II.

THE NORMAN AND PLANTAGENET ERAS.

William the Conqueror’s first act on landing was to burn all his ships--a proceeding useful enough in the way of preventing any of his followers retiring with their spoils, but inconvenient to him shortly after he became King of England. Fleets from Denmark and Norway raided the coasts, and, though the raiders were easily defeated on shore, the pressure from them was sufficient to cause William to set about recreating a navy, of which he made some use in the year 1071. In 1078 the Cinque Ports were established, five ports being granted certain rights in return for policing the Channel and supplying ships to the King as required. But the amount of naval power maintained was very small, both in the reign of William the First and his successors.

Not until the reign of Henry II was any appreciable attention paid to nautical matters. Larger ships than heretofore were built, as we assume from records of the loss of one alleged to carry 300 men. It was Henry II who first claimed the “Sovereignty of the British Seas” and enacted the Assize of Arms whereby no ship or timber for shipbuilding might be sold out of England.

When Richard I came to the throne in 1189, fired with ambition to proceed to the Crusades, he ordered all ports in his dominions to supply him with ships in proportion to their population. The majority of these ships came, however, from Acquitaine. The fleet thus collected is said to have consisted of nine large ships, 150 small vessels, thirty galleys, and a number of transports. The large ships, which have also been given as thirteen in number, were known at the time as “busses.” They appear to have been three-masters. The fleet sailed in eight divisions. This expedition to the Holy Land was the first important over-sea voyage ever participated in by English ships, the greatest distance heretofore traversed having been to Norway in the time of Canute. This making of a voyage into the unknown was, however, not quite so difficult as it might at first sight be supposed to be, because there is no doubt whatever that the compass was by then well-known and used. Records from 1150 and onwards exist which describe the compass of that period. A contemporary chronicler[4] wrote of it:--

“This [polar] star does not move. They [the seamen] have an art which cannot deceive, by virtue of the _manite_, an ill brownish stone to which iron spontaneously adheres. They search for the right point, and when they have touched a needle on it, and fixed it to a bit of straw, they lay it on water, and the straw keeps it afloat. Then the point infallibly turns towards the star; and when the night is dark and gloomy, and neither star nor moon is visible, they set a light beside the needle, and they can be assured that the star is opposite to the point, and thereby the mariner is directed in his course. This is an art which cannot deceive.”

The compass would seem to have existed, so far as northern nations were concerned, about the time of William the Conqueror. Not till early in the Fourteenth Century did it assume the form in which we now know it, but its actual antiquity is considerably more.

In connection with this expedition to the Holy Land, Richard issued a Code of Naval Discipline, which has been described as the germ of our Articles of War. Under this Code if a man killed another on board ship, he was to be tied to the corpse and thrown into the sea. If the murder took place on shore, he was to be buried alive with the corpse. The penalty for drawing a knife on another man, or drawing blood from him in any manner was the loss of a hand. For “striking another,” the offender was plunged three times into the sea. For reviling or insulting another man, compensation of an ounce of silver to the aggrieved one was awarded. The punishment for theft was to shave the head of the thief, pour boiling pitch upon it and then feather him. This was done as a mark of recognition. The subsequent punishment was to maroon a man upon the first land touched. Severe penalties were imposed on the mariners and servants for gambling.

Of these punishments the two most interesting are those for theft and the punishment of “ducking.” This last was presumably keel-hauling, a punishment which survived well into the Nelson era. It is to be found described in the pages of Marryat. It consisted in drawing the offender by ropes underneath the bottom of the ship. As his body was thus scraped along the ship’s hull, the punishment was at all times severe; but in later days, as ships grew larger and of deeper draught, it became infinitely more cruel and heavy than in the days when it was first instituted.

The severe penalty for theft is to be noted on account of the fact that, even in the early times, theft, as now, was and is recognised as a far more serious offence on ship board than it is on shore--the reason being the greater facilities that a ship affords for theft.

[Illustration: RICHARD 1ST IN ACTION WITH THE SARACEN SHIP.]

On his way to the Holy Land, Richard had a dispute at Sicily with the King of France, out of which he increased his fleet somewhat. Leaving Sicily, somewhere between Cyprus and Acre he encountered a very large Saracen ship, of the battle with which very picturesque and highly coloured accounts exist. There is no doubt that the ship was something a great deal larger than anything the English had ever seen heretofore, although the crew of 1,500 men with which she is credited by the chroniclers is undoubtedly an exaggeration.

The ship carried an armament of Greek fire and “serpents.” The exact composition of Greek fire is unknown. It was invented by the Byzantines, who by means of it succeeded in keeping their enemies at bay for a very long time. It was a mixture of chemicals which, upon being squirted at the enemy from tubes, took fire, and could only be put out by sand or vinegar. “Serpents” were apparently some variation of Greek fire of a minor order, discharged by catapults.

In the first part of the attack the English fleet was able to make no impression upon the enemy, as her high sides and the Greek fire rendered boarding impossible. Not until King Richard had exhilarated his fleet by informing them that if the galley escaped they “should be crucified or put to extreme torture,” was any progress made. After that, according to the contemporary account, some of the English jumped overboard and succeeded in fastening ropes to the rudder of the Saracen ship, “steering her as they pleased.” They then obtained a footing on board, but were subsequently driven back. As a last resource King Richard formed his galleys into line and rammed the ship, which afterwards sank.

The relation of Richard’s successor, King John, to the British Navy, is one of some peculiar interest. More than any king before him he appears to have appreciated the importance of naval power, and naval matters received more attention than heretofore. In the days of King John the crews of ships appropriated for the King’s service were properly provisioned with wine and food, and there are also records of pensions for wounds, one of the earliest being that of Alan le Walleis, who received a pension of sixpence a day for the loss of his hand.[5]

King John is popularly credited with having made the first claim to the “Sovereignty of the Seas” and of having enacted that all foreign vessels upon sighting an English one were to strike their flags to her, and that if they did not that it was lawful to destroy them. The authenticity of this is, however, very doubtful; and it is more probable that, on account of various naval regulations which first appeared in the reign of King John, this particular regulation was fathered upon him at a later date with the view to giving it an historical precedent.

In the reign of King John the “Laws of Oleron” seem to have first appeared, but it is not at all clear that they had any specific connection with England. They appear rather to have been of a general European nature. The gist of the forty-seven articles of the “Laws of Oleron,” of which the precise date of promulgation cannot be ascertained, is as follows:--[5]

“By the first article, if a vessel arrived at Bordeaux, Rouen, or any other similar place, and was there freighted for Scotland, or any other foreign country, and was in want of stores or provisions, the master was not permitted to sell the vessel, but he might with the advice of his crew raise money by pledging any part of her tackle or furniture.

“If a vessel was wind or weather bound, the master, when a change occurred, was to consult his crew, saying to them, “Gentlemen, what think you of this wind?” and to be guided by the majority whether he should put to sea. If he did not do this, and any misfortune happened, he was to make good the damage.

“If a seaman sustained any hurt through drunkenness or quarrelling, the master was not bound to provide for his cure, but might turn him out of his ship; if, however, the injury occurred in the service of his ship, he was to be cured at the cost of the said ship. A sick sailor was to be sent on shore, and a lodging, candles, and one of the ship’s boys, or a nurse provided for him, with the same allowance of provisions as he would have received on board. In case of danger in a storm, the master might, with the consent of the merchants on board, lighten the ship by throwing part of the cargo overboard; and if they did not consent, or objected to his doing so, he was not to risk the vessel but to act as he thought proper; on their arrival in port, he and the third part of the crew were to make oath that it was done for the preservation of the vessel; and the loss was to be borne equally by the merchants. A similar proceeding was to be adopted before the mast or cables were cut away.

“Before goods were shipped the master was to satisfy the merchants of the strength of his ropes and slings; but if he did not do so, or they requested him to repair them and a cask were stove, the master was to make it good.

“In cases of difference between a master and one of his crew, the man was to be denied his mess allowance thrice, before he was turned out of the ship, or discharged; and if the man offered reasonable satisfaction in the presence of the crew, and the master persisted in discharging him, the sailor might follow the ship to her place of destination, and demand the same wages as if he had not been sent ashore.

“In case of a collision by a ship undersail running on board one at anchor, owing to bad steering, if the former were damaged, the cost was to be equally divided; the master and crew of the latter making oath that the collision was accidental. The reason for this law was, it is said, ‘that an old decayed vessel might not purposely be put in the way of a better.’ It was specially provided that all anchors ought to be indicated by buoys or ‘anchor-marks.’

“Mariners of Brittany were entitled only to one meal a day, because they had beverage going and coming; but those of Normandy were to have two meals, because they had only water as the ship’s allowance. As soon as the ship arrived in a wine country, the master was, however, to procure them wine.

“Several regulations occur respecting the seamen’s wages, which show that they were sometimes paid by a share of the freight. On arriving at Bordeaux or any other place, two of the crew might go on shore and take with them one meal of such victuals as were on board, and a proportion of bread, but no drink; and they were to return in sufficient time to prevent their master losing the tide. If a pilot from ignorance or otherwise failed to conduct a ship in safety, and the merchants sustained any damage, he was to make full satisfaction if he had the means to; if not, he was to lose his head; and, if the master or any one of the mariners cut off his head, they were not bound to answer for it; but, before they had recourse to so strong a measure, ‘they must be sure he had not wherewith to make satisfaction.’

“Two articles of the code prove, that from an ‘accursed custom’ in some places, by which the third or fourth part of ships that were lost belonged to the lord of the place--the pilots, to ingratiate themselves with these nobles, ‘like faithless and treacherous villains,’ purposely ran the vessel on the rocks. It was therefore enacted that the said lords, and all others assisting in plundering the wreck, shall be accursed and excommunicated, and punished as robbers and thieves; that ‘all false and treacherous pilots should suffer a most rigorous and merciless death,’ and be suspended to high gibbets near the spot, which gibbets were to remain as an example in succeeding ages. The barbarous lords were to be tied to a post in the middle of their own houses, and, being set on fire at the four corners, all were to be burned together; the walls demolished, its site converted into a marketplace for the sale only of hogs and swine, and all their goods to be confiscated to the use of the aggrieved parties.

“Such of the cargoes as floated ashore were to be taken care of for a year or more; and, if not then claimed, they were to be sold by the lord, and the proceeds distributed among the poor, in marriage portions to poor maids and other charitable uses. If, as often happened, ‘people more barbarous, cruel, and inhuman than mad dogs,’ murdered shipwrecked persons, they were to be plunged into the sea till they were half-dead, and then drawn out and stoned to death.”

Those laws, unconnected though they appear to be with strictly naval matters, are none the less of extreme interest as indicating the establishment of “customs of the sea,” and the consequent segregation of a “sailor class.” It has ever to be kept very clearly in mind that there was no such thing as a “Navy” as we understand it in these days. When ships were required for war purposes they were hired, just as waggons may be hired by the Army to-day; nor did the mariners count for much more than horses. The “Laws of Oleron,” however, gave them a certain general status which they had not possessed before; and the regulations of John as to providing for those engaged upon the King’s service--though they in no way constituted a Royal Navy--played their part many years later in making a Royal Navy possible, or, perhaps, it may be said, “necessary.” Necessity has ever been the principal driving force in the naval history of England.

To resume. The limitations of the powers of the master (_i.e._ captain) in these “Laws of Oleron” deserve special attention. “Gentlemen, what think you of this wind?” from the captain to his crew would be considered “democracy” carried to extreme and extravagant limits in the present day; in the days when it was promulgated as “the rule” it was surely stranger still! Little wonder that seamen at an early stage segregated from the ordinary body of citizens and became, as described by Clarendon in his “History of the Rebellion” a few hundred years later, when he wrote:--

“The seamen are a nation by themselves, a humorous and fantastic people, fierce and rude and resolute in whatsoever they resolve or are inclined to, but unsteady and inconstant in pursuing it, and jealous of those to-morrow by whom they are governed to-day.”

To this, to the earlier things that produced it, those who will may trace the extreme rigour of naval discipline and naval punishments, as compared with contemporaneous shore punishments at any given time, and the extraordinary difference at present existing between the American and European navies. The difference is usually explained on the circumstance that “Europe is Europe, and America, America.” But “differences” having their origin in the “Laws of Oleron” may play a greater part than is generally allowed.

The year 1213 saw the Battle of Damme. This was the first real naval battle between the French and English. The King of France had collected a fleet of some “seventeen hundred ships” for the invasion of England, but having been forbidden to do so by the Pope’s Legate, he decided to use his force against Flanders. This Armada was surprised and totally destroyed by King John’s fleet.

After the death of John the nautical element in England declared for Henry III, son of John, and against Prince Louis of France, who had been invited to the throne of England by the barons. Out of this came the battle of Sandwich, 1217, where Hubert de Burgh put into practice, though in different form, those principles first said to have been evolved by Alfred the Great--namely, to attack with an assured and complete superiority.

Every English ship took on board a large quantity of quick-lime and sailed to meet the French, who were commanded by Eustace the Monk. De Burgh manœuvred for the weather gauge. Having gained it, the English ships came down upon the French with the wind, the quick-lime blowing before them, and so secured a complete victory over the tortured and blinded French. This is the first recorded instance of anything that may be described as “tactics” in Northern waters.

The long reign of Henry III saw little of interest in connection with nautical matters. But towards the end of Henry’s reign a private quarrel between English and Norman ships, both seeking fresh water off the Coast of Bayonne, had momentous consequences. The Normans, incensed over the quarrel, captured a couple of English ships and hanged the crew on the yards interspersed with an equal number of dead dogs. Some English retaliated in a similar fashion on such Normans as they could lay hands on, and, retaliation succeeding retaliation, it came about that in the reign of Edward I, though England and France were still nominally at peace, the entire mercantile fleets of both were engaged in hanging each other, over what was originally a private quarrel as to who should be first to draw water at a well.

Ultimately the decision appears to have been come by “to fight it out.” Irish and Dutch ships assisted the English. Flemish and Genoese ships assisted the Normans and French. The English to the number of 60 were under Sir Robert Tiptoft. The number of the enemy is placed at 200, though it was probably considerably less. In the battle that ensued the Norman and French fleets were annihilated.

This battle, even more than others of the period, cannot be considered as one of the battles of “the British fleet.” It is merely a conflict between one clique of pirates and traders against another clique. But it is important on account of the light that it sheds on a good deal of subsequent history; for the fashion thus started lasted in one way and another for two or three hundred years.

Nor were these disputes always international. Four years later than the fight recorded above, in 1297, the King wished to invade Flanders with an army of 50,000 men. The Cinque Ports being unable to supply the requisite number of ships to transport this army, requisitions were also made at Yarmouth. Bad blood soon arose between the two divisions, with the result that they attacked each other. Thirty of the Yarmouth ships with their crews were destroyed and the expedition greatly hampered thereby.

Two events of importance in British naval history happened in the reign of Edward I. The first of these, which took place about the year 1300, arose out of acts of piracy on foreigners, to which English ships were greatly addicted at that time. In an appeal made to Edward by those Continentals who had suffered most from these depredations, the King was addressed as “Lord of the Sea.” This was a definite recognition of that sea claim first formulated by Henry II and which was afterwards to lead to so much fighting and bloodshed.

The second event was the granting of the first recorded “Letters of Marque” in the year 1295. These were granted to a French merchant who had been taking a cargo of fruit from Spain to England and had been robbed by the Portuguese. He was granted a five year license to attack the Portuguese in order to recoup his loss.

In the reign of Edward II the only naval event of interest is, that when the Queen came from abroad and joined those who were fighting against the King, the nautical element sided with her.

The reign of Edward III saw some stirring phases in English history. With a view to carrying on his war against France, Edward bestowed considerable attention on naval matters, and in the year 1338, he got together a fleet stated to have consisted of 500 vessels. These were used as transports to convey the Army to France, and are estimated to have carried on the average about eighty men each.

Meanwhile, the French had also got together a fleet of about equal size, and no sooner had the English expedition reached the shores of France than the whole of the south coast of England was subjected to a series of French raids. Southampton, Plymouth and the Cinque Ports were sacked and burned with practical impunity. These raids continued during 1338 and 1339; the bulk of the English fleet still lying idle on transport service at Edward’s base in Flanders. A certain number of ships had been sent back, but most of these had been as hastily sent on to Scotland, where their services had been urgently needed. Matters in the Channel culminated with the capture of the two largest English ships of the time. A fleet of small vessels hastily fitted out at the Cinque Ports succeeded in destroying Boulogne and a number of ships that lay there, but generally speaking the French had matters very much their own way on the sea.

Towards the end of 1339, Edward and his expedition returned to England to refit, with a view to preparing for a fresh invasion of France during the following summer.

As Edward was about to embark, he learned that the French King had got together an enormous fleet at Sluys. After collecting some additional vessels, bringing the total number of ships up to 250 or thereabouts, Edward took command and sailed for Sluys, at which port he found the French fleet. He localised the French on Friday, July 3rd, but it was not until the next day that the battle took place.

The recorded number of the enemy in all these early sea fights requires to be accepted with caution. For what it is worth the number of French ships has been given at 400 vessels, each carrying 100 men. The French, as on a later occasion they did on the Nile, lay on the defensive at the mouth of the harbour, the ships being lashed together by cables. Their boats, filled with stones, had been hoisted to the mast-heads. In the van of their fleet lay the _Christopher_, _Edward_, and various other “King’s ships,” which they captured in the previous year.

[Illustration: BATTLE OF SLUYS--1340.]

The English took the offensive, and in doing so manœuvred to have the sun behind them. Then, with their leading ships crowded with archers they bore down upon the main French division and grappled with them. The battle, which lasted right throughout the night, was fought with unexampled fury, and for a long time remained undecisive, considerable havoc being wrought by the French with the then novel idea of dropping large stones from aloft. The combatants, however, were so mixed up that it is doubtful whether the French did not kill as many of their own number as of the enemy; whereas, on the other side, the use of English archers who were noted marksmen told only against those at whom the arrows were directed. Furthermore, the English had the tactical advantage of throwing the whole of their force on a portion of the enemy, whom they ultimately totally destroyed.

This Battle of Sluys took place in 1340. In 1346, after various truces, the English again attacked France in force, and the result was the Battle of Cressy. A side issue of this was the historic siege of Calais, which held out for about twelve months. 738 ships and 14,956 men are said to have been employed in the sea blockade.

Up to this time the principal English ship had been a galley, _i.e._, essentially a row boat. About the year 1350 the galley began to disappear as a capital ship, and the galleon, with sail as its main motive power, took its place. Also a new enemy appeared; for at that time England first came into serious conflict with Spain.

To a certain extent the galleon was to the fleets of the Mid-Fourteenth Century much what the ironclad was to the last quarter of the Nineteenth Century, or “Dreadnoughts” at the end of the first decade of the Twentieth Century.

The introduction of this type of vessel came about as follows:--

A fleet of Castillian galleons, bound for Flanders, whiled away the monotony of its trip by acts of piracy against all English ships that it met. It reached Sluys without interference. Here it loaded up with rich cargoes and prepared to return to Spain. The English meanwhile collected a fleet to intercept it, this fleet being in command of King Edward himself, who selected the “cog _Thomas_” as his flagship.

The English tactics would seem to have been carefully thought out beforehand. The Castillian ships were known to be of relatively vast size and more or less unassailable except by boarding. The result was that when at length they appeared, the English charged their ships into them, sinking most of their own ships in the impact, sprang aboard and carried the enemy by boarding. The leading figure on the English side was a German body-servant of the name of Hannekin, who distinguished himself just at the crisis of the battle by leaping on board a Castillian ship and cutting the halyards. Otherwise the result of the battle might have been different, because the Castillians, when about half only of the English ships were grappled with them, hoisted their sails, with the object of sailing away and destroying the enemy in detail. Hannekin’s perception of this intention frustrated the attempt.

The advantages of the galleons (or carracks as they were then called), must have been rendered obvious in this battle of “Les Espagnols-sur-Mer,” as immediately afterwards ships on the models of those captured began to be hired for English purposes.

Concurrent, however, with this building of a larger type of ship, a decline of naval power began; and ten years later, English shipping was in such a parlous state that orders were issued to the effect that should any of the Cinque Ports be attacked from the sea, any ships there were to be hauled up on land, as far away from the water as possible, in order to preserve them.

In the French War of 1369, almost the first act of the French fleet was to sack and burn Portsmouth without encountering any naval opposition.

In 1372 some sort of English fleet was collected, and under the Earl of Pembroke sent to relieve La Rochelle, which was then besieged by the French and Spanish. The Spanish ships of that period had improved on those of twenty years before, to the extent that (according to Froissart), some carried guns. In any case they proved completely superior to the English, whose entire fleet was captured or sunk.

This remarkable and startling difference is only to be accounted for by the difference in the naval policy of the two periods. In the early years of Edward III’s reign, when a fleet was required it was in an efficient state, and when it encountered the enemy, it was used by those who had obviously thought out the best means of making the most of the material available. In the latter stage, there was neither efficiency nor purpose. The result was annihilation.

How far the introduction of cannon on shipboard contributed to this result it is difficult to say exactly. In so far as it may have, the blame rests with the English, who were perfectly familiar with cannon at that time. If, therefore, the very crude stone-throwing cannon of those days had any particular advantages over the stone-throwing catapults previously employed, failure to fit them is merely a further proof of the inefficiency of those responsible for naval matters in the closing years of Edward III’s reign. Probably, however, the cannon contributed little to the result of La Rochelle, for, like all battles of the era, it was a matter of boarding--of “land fighting on the water.”

The reign of Richard II saw England practically without any naval power at all. The French and Spaniards raided the Channel without interference worth mention. Once or twice retaliatory private expeditions were made upon the French coast; but speaking generally the French and Spaniards had matters entirely their own way, and the latter penetrated the Thames so far as Gravesend.

In the year 1380, an English army was sent over to France, but this, as Calais was British, was a simple operation, and although two years later ships were collected for naval purposes, English sea impotence remained as conspicuous as ever. In 1385, when a French armada was collected at Sluys for the avowed purpose of invading England on a large scale, no attempt whatever seems to have been made to meet this with another fleet. Fortunately for England, delays of one kind and another led to the French scheme of invasion being abandoned.

Under Henry IV, matters remained much the same, until in the summer of 1407, off the coast of Essex, the King, who was voyaging with five ships, was attacked by French privateers, which succeeded in capturing all except the Royal vessel.

[Illustration: PORTSMOUTH HARBOUR--1912.]

This led to the organisation of a “fleet” and a successful campaign against the privateers. The necessity of Sea Power began to be realised again, and this so far bore fruit that in the reign of Henry V no less than 1,500 ships were (it is said) collected in the Solent, for an invasion of France. But since some of these were hired from the Dutch and as every English vessel of over twenty tons was requisitioned by the King, the large number got together does not necessarily indicate the existence of any very great amount of naval power. This fleet, however, indicated a revival of sea usage.

In 1417, large ships known as “Dromons” were built at Southampton, and bought for the Crown, but these were more of the nature of “Royal Yachts” than warships. The principal British naval base at and about this period was at Calais, of which, at the time of the War of the Roses, the Earl of Warwick was the governor.

The first act of the Regency of Henry VI was to sell by auction such ships as had been bought for the Crown under Henry V. The duty of keeping the Channel free from pirates was handed over to London merchants, who were paid a lump sum to do this, but did not do it at all effectively.

Edward IV made some use of a Fleet to secure his accession, or later restoration. Richard III would seem to have realised the utility of a Fleet, and during his short reign he did his best to begin a revival of “the Navy” by buying some ships, which, however, he hired out to merchants for trade purposes; and so, at the critical moment, he had apparently nothing available to meet the mild over-sea expedition of Henry of Richmond. So--right up to _comparatively_ recent times--there was never any Royal Navy in the proper meaning of the word, nor even any organised attempt to create an equivalent, except on the part of those two Kings who we are always told were the worst Kings England ever had--John and Richard III. Outside these two, there is not the remotest evidence that anyone ever dreamed of “naval power,” “sea power,” or anything of the sort, till Henry VII became King of England, and founded the British Navy on the entirely unromantic principle that it was a financial economy.

Such was the real and prosaic birth of the British Navy in relatively recent times. It was made equally prosaic in 1910 by Lord Charles Beresford, when he said, “Battleships are cheaper than war.”

There is actually no poetry about the British Navy. There never has been--it will be all the better for us if there never is. It is merely a business-like institution founded to secure these islands from foreign invasion. Dibden in his own day, Kipling in ours, have done their best to put in the poetry. It has been pretty and nice and splendid. But over and above it all I put the words of a stoker whose name I never knew, “It’s just this--do your blanky job!”

That is the real British Navy. Henry VII did not create this watchword, nor anyone else, except perhaps Nelson.