c._ 1485. From Cott. MS. Jul. E. iv. 6, f. 25. ]

As was natural during a period of more extended voyages, the size of merchant ships tended to increase. Nine vessels trading between England and Spain in the time of Henry VII, of which the tonnage is mentioned in the State papers, show an average of 142 tons, the largest being 220 tons. The Italians generally built their ships larger than this, and, although we read that in 1488 there was no ship of 1,000 tons in Venice, the reference seems to imply that ships of that size were by no means unknown. The statements as to tonnage must, however, be taken as of very loose application, the same ship being sometimes given as 50 per cent. or more larger than at others. The _Henry Grace à Dieu_, for example, Henry VIII’s great warship, varies between 1,000 and 1,500 tons, and the _Mary Rose_, which was of 400 tons when built, is described as of 600 three years later. In English ships the unit of measurement was the tun of Bordeaux wine, which contained 252 gallons and occupied about 60 cubic feet of space.[305] When there was a question of hiring merchantmen for war purposes, for which payment was made by the ton, the owner’s estimate was apt to differ considerably from that of the government. In the French war of 1512–13 the navy lists contain numbers of merchantmen whose tonnage varies so astonishingly as to suggest that their hulls were capable of inflation and deflation like balloons.

The cost of building ships was very low in comparison with modern figures, although it rose rapidly with the influx of gold from America in the sixteenth century. Two small warships, the _Mary Fortune_ and the _Sweepstake_, were built for Henry VII at a cost of £110 and £120 respectively.[306] At the opening of Henry VIII’s reign the _Mary Rose_, 400 tons, and the _Peter Pomegranate_, 300, together cost £1,016 fully equipped for sea;[307] while the _Henry Grace à Dieu_, the largest ship of her time, cost £8,708 in 1514.[308] Privately owned ships were chartered by the State at 3_d._ per ton per week.

A French manuscript of 1519[309] affords some information as to the shipping of that date. It is a translation in French of Caesar’s wars, to illustrate which a large map of France is provided as a frontispiece. Following the contemporary custom, the cartographer has inserted drawings of ships in the surrounding seas. One of these, placed near the mouth of the Garonne, represents a large merchantman. She has a curved stem and rounded, swelling bows, shaped like a bellying sail and surmounted by a flat, platform-shaped forecastle which overhangs the water. The waist has greater freeboard than that of a warship, and the poop is small and square. No guns are visible, and the hull is evidently designed for stability and carrying capacity rather than speed and fighting convenience. There are three pole masts, each with a round top and one square sail. There are no topmasts and no bowsprit. Three other sailing-ships are shown on the same map. Their hulls are of the same type as the one already described, but they have only one mast each. As this was a work dealing with ancient history it is probable that the artist purposely drew the oldest-fashioned craft he was acquainted with. He had some archaeological instinct, as is evident from the semi-Roman costumes which appear in other illustrations; and he recognized that it would be inappropriate to place guns in the ships, not one of which possesses them. If this view is correct the manuscript is interesting as providing one of the many lost connecting links between the mediaeval and modern types of sailing-ship.

Robert Thorne’s map of 1527, appended to his book to Dr. Lee, bears a spirited drawing of a sailing-vessel approximating more to the man-of-war type. She has a square, overhanging forecastle, a low waist, and a high, narrow poop. The fore and main masts are lofty, and are each provided with top-sails, while the short mizen has one lateen sail. It is not apparent whether this was intended to represent an English or Spanish vessel. Thorne was an Englishman, but the drawing was made at Seville and is placed in a part of the ocean to which no English ship had then penetrated.

One more example of the none too numerous drawings of merchantmen may be quoted. In a _Book of Hydrography_ designed in 1542 by a Frenchman, John Rotz, for Henry VIII,[310] occur numerous beautifully painted maps embracing all parts of the world. On one, representing the North Atlantic, a merchant vessel is seen near the coast of Portugal. The hull, evidently built for carrying capacity, is on very full lines, and the fore and after castles are small in proportion. The mainmast carries two sails, but the fore and mizen masts have only one each, that on the latter being a lateen. There is a bowsprit but no sprit-sail. This may possibly represent a Portuguese carrack of the type with which they voyaged to the East Indies. Such vessels were subsequently developed to (for that time) an enormous size. One captured by the English in 1592, named the _Madre de Dios_, was of 1,600 tons burden.

The facts considered above serve to indicate that, although little is known with exactitude about the merchant vessels of early Tudor times, it is at least certain that they were by no means identical in design with the warships. The latter, as will be seen, mounted large numbers of guns—over 100 in many cases—and this fact influenced their design to an extent quite unnecessary in trading craft, which were far less heavily armed. The principal features in the development of the latter from their mediaeval prototypes were: increasing length, relatively small size of the ‘castles’, and an increasing number of sails and spars, together with the introduction of topmasts.

The ship’s boats were usually three in number, the ‘great boat’, the long-boat, and the skiff or jolly-boat. They were probably carried on deck in the waist, and must have been hoisted by tackles from the yard-arms, since davits were not then used for the purpose. The great boat was often towed. Hakluyt gives an account of a voyage to the Mediterranean by the _Matthew Gonson_ in 1535, as narrated by one of the crew. He says that they towed their great boat all the way from Chios to the Straits of Gibraltar, implying that she was then hoisted aboard. As this boat was big enough to carry ten tuns of water it is difficult to imagine how it was done.

[Illustration: 1]

[Illustration:

2

TWO MERCHANTMEN. 1. From Robert Thorne’s map, 1527. 2. From Harl. MS. 6205, date 1519. ]

Although, as we have seen, four-masted ships were known long before the end of the fifteenth century, the merchantman of Tudor times was usually equipped with three. In short vessels the masts were rigged in a fan-shape, the foremast inclining forwards, the mainmast upright, and the mizen raking towards the rear so as to give greater distance between the sails. The latter tended to increase in number, the use of top-sails and sprit-sails beneath the bowsprit becoming common in the reign of Henry VII. An additional spar, projecting from the stern of the ship in the same manner as the bowsprit from the bow, and named the ‘outligger’, was fitted to receive the sheet of the lateen sail on the mizenmast. With top-sails, topmasts were introduced, but the latter were fixtures in the sixteenth century and not strikeable at sea. To diminish rolling in heavy weather it was customary to lower the main- and fore-yards down to the deck, as is depicted in various drawings. Top-gallant-masts and sails were fitted to warships—the _Henry Grace à Dieu_ had them on three of her four masts—but it does not appear that any merchant ship had them until a much later date. Although there is some evidence that reefing was known in very early times, it was not extensively practised at the period in question. The purpose of reefing is to reduce the sail area in high winds, but among Tudor seamen a contrary device was favoured. The sails were cut smaller than the maximum size possible, and were lengthened in light winds by lacing to their lower borders additional pieces called bonnets. As many as three bonnets were sometimes supplied for one sail,[311] but two was the more usual number. They were applied to the main- and fore-sails and also to top-sails.[312] Jibs and stay-sails, and fore-and-aft rigging generally, were entirely unknown at this time, the nearest approach to any such thing being the lateen. In consequence it was much harder than at present to make headway against contrary winds, as an example of which the difficulty invariably experienced by English traders in getting away from the Guinea coast may be cited. The shape of the hulls was such as to offer great resistance to the wind, and the leeway must have been excessive. Towards the middle of the century, when the size of the forecastle had somewhat diminished, it would seem that it was possible to heave the ship to without showing any sail at all: Sir Hugh Willoughby’s journal, describing the gale encountered off the Norwegian coast, says, ‘... the wind increasing so sore that we were not able to bear any sail, but took them in, and lay a drift, to the end to let the storm over pass’.

More distant voyages demanded a long-overdue improvement in the science of navigation. The finding of latitude was rendered a comparatively simple matter by the successive inventions of the astrolabe, the cross-staff, and the quadrant.[313] The astrolabe, which came into use prior to the age of the great discoveries, remained in favour throughout the sixteenth century, being described by Martin Cortes in his _Breve Compendio de la Sphera_ in 1556. An astrolabe which was used by Sir Francis Drake is preserved in the museum at Greenwich. Cortes’s astrolabe consisted of a metal ring, of which 90 degrees were graduated, and a metal pointer turning on a pin in the centre. The pointer had aperture sights at either end, and when moved until the sun could be seen through both apertures it indicated his elevation above the horizon in degrees on the graduated part of the ring.[314] The cross-staff was invented early in the sixteenth century, but never entirely superseded the astrolabe until both were rendered obsolete by the quadrant, an invention of John Davis at the end of the same century. With these instruments latitude was ascertainable with fair accuracy; in skilful hands the error was usually less than one degree. The same could not be said about longitude, in which huge errors were unavoidable by any method then known. Longitude remained then and long afterwards an insoluble problem, and many charts of the time made no effort to indicate it.

Of contemporary foreign vessels the most interesting is the caravel, as being the type with which Columbus made his great voyages across the Atlantic, and which had a considerable influence on the design of the Tudor man-of-war. The caravel, which the Spaniards found most suitable for their early ocean navigations, had little in common with the short, broad merchantmen of the narrow seas. It was built with a high, tapering poop, a low waist, and a high, overhanging forecastle, rectangular in plan, and serving to break the force of a head sea. The high castles and general handiness of design rendered it an efficient fighting vessel, and it was probable, as Mr. Oppenheim has pointed out, that it was for this reason that Henry VII was eager to employ such craft in preference to English-built ships on the rare occasions when he needed to mobilize a naval force.[315] But the caravel, probably as lacking sufficient cargo capacity, did not find favour with English shipbuilders, and as late as 1552 was still distinctively a foreign type. In that year the London merchants who sent out Thomas Wyndham on a trading voyage to Barbary bought a Portuguese caravel of 60 tons to form part of his squadron. The inhabitants of the Canary Isles, recognizing from a distance that she was not an English ship, made an attack on the expedition as they concluded that she had been wrongfully acquired.

The carrack, unlike the caravel, is not an easily identifiable type, and the word seems to have been applied to any large and bulky vessel. In one navy list the _Henry Grace à Dieu_ appears as the ‘Imperyall (or Gret) Carrick’,[316] but this is exceptional, and the term was generally used only of foreign ships. In its particular application, if it can be said to have had one, it signified first the trading-ships of Genoa,[317] which ceased to come to England after the fifteenth century, and afterwards the great East Indiamen of the Portuguese. The act granting tonnage and poundage in 1485 provides that if an Englishman ship his goods in a ‘carryke or galley’ he shall pay the same duties as a foreigner. The carracks in this case meant Genoese, and the galleys Venetian, vessels.

[Illustration:

1 & 2 TWO CARRACKS. 1. From Royal MS. 20. E. ix. 2. From Add. MS. 5415. A. 7. ]

Another non-English ship was the hulk, the large, clumsy merchantman of the Hanse towns. William Towerson, sailing for Guinea in January 1558, captured two ‘hulks of Dantzick’ in the Bay of Biscay. They made no attempt at resistance against his three vessels, and were released as not worth keeping by reason of their poor sailing qualities: ‘they sailed so ill that, having all their sails abroad, we kept them company only with our foresails, and without any topsails abroad, so that in every two days sailing they would have hindered us more than one’—which seems to argue that the Germans built their ships solely with an eye to capacity. Henry VIII hired several hulks from the Hansa for use against the French in 1545. His fighting instructions for an anticipated action in that year directed that they should be placed in the front line and used to break up the order of the enemy before the onset of the men-of-war in the second line.[318]

Turning to warships, we find ourselves on much surer ground. Detailed inventories exist of several of the crack ships of Henry VII and Henry VIII, and carefully executed drawings of the same period are numerous.[319] In the evolution of the warship the paramount factor was the rapid development of artillery. The guns mounted in ships were at first small and of little penetrative power. Consequently it was essential to place them where they could do the greatest execution on an enemy’s decks and against his rigging. The tactical idea in the use of the gun was mainly to employ it in the same way as the long-bow and the cross-bow; to kill the enemy’s crew rather than to sink his ship. Hence we find in the warships of Henry VII large numbers of ‘serpentines’, small guns weighing about three hundredweight and throwing a half-pound ball, grouped in the castles of the ship, which were built very high to accommodate them in two or three tiers. At the same time a few heavier guns, throwing stone balls, were placed in the waist. These were too low down to reach the greater part of the hostile deck at close quarters, and must therefore have been fired at the hull. The collective weight of all these guns was very great and, to secure stability and structural strength, the ship’s sides had to be sloped inwards from the water-line so that the weight should be more centrally carried. This ‘tumblehome’ in high-built ships was so great that the width of the deck on poop and forecastle was often less than half the width at the water-line. It served another purpose in rendering boarding more difficult, for, even if two vessels were touching at the water-line, their decks were necessarily several feet apart. The most easily accessible part was the waist, which was defended by nettings and by guns placed in the castles on purpose to sweep it with ‘hail shot’, the forerunner of grape and canister.

The armament of the _Sovereign_, built in 1488, was as follows:[320] In the forecastle, above deck, 16 serpentines, and below deck, 24; in the poop, 20 serpentines; in the ‘somercastle’ (apparently a quarter-deck, one stage lower than the poop), above deck, 25 serpentines, below deck, 21 together with 11 stone guns; in the waist, 20 stone guns; in the stern, over the rudder, 4 serpentines. Total, 110 serpentines and 31 stone guns. The _Regent_, built about the same time, was most likely a larger vessel, as she carried 225 guns. In her case their distribution is not known.

Although Henry VII had these two first-class warships built, he did not maintain a large navy, and at his death there were apparently only seven royal ships.[321] His successor, bent on a more adventurous foreign policy, began to strengthen the fleet from the very commencement of his reign. The _Mary Rose_ and the _Peter Pomegranate_ were built in 1510, and the _Henry Grace à Dieu_ was laid down at the end of 1512 to replace the _Regent_, burnt in action off Brest earlier in that year.

An incident which took place in April 1513 probably had a great effect on the armament of the _Henry Grace à Dieu_. The English fleet was blockading the French in Brest and seeking in vain for some means of bringing the enemy to action. As a reinforcement a squadron of six French galleys was ordered round from the Mediterranean under the command of a brave and able officer named Prégent de Bidoux. Three of these galleys, according to contemporary letters, were armed with one heavy gun each, obtained from the Venetians, and of such a size as had never before been seen in France. It was asserted that a single shot from such a gun would be sufficient to send any ship to the bottom. The boast was soon, to a great extent, substantiated. Arriving off Brest on April 22, Prégent made a bold dash through the blockading fleet and succeeding in getting into Blanc Sablons Bay. In the process his formidable guns sank one English ship outright and crippled another, striking her through in seven places so that there was great difficulty in keeping her afloat. This was a minimum estimate of the damage, as admitted by the English themselves; a neutral account stated that two ships were sunk, and Prégent himself claimed to have destroyed four large ships and two transports, which was certainly a gross exaggeration.[322]

The construction of the _Henry Grace à Dieu_ could not at this date have been at a very advanced stage, since she was not ready for sea until June 1514; and it is fair to assume that the demonstration of the effectiveness of a few heavy guns provided by the above action was responsible for the mounting of several such in the _Henry_. Be that as it may, the tendency was henceforward to reduce the number of light pieces carried in the upper works of a ship and to transfer the weight of armament to a hard-hitting battery placed on the level of the waist and in a fighting deck below the waist. The _Henry Grace à Dieu_ is the first ship known to have been provided with a tier of guns below the main deck. She was armed in 1514 with 136 small guns, and the following heavier pieces, the exact dimensions of some of which are not ascertainable: stone guns, 4; ‘great pieces of iron of one making and bigness,’ 12; ‘great iron guns of one sort that come out of Flanders,’ 4; ‘great Spanish pieces of iron of one sort,’ 2; stone guns on wheels, 18; miscellaneous large guns, 4; great brass culverins, 2; a great brass bombard on four wheels; and a great brass curtall on four wheels: total, 48 heavy guns.[323] It is doubtful whether the stone guns should be ranked as heavy weapons. They were evidently larger than serpentines, to judge from their position in the _Sovereign’s_ armament already described; but it is unlikely that they were identical with the ‘canon petro’ of the latter half of the century, which fired a 26 lb. shot. They were probably in 1514 medium-sized pieces, and if we deduct them from the above total, the undoubtedly heavy guns of the _Henry_ numbered 26. The culverin was of 5½ inches calibre, and threw an 18 lb. ball; according to a paper of 1513 the weight of the shot fired by the curtall was 60 lb., while the missile of the bombard was of 260 lb. and required a charge of 80 lb. of powder.[324] It is somewhat hard to believe that the _Henry_ ever used such a gun at sea; and in another list of almost the same date the bombard is omitted.[325] By the end of the reign the _Henry_ had been re-armed, her heavy guns then numbering 19, and consisting of 4 cannon, 3 demi-cannon, 4 culverins, 2 demi-culverins, 2 cannon-petro, and 4 sakers.[326] The weight of shot ranged from 60 lb. for the cannon down to 6 lb. for the saker.

The same policy of reducing the number of guns, increasing their weight, and carrying them lower, was pursued in the case of other ships built during the reign, with the consequence that the excessive height of the castles was no longer necessary; and after 1540 several vessels were built practically flush-decked. These ships, which varied from 150 to 300 tons, were described as galleys, but the word was not intended in its usual sense. They were fully-rigged sailing-ships and, although they may have been occasionally assisted by the use of sweeps, it was not their principal means of propulsion. They probably owed the name to their speed and handiness as compared with the high-built, older-fashioned vessels. An illustration[327] of one of them, the _Tiger_, built in 1546, appears as the frontispiece of Oppenheim’s _Administration of the Royal Navy_. She carries about twenty large guns, of which fourteen are placed on the broadsides below the main deck. The king himself was greatly interested in the efforts made to improve warships. The following extract from a letter of Chapuys, an eminently reliable authority, demonstrates his responsibility for the innovation just described:

‘The King has sent to Italy for three shipwrights experienced in the art of constructing galleys, but I fancy he will not make much use of their science, as for some time back he has been building ships with oars according to a model of which he himself is the inventor.’[328]

The smaller examples of this class were known as ‘rowbarges’. They did good service against the French galleys in the war of 1544–6, and were used for policing the Channel in times of peace. They are thus described by Martin du Bellay, a contemporary French writer:

‘Il y a une espèce de navires particulières dont usoyent noz ennemis, en forme plus longue que ronde, et plus estroitte beaucoup que les gallères, pour mieux se régir et commander aux courantes, qui sont ordinaires en ceste mer; à quoy les hommes sont si duits, qu’avec ces vaisseaux ils contendent de vitesse avec les gallères, et les nomment remberges.’

In the larger ships the type of hull gradually developed into that familiar in numerous pictures of the Armada period: low forecastle, very little higher than the waist, and moderately high poop, the guns being mounted on the main deck and in one or more fighting decks below it. This build, although increased in size, remained substantially unaltered in its main proportions until the middle of the eighteenth century.

Although the hulls of ships were undergoing great modifications, the style of rigging warships remained practically unchanged during the period under review. The _Sovereign_ of 1488 had four masts, the fore and main having topmasts and top-sails, and the mizen and bonaventure mizen being rigged with one lateen sail each. A sprit-sail was carried under the bowsprit. The _Sovereign_ was in all respects an excellent ship, and probably in advance of the general standard of her time. As late as 1525, when her timbers were old and rotten, the authorities were recommended to have her rebuilt because ‘the form of this ship is so marvellous goodly that great pity it were she should die’.[329] Apparently the advice was not carried out, for she disappears from view about this time. The _Henry Grace à Dieu_ carried topmasts and topgallantmasts and three sails on the fore-, main-, and mizen-masts, and a topmast and two sails on the bonaventure mizen; also a sprit-sail under the bowsprit, which, for practical purposes, was a fifth mast.[330] But the _Henry_ was exceptional in most respects, and the rigging of the _Sovereign_ became the standard type for sixteenth-century warships.

The great picture at Hampton Court depicting the embarkation of Henry VIII at Dover in 1520 shows the _Henry_ and several warships of the time, but the technical accuracy of the artist is open to great doubt. Five ships appear on a large scale, and their hulls are all so suspiciously alike that they suggest the idea that they were all drawn from the same original. The only differences are in a few minor details of carving and colouring. Two of the ships carry four masts and the remainder three; and it is noticeable that not a single lateen sail is shown in the whole fleet, the mizen-masts having square sails like the fore and main. This is almost certainly incorrect.[331] Such guns as can be seen are arranged in precisely the same way in every case, and the whole picture gives the impression that the artist was drawing conventional ships without much study of the real thing, and was concentrating his care on the numerous gorgeously dressed individuals who are seen on the decks and in the foreground.

[Illustration:

THE _HENRY GRACE À DIEU_. From a MS. at Magdalene College, Cambridge. ]

The fighting record of the _Henry Grace à Dieu_ is not particularly brilliant. She was completed just too late to take part in the war of 1512–14. In 1522 war was again declared against France, and she was sent to sea in the fleet commanded by Sir William Fitz-William. He reported that she sailed as well and rather better than any ship in the fleet, weathering them all save the _Mary Rose_; and, although it was only the beginning of June, he went on to talk about laying her up for the winter. She was evidently something of a nuisance, and the admiral was anxious to be rid of her. There had been so much boasting about this marvellous ship that the French were certain to make her the especial object of their attacks, and the king would have been furious if she had been lost. On June 8 she lost her bowsprit, foremast, and maintopmast in a gale in the Downs, and a week later was brought round to Portsmouth to be laid up. Special precautions were to be taken against a French raid; two barks were kept scouting round the Isle of Wight, assisted by an elaborate system of beacons, sentinels, &c. Later on 1,000 marks were spent on a dock and fortifications for the _Henry_ at Portsmouth, and it does not appear that she went to sea in 1523, after which year the war was virtually over.[332] In 1526, when laid up at Northfleet, it was reported that she was costing £200 a year in wages alone, and more than that in cables, hawsers, and other stores, and that a dock would have to be built at a cost of £600.[333] The next war was that of 1544–6. In the former year the naval operations were unimportant, and the _Henry_ took no part in them; but in 1545 an immense French fleet was collected in the Channel, and for a time England lost the command of the sea. The English fleet was concentrated at Portsmouth, the _Henry Grace à Dieu_ being the flagship. The king was dining on board when, on July 19, the approach of the French was signalled. Indecisive fighting at long range took place, and the French then withdrew. Another cannonade, with the like result, took place off the Sussex coast on August 15, and with this the war services of the _Henry_ concluded. She was accidentally burnt at Deptford in 1553. Her career was typical of those of most of the large fighting ships of the time. All of them, both English and French, were considered too valuable to be committed to a decisive action, or to be sent to sea in any but the finest weather; and such exploits as were performed went to the credit of lighter and more easily handled craft.

In the wars of this period the French galleys on more than one occasion proved exceedingly useful to their side; but all attempts to popularize this type of vessel in England were failures. As has been explained, the numerous craft so described in the navy lists were for the most part not true galleys, but light sailing ships. In 1544, however, a galley was constructed on Mediterranean lines and named the _Galley Subtile_ or _Row Galley_. She was of 200 tons, carried a crew of 250, and mounted 31 guns.[334] A drawing in the British Museum shows her fitted with a pointed beak or ram, and one mast with a huge lateen sail. She served on the Scottish coast in 1544, when Edinburgh was sacked, and in the

## actions against the French in the following year.

Artillery in the sixteenth century was in a state of transition. Originally, after first rudimentary experiments with wood, ropes, and leather, guns were built up by binding longitudinal strips of metal into cylindrical form with numerous metal rings, on the principle of the construction of a cask. Guns made in this way were mounted in Henry VII’s warships, and the system continued in vogue until the latter half of the century. At the same time cast-brass and cast-iron guns were beginning to be made abroad; many of them were imported into England, and they were used in forts and ships side by side with the built-up guns.

Practically all the larger pieces for sea use were loaded at the breach. The method consisted in having a detachable section, from one to two feet long, called the chamber, which was taken off the remainder of the barrel to be loaded. When charged with powder the chamber was replaced at the rear end of the barrel and fixed in position by a wooden wedge hammered in between it and a projection on the carriage of the gun, the shot having been previously placed in the barrel itself. The gun was then fired by means of a linstock and priming powder scattered over the touch hole. Three chambers were supplied with each gun in the time of Henry VII, but the number was afterwards reduced to two. The indistinct accounts of naval encounters give the impression that the rate of fire was not nearly so rapid as might have been expected, and the breech-loading system was rapidly displaced by muzzle-loaders towards the end of the sixteenth century. A large built-up breech-loader, recovered by divers in 1836 from the wreck of the _Mary Rose_ (1545), is to be seen at the United Services Museum in Whitehall.

Guns of cast brass were said by ancient authorities not to have been made in England until 1521, nor cast iron until 1543, but these dates are probably much too late. In 1516 payment of £33 6_s._ 8_d._ was made to John Rutter of London ‘for hurts and damages by him sustained in a tenement to him belonging, wherein the King’s great gun called the Basiliscus was cast’.[335] If a great gun could be cast in England in 1516 it is reasonable to suppose that some experience had first been gained in casting smaller ones. The wrought guns of this period were embedded in solid elm carriages and fastened down by iron rings; but several cast metal examples exist which were fitted with trunnions in the modern fashion.

During the war of 1512–14 the Government purchased large numbers of guns at home and abroad. Humphrey Walker, an English gun-maker, supplied fifty pieces in 1512. The principal foreign place of manufacture was Mechlin, where Hans Popenruyter turned out heavy weapons in great quantities. He delivered twenty-four curtalls weighing about 1¼ tons each in 1512, also twenty-four serpentines averaging about ½ ton. The individual guns were all of slightly different weights and were all named with such appellations as The Sun Arising, Virago, Mermaid, Rat, Snake, Dragon, &c.[336] The heavier weapons were for land service, and assisted at the sieges of Tournay and Terouenne in 1513.

A paper of 1513[337] gives some interesting information about the various classes of guns in use: A minion fired an 8 lb. shot; a lizard, a 12 lb. ditto, with 14 lb. of powder; culverins, ‘novemburghs’, and apostles were 20-pounders; while a curtall fired a 60 lb. and a bombard a 260 lb. missile. The latter could only be fired five times a day, presumably on account of over-heating. The rates of fire of the others were very slow, none of them exceeding forty times a day. The powder was largely purchased abroad, although some was made in England; it cost 3½_d._ or 4_d._ a pound, and was of very poor quality. A Venetian description of England in 1557 mentions that there were then 600 iron and 250 brass guns in the Tower.[338] Since the private ownership of cannon was not encouraged, this fact goes far to explain the non-success of all rebellions against the Tudor throne.

The crews both of warships and merchantmen were much more numerous in proportion to the size of the ship than they have since become. Many improvements tending to greater manageability were then unthought of. On long voyages also, allowance had to be made for serious sickness and mortality, which was almost invariably experienced. The _Matthew Gonson_ of 300 tons, which voyaged to the Levant in 1535, carried 100 men, and it was recorded as remarkable that only one died. On tropical voyages, such as those to Guinea in the reign of Mary, it sometimes happened that more than half the crew never returned. Overcrowding and poorness of the victuals were partly responsible. The food supplied in English warships consisted only of biscuit, beef, fish, and beer, and it is unlikely that merchantmen were better found. A French victualling list, however, is somewhat more varied, including biscuit, fresh bread, flour, cider, beer, wine, salt and fresh flesh, mutton, bacon, butter, peas, fish, and verjuice.[339] The wages in 1512 were as follows: Admiral, 10_s._ per day; captain, 18_d._ per day; lodesman (pilot), 20_s._ per month; sailors, 5_s._ per month and 5_s._ worth of victuals.[340] The subordinate officers were paid the same as the sailors and, in addition, divided among themselves a number of ‘deadshares’ proportionate to the size of the ship. In merchant vessels private trading by all members of the crew, at any rate on long voyages, was a recognized custom, and they were allowed a certain amount of space in the hold for their goods. It is referred to in the charter granted by Henry VII to the Bristol syndicate in 1501, in the accounts of the Guinea voyages, and in the instructions to Sir Hugh Willoughby in 1553.

A large trading-ship was commanded by a captain, appointed by the merchants owning the cargo, and having general control over the conduct of the voyage, the ports of call, dates of sailing, &c, and by the master, who navigated the ship and controlled the crew. The captain was not necessarily a professional seaman, as the master, of course, invariably was. The composition of the crews in a well-found merchant fleet is illustrated by Hakluyt’s account of Willoughby’s expedition. In addition to the officers above mentioned, the _Edward Bonaventure_, the largest ship, carried a master’s mate, a minister, a master gunner and his mate, two gunners, a surgeon, a boatswain and his mate, four quartermasters, a steward and his mate, a cook, a cooper and a carpenter, together with twenty-one sailors. Most merchantmen also carried a purser. The _Matthew Gonson_, in the voyage already referred to, had six gunners and four trumpeters. The officers of the Tudor merchant service were recruited from the more educated seamen, or from boys who went to sea as ‘gromals’ or pages, the equivalent of the modern apprentice. Sebastian Cabot’s instructions for the North-East voyage enjoin that the boys are ‘to be brought up according to the laudable order and use of the sea, as well in learning of navigation, as in exercising of that which to them appertaineth’. The seamen were by no means the most illiterate class of men in the community. Several distinguished men, such as William Borough, rose from the forecastle; and the numerous relations in Hakluyt by persons in inferior positions indicate a comparatively high standard of education among seafaring men. There were no official certificates or examinations, and a man had to depend for advancement on the reputation he acquired among his fellows. Consequently it was easier for able men to come by their own than in the days of paper qualifications. The level of theoretical knowledge was not, however, very high; and in this respect England was inferior to foreign nations, which largely accounts for her comparative failure in exploration during the first half of the sixteenth century.

The subject of discipline in merchantmen is somewhat puzzling. The master of a ship had apparently no statutory control over his crew; his powers of discipline must have been largely those inherent in the cunning of his own right hand. Certain customary punishments, such as putting in irons, seem to have been recognized; one of Willoughby’s men was ‘for pickerie ducked at the yard’s arm and so discharged’ before the expedition cleared the English coast. But insubordination was common on long voyages, and often forced the captain and master to change their plans and forgo occasions of profit. Even in the navy things were sometimes no better. William Knight, writing in 1512 of the expedition to Spain, complains of ‘the ungodly manners’ of the seamen, who robbed the king’s victual while the soldiers were sea-sick.[341] The loss of the _Mary Rose_ in 1545 was undoubtedly due to the state of anarchy prevailing on board. Her captain, when told of the danger arising from the open ports on the lee side, remarked that he had a set of rascals he could not rule; the ports were left open, and the sea poured in and sank the ship.

Piracy, the bane of European waters, flourished exceedingly during this period of constant struggle among the western powers. After the peace between England and France in 1514, a joint attempt was made by the two countries to put a stop to it. In 1517 it was arranged that a commission of three or four suitable persons should sit at Calais to hear French complaints, and that a similar court should hear English grievances at Boulogne. Judgement was to go against all persons who should neglect to appear when summoned.[342] Some attempt was made to put the above into practice, but anything short of an international arrangement was foredoomed to failure, for, when hard pressed, the freebooters changed their flag—French pirates pretended to be Scots, and vice versa—and it was impossible to obtain any redress. The general state of public opinion also rendered it improbable that port officials would be very eager to do justice on their own countrymen in behalf of foreigners.

In England piracies were judged by the Admiralty Court, the tribunal consisting of the Lord High Admiral or his representative, the Master of the Rolls, and another judge, proceedings being opened at the place nearest to that at which the offence took place.[343] An Act of 1536 strengthened the hands of the court, permitting it to pass sentence of death, and depriving pirates of benefit of clergy.

The evil increased as time went on, and during the war of 1544–6 assumed gigantic proportions. Privateers, under pretext of cruising against the enemy, snapped up any neutral vessels of value, and the signing of peace did very little to repress their activities. The weakness of the Government in the next reign encouraged them to greater audacity, and the Lord Admiral Seymour was accused of abetting them. The Act of Attainder by which he was condemned to death[344] stated that he had ‘maintained, aided, and comforted sundry pirates, and taken to his own use the goods pyratuslye taken against the laws’. It was not until long afterwards that the Narrow Seas became reasonably safe, for the French wars of religion, the revolt of the Netherlands, and the Anglo-Spanish war continued to produce hordes of privateers throughout the remainder of the sixteenth century.

During the period 1485–1558 the principal seaports after London were Southampton and Bristol. The customs receipts at Newcastle and Boston were both in excess of those at Bristol, but, as they were mainly derived from the extortionate duties on wool, none of which product was exported by the western city, they over-represent the true volume of traffic at those ports. Throughout the whole of this period the tendency was for London to increase its business at the expense of the other ports, many of which steadily decayed in importance although the volume of the country’s total trade was increasing. Since the duties continued practically unchanged, the sums paid at the various ports afford, when certain allowances have been made, a fair means of estimating their trade.

The growth of London as a port is illustrated by the following figures: during the first five years of Henry VII the average annual customs payments, exclusive of wool duties, amounted to £7,274; during the last five years of the same reign, £12,359; and during the years 1533–8, the last such period in which, for various reasons,[345] a just comparison can be made, £17,962. In half a century, then, the general trade of London was considerably more than doubled. The wool duties show a steady decline, due, not to a smaller output, but to the increase of the home manufacture of cloth which left less raw material available for export. The wool averages for the same three periods were £10,515, £7,206, and £4,217.[346]

Southampton suffered great misfortunes owing to changing conditions. During the latter part of the fifteenth century the town enjoyed great prosperity as the sole English port to be visited by the Flanders galleys of Venice and the great carracks of Genoa, bringing valuable cargoes of eastern goods, and departing with their holds full of English wool. As time went on this traffic almost entirely ceased, and Southampton, unlike London, failed to benefit by the growth of the North Sea trade. Consequently, after enjoying a maximum period of prosperity in the closing years of Henry VII, during which time she bade fair to rival London, the southern seaport experienced a steady and irretrievable decay under his successor. The average receipts at Southampton for 1485–90 were £5,449; for 1504–9, £10,341; and for 1533–8, £3,232. The quantity of wool exported by the Staple from Southampton was very small, and does not appreciably affect the above figures.

So serious had the distress of Southampton become that in 1530 an Act of Parliament[347] was obtained for the purpose of releasing the town from certain dues to the Crown which it found itself unable to continue paying. The preamble sets forth the cause of its decline, attributing it to the cessation of the ‘petie custom of merchandise which of old time was accustomed to be levied of the goods of strangers repairing thither in carreckis of Jeane (Genoa), laden with Jean woade; and in gallies of Florence and Venyse laden with spicis; and now by the time of many years past since that Tolowes (Toulouse) woade hath been usually brought into this realm, and that the King of Portugal took the trade of spices from the Venyzians at Calacowte, few or no such carreckis, galeis ne other shippis have repaired unto our said town with woad or spices, nor be like to repair hereafter’. The trade of Southampton, it was stated, had also suffered from the wars with France. Many persons of substance had forsaken the town, and others were preparing to follow. The melancholy state of affairs here described is borne out by the figures and may be taken as correct; unlike the majority of such preambles, which were very prone to wail about ‘change and decay’, and must be received with caution.

Although the great state galleys came no more to England, occasional Venetian merchantmen still continued to make the voyage through the Straits of Gibraltar, more especially after the restriction of the wool export by the overland route in the reign of Mary. In order to help Southampton as much as possible it was ordered that they were to discharge cargoes exclusively at that town. This was opposed by the London merchants, but the privilege of Southampton was successfully upheld. In 1558 the Council further commanded that all malmseys brought to England were to be unloaded there, under penalty of 20_s._ per butt.[348]

Bristol, whose trade lay principally in the direction of Bordeaux and the Peninsula, missed a great opportunity in not persevering with the explorations of the Cabots and their obscure successors in the time of Henry VII. Unlike many lost chances, it presented itself once again, and the days of the town’s greatest prosperity came when trade with America was opened up in the following century. During the early Tudor period Bristol fairly maintained its position without experiencing any such fluctuations of fortune as those which assailed Southampton. The average customs receipts for the first and last five years of Henry VII and for the period 1533–8 were respectively £1,175, £1,051, and £1,306. At the commencement of this time Bristol exported considerable quantities of corn to Spain, but as sheep-farming developed the price of food in England increased, and the export had to be restricted. An Act of 1543 permitted it only under certain conditions.[349]

In the Middle Ages a Staple had existed at Bristol; but, although it continued to elect mayors and officials, it had become entirely unimportant by the middle of the fifteenth century.[350] The trade of Bristol, in fact, became free to all individuals, notwithstanding various attempts to form a close corporation to the exclusion of outsiders. In 1500 one such company was formed with Hugh Elyot, the Newfoundland pioneer, as one of its members, but it failed to prosper. Again, in 1552, a charter was obtained incorporating a Bristol Society of Merchant Venturers, to the exclusion of non-members from the use of the port. Being unaccompanied by penalties it proved useless. In 1566 confirmation was obtained, and the monopoly was backed up by an Act of Parliament; but owing to great opposition the scheme was dropped in 1571.[351] On many occasions Bristol displayed a progressive spirit; it was natural, therefore, that an attempt to impose mediaeval restrictions on its enterprise should be successfully resisted.

Of the other seaports, Exeter and Dartmouth, closely approaching Bristol in importance, and Plymouth and Fowey, with about half its volume of trade, remained fairly steady in their returns. Poole, sharing to some extent the misfortunes of Southampton, declined. Hull, Ipswich, Newcastle, and Boston, all of which depended mainly for their revenues on the dwindling export of wool, show a more or less serious falling-off in their customs receipts, although, since the cloth export was on the increase, it is probable that their total bulk of shipping was undiminished. It must be remembered that the duties on exported cloth were nothing like so heavy as those on raw wool. It is certain, however, that the enormous increase of London’s business was partially at the expense of the prosperity of the smaller ports. As merchant vessels grew in tonnage and draught they naturally resorted more and more to the safer harbours, and many of the minor havens dwindled to the status of mere fishing villages. An Elizabethan document[352] gives a list of all the seaports of the country by counties; seventeen are enumerated in Sussex alone, where it would be difficult at the present day to find more than half a dozen. The same tendency has extinguished numerous east coast seaports.

-----

Footnote 303:

See _Ancient and Modern Ships_, by Sir G. C. V. Holmes, for an account of this model.

Footnote 304:

_Cotton MSS._, Jul., E iv. 6.

Footnote 305:

Oppenheim, _Administration of the Navy_, p. 30.

Footnote 306:

Ibid., _Naval Accounts and Inventories_, Introd., p. xxvii.

Footnote 307:

_R. O., Warrants for Issues_, 1 Hen. VIII, No. 121.

Footnote 308:

Oppenheim, _Administration of Royal Navy_, p. 53.

Footnote 309:

_Harl. MSS._, 6205.

Footnote 310:

_Royal MSS._, 20 E ix.

Footnote 311:

Inventory of the _Sovereign_: Oppenheim, _Naval Accounts and Inventories_, p. 210.

Footnote 312:

Robert Thorne’s drawing, 1527, shows a bonnet on main-topsail.

Footnote 313:

For information on this subject see Laird Clowes, _History of the Navy_, i, chap. xiii.

Footnote 314:

For detailed description of method of making and using an astrolabe, see Cortes, _Breve Compendio de la Sphera y de la Arte de Navegar_, chap. viii.

Footnote 315:

_Naval Accounts and Inventories_, Introductions, p. xxi.

Footnote 316:

_Letters and Papers_, i, No. 3591.

Footnote 317:

In Laird Clowes’s _History of the Navy_, i. 413, there is an illustration of a Genoese carrack from a drawing said to have been made in 1452; but it has every appearance of being at least a century later in date.

Footnote 318:

_Cal. of Le Fleming MSS._, p. 8.

Footnote 319:

See Oppenheim’s _Naval Accounts and Inventories of Henry VII_; inventory of the _Henry Grace à Dieu_ in the same author’s _Administration of the Navy_; drawings of warships in _Add. MSS._, 22047; _Archaeologia_, vi. 208; Volpe’s picture at Hampton Court, &c.

Footnote 320:

_Naval Accounts and Inventories_, pp. 216–17. The armament here given is that mounted in 1497 when the ship was chartered for a voyage to the Levant by some merchants of London.

Footnote 321:

_Administration of the Royal Navy_, p. 35.

Footnote 322:

A. Spont, _Letters and Papers relating to the French War_, 1512–13, pp. 51, 52, 133, 140, 146. This work is a collection from all sources of original documents concerning the war.

As far as can be traced, this is the first occasion on which a ship is recorded to have been sunk by gun fire.

Footnote 323:

Chapter House Book xiii, printed in _Administration of the Royal Navy_, pp. 372–81.

Footnote 324:

_Letters and Papers_, i, No. 5108.

Footnote 325:

Ibid., No. 4968.

Footnote 326:

Pepysian MS. printed in _Archaeologia_, vi. 216.

Footnote 327:

From _Add. MSS._, 22047.

Footnote 328:

_Spanish Cal._ vi, part i, p. 342. July 1541.

Footnote 329:

_Letters and Papers_, iv, No. 1714.

Footnote 330:

Inventory.

Footnote 331:

A careful reading of the available inventories supports the idea that square sails were not at this period carried on the mizen-masts. The sails on fore and main are described as fitted with two sheets, while those on the mizen had but one.

Footnote 332:

_Letters and Papers_, iii, Nos. 2302, 2308, 2320, 2355. &c.

Footnote 333:

Ibid., iv, No. 2635.

Footnote 334:

Laird Clowes, _Royal Navy_, i. 421.

Footnote 335:

_Letters and Papers_, ii. 1472.

Footnote 336:

_Letters and Papers_, i, p. 464.

Footnote 337:

Ibid., p. 716.

Footnote 338:

_Venetian Cal._ vi, App. No. 171.

Footnote 339:

Spont, p. 179.

Footnote 340:

_Letters and Papers_, i, p. 344.

Footnote 341:

_Letters and Papers_, i, p. 362.

Footnote 342:

Ibid., ii, No. 3520.

Footnote 343:

R. G. Marsden, _Select Pleas in Court of Admiralty_, Introd., p. lvi. The Admiralty Court had other duties: ‘All contracts made abroad, bills of exchange (which at this period were for the most part drawn or payable abroad), commercial agencies abroad, charter parties, insurance, average, freight, non-delivery of or damage to cargo, negligent navigation by masters, mariners or pilots, breach of warranty of seaworthiness, and other provisions contained in charter

## parties; in short, every kind of shipping business was dealt with by

the Admiralty Court’ (Ibid., p. lxvii).

Footnote 344:

2 and 3 Ed. VI, c. 18.

Footnote 345:

The free trade policy of 1539–46, the troubles with the Hansa under Edward VI and Mary, and the rapid rise of prices during the same two reigns.

Footnote 346:

The customs returns for the period are given _in extenso_ in Schanz, _Englische Handelspolitik_, ii. 37–156.

Footnote 347:

22 Hen. VIII, c. 20.

Footnote 348:

_Acts of the Privy Council_, vi. 39 and 325; _Venetian Cal._ vi, No. 554.

Footnote 349:

34 & 35 Hen. VIII, c. 9.

Footnote 350:

J. Latimer, _History of the Merchant Venturers’ Society of Bristol_, p. 15.

Footnote 351:

_Bristol Charters_ (1909), by the same author, pp. 142–7.

Footnote 352:

_Lansdowne MSS._, 170, f. 281.

##