EDWARD VI 1547-1553

Changes in the Navy List.

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

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

Gillingham.

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

Naval Expenditure.

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

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

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

Admiralty Officers.

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

Piracy and Privateering.

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

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

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

The Salute to the Flag.

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

Rewards and Peculations.

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

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

Merchant Shipping and Trade.

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

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

The circumstances under which the Navy was maintained.

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

Cordage, timber, etc., £51,152 11 5

Coat and conduct money, 5070 1 5

Wages of soldiers, sailors, dockyards, shipwrights, etc., 78,263 3 8½

Furniture of ships and carriage, 2451 14 10

Riding and posting charges, hire of docks and storehouses, 1609 4 6

Victualling, 64,844 17 3½

Ordnance and ammunition, 10,445 16 8½

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