INTRODUCTION THE NAVY BEFORE 1509

The Modern Navy.

The creation of the modern Royal Navy has been variously attributed to Henry VII, to Henry VIII, and to Elizabeth. Whichever sovereign may be considered entitled to the honour, the statement, as applied to either monarch, really means that modification of mediæval conditions, and adoption of improvements in construction and administration, which brought the Navy into the form familiar to us until the introduction of steam and iron. And in that sense no one sovereign can be accredited with its formation. The introduction of portholes in, or perhaps before the reign of Henry VII, differentiated the man-of-war, involved radical alterations in build and armament, and made the future line-of-battle ship possible; the establishment of the Navy Board by Henry VIII, made the organisation of fleets feasible and ensured a certain, if slow, progress because henceforward cumulative and, in the long run, independent of the energy and foresight of any one man under whom, as under Henry V, the Navy might largely advance, to sink back at his death into decay. Under Elizabeth the improvements in building and rigging constituted a step longer than had yet been taken towards the modern type, the Navy Board became an effectively working and flourishing institution, and the wars and voyages of her reign founded the school of successful seamanship of which was born the confidence, daring and self-reliance still prescriptive in the royal and merchant services.

The origin of the Navy:—William I.

It is not the purpose of this work to deal with the history, of the Navy previous to the accession of Henry VIII, but no real line of demarcation can be drawn in naval more than in other history, and it will be necessary to briefly sketch the conditions generally existing before 1509, and in somewhat more detail, those relating to the fifteenth century.[3] In the widest sense the first Saxon king who possessed galleys of his own may be said to have been the founder of the Royal Navy; in a narrower but truer sense, the Royal Navy as an appanage of imperial power, and an entity of steady growth, really dates from the Norman conquest. The Saxon navy although respectable by way of number, was essentially a coast defence force, mustered temporarily to answer momentary needs, and lacking continuity of existence and purpose. There is but one instance of a Saxon fleet being employed out of the four seas, that which Canute used in the conquest of Norway, and in it the Scandinavian element was probably larger than the Saxon. With the advent of William I, the channel, instead of remaining a boundary, became a means of communication between the divided dominions of one monarch, and a comparatively permanent and reliable naval force, both for military transport and for command of the passage between the insular and continental possessions of the Crown, became a necessity of royal policy. For nearly two centuries this duty was mainly performed by the men of the Cinque Ports who, in return for certain privileges and exemptions, were bound, at any moment, to place fifty-seven ships at the service of the Crown for fifteen days free of cost, and for as much longer time as the king required them at the customary rate of pay.[4] These claims, practically constituting the Cinque Ports fleet a standing force, were ceaselessly exercised by successive monarchs, and, at first sight, such demands might seem to be destructive of that commercial progress which is the primary basis of the growth or maintenance of shipping. But the methods of warfare in those ages were more profitable than commerce, and the decay of the Ports was not due to poverty caused by the calls made upon their shipping for military purposes. The existence of the Cinque Ports service was indirectly a hindrance to the growth of a crown navy, since it was obviously cheaper for the king to order the Ports to act than to man and equip his own vessels; it was not until ships of larger size and stronger build than those belonging to the Ports were required, that the royal ships came into frequent use.

Results of the Conquest:—Growth of Trade and Shipping.

As well as mobilising the Cinque Ports fleet, the sovereign was able to issue writs to arrest the ships of private owners throughout the kingdom, together with the necessary number of sailors, when rival fleets had to be fought or armies to be transported. The Normans, descendants of the Vikings, must have been better shipbuilders and better seamen than the Saxons, and the large number of nautical words that can be traced back to Norman French bear witness to improvements in rigging and handling due to them. The Crusades must have reacted on the English marine by bringing under the observation of our seamen the construction of ships belonging to the Mediterranean powers, then far in advance of the North in the art of shipbuilding. And during the century which followed the Conquest, the foreign trade, which is the nursery of shipping, was steadily growing. Under the Angevin kings the whole coast line of France, from Flanders to Bayonne, was, with the exception of Brittany, subject to English rule, and the inter-coast traffic that naturally followed was the greatest stimulus to maritime enterprise this country had yet experienced. The result was seen in the Crusade of 1190, when the fleet of Richard I for the Mediterranean was made up of vessels drawn from the ports of the empire, but many of them doubtless belonging to the continental possessions of the crown; and as John certainly possessed ships of his own, it may be inferred that Richard, and his predecessors also had some. When a general arrest was ordered, foreign ships were seized as well as English, and this practice continued as late as the first years of Elizabeth. Richard I issued, in 1190, regulations for the government of his fleet. These regulations doubtless only methodised customs already existing, and as they dealt with offences against life and property bear the mark of their commercial origin. Offences against discipline must have been punished by military law and military penalties, and required no new code.

John:—The Clerk of the Ships.

During the reign of John we meet the first sign of a naval administration in the official action of William of Wrotham, like many of his successors a cleric, and the first known ‘Keeper of the king’s ships.’ This office, possibly in its original form of very much earlier date and only reconstituted or enlarged in function by John, and now represented in descent by the Secretaryship of the Admiralty, is the oldest administrative employment in connection with the Navy. At first called ‘Keeper and Governor’ of the king’s ships, later, ‘Clerk of the king’s ships,’ this official held, sometimes really and sometimes nominally, the control of naval organisation until the formation of the Navy Board in 1546. His duties included all those now performed by a multitude of highly placed Admiralty officials. If a man of energy, experience, and capacity, his name stands foremost in the maintenance of the royal fleets during peace and their preparation for war; if, as frequently happened, a merchant or subordinate official with no especial knowledge, he might become a mere messenger riding from port to port, seeking runaway sailors, or bargaining for small parcels of naval stores. Occasionally, under such circumstances, his authority was further lessened by the appointment of other persons, usually such as held minor personal offices near the king, as keepers of particular ships. This was a method of giving a small pecuniary reward to such a one, together with the perquisites he might be able to procure from the supply of stores and provisions necessary for the vessel and her crew.

In the course of centuries the title changed its form. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the officer is called ‘clerk of marine causes,’ and ‘clerk of the navy;’ in the seventeenth century, ‘clerk of the acts.’ Although Pepys was not the last clerk of the acts, the functions associated with the office, which were the remains of the larger powers once belonging to the ‘Keeper and Governor,’ were carried up by him to the higher post of Secretary of the Admiralty.

Henry III.

With the reign of Henry III we find the royal ships large enough to become attractive to merchants, who hired them from the king for freight, perhaps at lower rates than could be afforded by private owners. There is hardly a reign, down to and including that of Elizabeth, in which men-of-war were not hired by merchants, and the earlier trading voyages to Italy and the Levant during the last quarter of the fifteenth century were nearly all performed by men-of-war let out for the voyage. The Navy was mainly made up of sailing vessels even before the reign of Henry III, and by that period many of them possessed two masts, each carrying a single sail. The conversion of a merchantman into a fighting-ship was accomplished by fitting it with temporary fore and after castles, which became later the permanent forecastle and poop, the addition of a ‘top castle’ or fighting top, and the provision of proper armament. Doubtless the king’s own ships were more strongly built, and better adapted by internal arrangements for their work, than the hired merchantmen. The supreme government of the Navy in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries was in the hands of the King’s Council, who ordered, equally, the preparation and fitting of ships and the action of the admirals commanding. These officers, known during the greater part of the thirteenth century as keepers or governors of the sea, were usually knights or nobles in command of the soldiers. While holding commission they appear to have had jurisdiction in the matter of discipline on board their fleets, but not of law suits or maritime causes until 1360; before that date such causes were dealt with at common law.[5] There were usually two, one having charge of the East, the other of the South Coast, but occasionally, an officer had a particular section placed under his care, such as the coasts of Norfolk and Suffolk. Their period of service was commonly short and often only for a special employment. The maintenance of a fleet was a part of the King’s Household expenses; in the Wardrobe Accounts for 1299-1300 are the amounts paid for fifty-four vessels and their crews hired for the conveyance of stores for the Scotch war.

Galleys.

Galleys, although frequently mentioned, were at no time a chief portion of our fleets. Large fleets were mainly composed of impressed merchantmen, and galleys are expensive and useless for trading purposes compared with sailing ships; the natural home of the galley was the landlocked Mediterranean, and even there its utility was limited to the summer months, so that it was still less suitable for Northern latitudes. But the great difficulty was in manning them. Forced labour by captives taken in the continual warfare normal amongst the states on the Mediterranean littoral solved that problem for them, but here the cost of the free oarsman, to whom the drudgery was in any case distasteful, was prohibitive. We shall see that, down to the close of the sixteenth century, attempts were at various times made to form such a service, but always unsuccessfully, and the supreme moment of the galley service, so far as it ever existed here, was the reign of Edward I.[6] This king steadily increased the strength of the Navy. In 1294 and 1295 galleys were built by him at York, Southampton, Lynn, Newcastle and Ipswich, of which at least two pulled 120 oars apiece. Perhaps the experiment was conclusive for, neither as regards number or size do such ever occur again. Although Edward III had one or two built, most of those he employed were temporarily hired from the Genoese or from Aquitainean ports, and the total number bore a very small proportion to the sailing vessels in his fleets. The records of the first years of Edward II show that the crown possessed at least eleven vessels, all sailing ships, but the circumstances of the reign were not conducive to the growth of a Royal Navy, although there seem to have been ten ships in 1322.

Edward III:—Relative estimation of Army and Navy.

A far-seeing statesmanship in relation to the political value of sea-power has been attributed to Edward III on the strength of the victories of 1340 and 1350, and of two lines of a poem, written nearly a century later, referring to the gold noble of 1344.[7] This view assigns to Edward a knowledge, in the modern sense, of ‘the influence of sea-power on history’ greater than that possessed by such a statesman as Edward I, and a policy in connection with maritime matters of which the results, at anyrate, were directly the opposite of his intentions. The claim to be lord of the narrow seas was not a new one, and was as much and merely a title of dignity as any other of the sovereign’s verbal honours, not following the actual enforcement of ownership but consequent to the fact of the channel lying between England and Normandy.[8] And it was a title also claimed by France. There is no sign in the policy of the early kings of any perception of the value of a navy as a militant instrument like an army, or any sense of the importance of a real continuity in its maintenance and use. Society was based on a military organisation, but there was no place in that organisation for the Navy except as a subsidiary and dependent force. Fleets were called into being to transport soldiery abroad, to keep open communications, or to meet an enemy already at sea, but the real work of conquest was always held to be the duty of the knights and archers they carried from one country to another. There is no understanding shewn of the ceaseless pressure a navy is capable of exercising, and the disbandment of all, or the greater part, of the fleet was usually the first step which followed the disembarkation of troops or a successful fleet action. In an age when the land transit of goods was hampered by innumerable disadvantages, the position of England, dominating the natural way of communication between the prosperous cities of the north and their customers, was one of splendid command had its far-reaching political possibilities been realised. That they did not comprehend a function only understood many generations later cannot be made a subject of censure, but it has a distinct bearing on the question of Edward’s superiority in this matter to his predecessors and successors. In the same way as theirs the methods of Edward III were directed to conquests by land, and, once the troops were transported or an opposing fleet actually in existence was crushed, the Channel was left as bare of protection to merchantmen, and as destitute of any power capable of enforcing the reputed sovereignty of the narrow seas, as it remained down to the days of the Commonwealth. Beyond the fact that in 1340 and 1350 Edward commanded in person, where his predecessors had been represented by deputies, his action in relation to the Royal Navy differs in no respects from theirs. The gold noble of 1344, into which so much meaning has been read, was struck in combination with the people of Flanders for political and trading purposes, and in connection with Edward’s intrigues to obtain their financial and military support. It is noteworthy that in December 1339, six months before the battle of Sluys, Flanders, Brabant, and Hainault, agreed that a common coinage should be struck, and this, in all probability, marks the first inception of the noble when Edward realised the purposes to which a common coinage for England and the Low Countries might be made to work. In 1343 the Commons petitioned for a gold coin to run equally in England and Flanders and thus strengthened the king’s purpose. But the ship on this coin, the noble, was obviously an afterthought since the florin, the first issue of the same year, called in on account of its unpopularity, bore the royal leopard on the whole and half noble and the royal crest on the quarter one; if therefore the king meant all that is supposed to be implied by the device it occurred to him very suddenly and subsequent to the first, and deliberately thought out, issue.[9] All that the writer of the Libel of English Policie says is that, in 1436, the noble proves to him four things. Further reasons, in relation to other passages of the poem, will be adduced on a later page to show that his work is only one more instance among the many in which individual and unofficial thinkers have been in advance of the statesmanship of their age and whose views, ignored by their contemporaries have become the accepted opinions of a subsequent period.

Edward III:—Commercial policy in relation to shipping.

The commercial policy of Edward III was emphatically not one of protection to English shipping, being a nearer approach to free trade than existed for centuries after his death. During the greater part of his reign the needs in ships for his campaigns were supplied from the accumulations of the reigns of Edward I and Edward II, the second of which was not necessarily disastrous to commerce. But when these were exhausted it was found that a system which had aimed merely at obtaining a highest possible yearly revenue for the purpose of supporting armies had, whether or not in itself, fiscally praiseworthy resulted in the ruin of English shipping. In 1372 and 1373, the Commons complained of the destruction of shipping and the decay of the port towns, and it is collateral evidence of Edward’s real lack of insight into the value of a marine—its slow creation and its easy loss—that some of the causes to which they attributed these circumstances were directly due to a reckless indifference to, or ignorance of, the only conditions which could render a merchant marine, subject to conscription, possible.[10] Vessels, they said, were pressed long before they were really wanted, and until actually taken into the service of the crown, ships were idle and seamen had to be paid and supported at the expense of the owners; the effect of royal ordinances which had driven many shipowners to other occupations, and the decrease in the number of sailors due to these and other causes, formed further articles of remonstrance.[11]

The year which saw the decease of the ‘Lord of the Sea,’ was marked by the sack of Rye, Lewes, Hastings, Yarmouth, Dartmouth, Plymouth, Folkestone, Portsmouth, and the Isle of Wight, a sufficient commentary on the title, and an adequate illustration of the system which had left absolutely no navy, royal or mercantile, capable of protecting the coasts.

Payment of hired ships.

In 1378 the Commons again attributed the defenceless state of the kingdom not so much to the late king’s impressment of ships as to the losses and poverty caused by non-payment, or delay in payment for their use, and lack of compensation for waste of fittings and stores. Every meeting of Parliament was signalised by fresh representations, and that of 1380 obtained a promise that owners should receive 3s 4d a ‘ton-tight’ for every three months, commencing from the day of arrival at the port of meeting; in 1385 this allowance was reduced to two shillings, and remained at that rate, notwithstanding frequent petitions for a return to the older amount, for at least half a century.[12] It is not known when the payment of 3s 4d a ton was first introduced, nor on what principle it was calculated, but, in 1416, the Commons said that it ran ‘from beyond the time of memory.’ The following petition, undated, but probably belonging to one of the early years of Henry IV, shows that it was older than the Edwards, and, incidentally, yields some interesting information:

‘To the very noble and very wise lords of this present Parliament very humbly supplicate all owners of ships in this kingdom. That whereas in the time of the noble King Edward and his predecessors, whenever any ship was commanded for service that the owner of such a ship took 3s 4d per ton-tight in the three months by way of reward for repair of the ship and its gear, and the fourth part of any prize made at sea, by which reward the shipping of this kingdom was then well maintained and ruled so that at that time, 150 ships of the Tower were available in the kingdom;[13] and since the decease of the noble King Edward, in the time of Richard, late King of England, the said reward was reduced to two shillings the ton-tight, and this very badly paid, so that the owners of such ships show no desire to keep up and maintain their ships, but have them lying useless; and by this cause the shipping of this kingdom is so diminished and deteriorated that there be not in all the kingdom more than 25 ships of the Tower.’[14]

They then beg a return to the old rates. We may gather from this document that, at some time during the reign of Edward III there were one hundred and fifty large fighting ships available, and there is some reason to believe that, both in number and size, the fourteenth and fifteenth century navy has been too much underrated when compared with that of the sixteenth century. At least one merchantman of the time of Edward III was of three hundred tons, others were of two hundred, and it will be shown that, in the middle of the fifteenth century, the number and tonnage of merchant vessels will compare favourably with any subsequent period up to, and in fact later, than the accession of Elizabeth.

The close of the xiv century:—The French Navy.

While, under Richard II, the guard of the seas was maintained with chequered success by hired ships, the French, under the able rule of Charles V, not only possessed a navy but had founded a dockyard at Rouen completely equipped according to the ideas of the age.[15] Thirteen galleys and two barges are mentioned in this account, with all the tools, fittings, and armament necessary for building, repairing, and equipment, and constituting a complete establishment such as did not exist in England until more than a century later. The accession of Charles VI, and the internal dissensions which culminated in Azincourt, determined an essay not again attempted on the Northern or Western coasts until the ministry of Richelieu.

Richard II and Henry IV.

The first Navigation Act,[16] ‘to increase the Navy of England which is now greatly diminished,’ by making it compulsory for English subjects to export and import goods in English ships, with a majority of the crews subjects of the English crown, can only be regarded as a suggestion of future legislation. In fact, it was practically annulled by a permissive amendment the following year. More disastrous to merchants than the losses due to warfare were the operations of the pirates who swarmed on the Northern Coasts of Europe during these centuries, and who appear to have become unbearably successful during the reign of Henry IV. This king appears to have cared little for his titular sovereignty of the seas, ignored every petition of Parliament for redress of the especial grievances affecting shipowners, and used such fleets as he got together, as his predecessors had used them, simply as a means of transporting troops to make weak and useless attacks at isolated points. Tunnage and poundage had been first levied by an order of Council in 1347, and year by year following, by agreement with the merchants; from 1373 it became a parliamentary grant of two shillings on the tun of wine, and sixpence in the pound on merchandise, for the protection of the narrow seas and the support of the Navy.[17] The tunnage and poundage now given was, if applied at all to naval purposes, not used with the least success. It was then, in May 1406, together with the fourth part of a subsidy on wools, handed over to a committee of merchants, who undertook the duty of clearing the seas for a period of sixteen months. The arrangement between the king and the committee was quite an amicable one, but in October of the same year Henry withdrew from the agreement, and it is doubtful whether the members of the committee ever received any portion of their outlay.

Growth of Trade and Shipping.

If the Norman Conquest gave the first great impulse to English over-sea trade, the events of the close of the fourteenth and first half of the fifteenth centuries may be held to mark the second important era in the development of merchant shipping by the opening up of fresh markets. Hitherto the products of the countries of the Baltic had been mainly obtained through the agency of the merchants of the Hansa, who had their chief factory in London, with branches at York, Lynn, and Boston. In the same way English exports found their way to the north only through Hansa merchants and in Hansa ships. For two centuries they had held a monopoly of the purchase and export of the products of the north, by virtue of treaties with, and payments made to, the northern powers, and an unlicensed, but very effective, warfare waged on all ships which ventured to trade through the Sound. But the war against Waldemar III of Denmark, the depredations of the organised pirate republic known as the Victual brothers, followed by the struggle with Eric XIII of Sweden, were times of disorder lasting through more than half a century, from which the Hansa emerged nominally victorious but with the loss of the prestige and vigour that had made its monopoly possible. While it was fighting to uphold its pretensions the Dutch and English had both seized the opportunity of forcing their way into the Baltic, and when, in 1435, the Hansa extorted from its antagonists a triumphant peace the real utility of the privileges thus obtained had passed away for ever.

Coincidently with these events economic changes were taking place at home which, by favouring the accumulation of capital, had also a direct influence on the demand for shipping. The temporary renewal of possession in the coast line of France was a spur to trade with it in English bottoms. The growth of the towns, the necessity the townsmen experienced for the profitable use of surplus capital, and the slow change, which commenced under Edward III, in the national industry from wool exportation to cloth manufacture, were all elements which found ultimate expression in increased export and import in native shipping.[18] Possibly the most important factor in the change was the commencing manufacture of English cloth, instead of selling the wool to foreign merchants and buying it back from them in the finished state.[19] During the reign of Henry V, English ships were stretching down to Lisbon and the coast of Morocco, and British fishermen were plying their industry off Iceland. Not long afterwards the first English trader entered the Mediterranean, and the numerous entries in the records relating to merchant vessels show the flourishing state of trade. By example, and doubtless by persuasion, Henry himself assisted in the renewal.

Henry V:—The Royal Ships.

Under Henry’s rule the crown navy was increased till in magnitude it exceeded the naval power of any previous reign; the character of the vessels, bought or built, shows that they were provided for seagoing purposes rather than the mere escort or transport of troops which had been the object of preceding kings, and which object would have been equally well served by the hired merchantmen that had contented them. The king himself hired at various times many foreign vessels, but purely for transport purposes.

The following, compiled from the accounts of Catton and Soper, successively keepers of the ships, is a more complete list of Henry’s navy than has yet been printed:—[20]

SHIPS Built Prize Tons

Jesus of the Tower 1000

Holigost of the Tower 1414 760

Trinity Royal of the Tower 1416 540

Grace Dieu of the Tower 1418 400

Thomas of the Tower[21] 1420 180

Grande Marie of the Tower 1416 420

Little Marie of the Tower 140

Katrine of the Tower

Christopher Spayne of the Tower 1417 600

Marie Spayne of the Tower 1417

Holigost Spayne of the Tower 1417 290

Philip of the Tower

Little Trinity of the Tower 120

Great Gabriel of the Tower

Cog John of the Tower

Red Cog of the Tower

Margaret of the Tower

CARRACKS Built Prize Tons

Marie Hampton 1416 500

Marie Sandwich 1416 550

George of the Tower 1416 600

Agase of the Tower 1416

Peter of the Tower 1417

Paul of the Tower 1417

Andrew of the Tower 1417

BARGES Built Prize Tons

Valentine of the Tower 1418 100

Marie Bretton of the Tower

BALINGERS Built Prize Tons

Katrine Breton of the Tower 1416

James of the Tower 1417

Ane of the Tower 1417 120

Swan of the Tower 1417 20

Nicholas of the Tower 1418 120

George of the Tower 120

Gabriel of the Tower

Gabriel de Harfleur of the Tower

Little John of the Tower

Fawcon of the Tower 80

Roos 30

Cracchere of the Tower 56

It will be noticed that there is no galley in this list; one is referred to in the accounts, but had apparently ceased to exist, her fittings being used for other ships. Oars occur among the equipments, but probably in most cases, for the ‘great boat’ which with a ‘cokk’ was attached to each vessel. Few cannon were carried—if the schedules represent the full armament—the Holigost six, the Thomas four, the George and Grace Dieu three each, the Katrine and Andrew two. The inventories of stores at this date show very little difference from the preceding century in the character of tackle and gear, nor is there any great alteration for some two centuries from 1350. English vessels were, on an average, smaller at this time than either Italian, Spanish, or German. The tomb of Simon of Utrecht, a Hansa admiral who died in 1437, has a sculpture of a three-masted vessel; if any of Henry’s were three-masted they were certainly the first of that class in our service. The statement of Stow, however, that the vessels captured in 1417 ‘were of marvellous greatnesse, yea, greater than ever were seen in those parts before that time,’ is, if patriotic, as absurdly incorrect as some other of his naval information. The payments for hired ships show that vessels of 400 and 450 tons, belonging to Dantzic and other ports, were taken up for the transport of troops and, putting aside the tonnage of some of the English ships, there is no reason to suppose that the North German traders were the largest of their kind. The prizes of 1416 were Spanish and Genoese carracks in French pay, captured by the Duke of Bedford in the action of 15th August off the mouth of the Seine;[22] those of 1417 by the Earl of Huntingdon in that of 25th July.

The tonnage of the English built ships shows that there was now a well marked tendency to increase in size, probably due to Henry’s initiative. The usual measurement, in the fifteenth century, of a barge was about sixty or eighty tons, and of a balinger[23] about forty. But a man-of-war balinger might be much larger as in the Nicholas of the Tower, the George, and the Ane. There is very little information as to the conditions under which Henry’s ships were built. The Trinity Royal, Grace Dieu, Holigost and Gabriel were certainly constructed at Southampton, the two last named under the supervision of William Soper, then merely a merchant of the town, who remained many years unpaid the money advanced by him for that purpose; in April 1417 he was given an annuity of twenty marks a year, doubtless by way of reward.[24] The Thomas of the Tower was rebuilt at Deptford in 1420; the Jesus, and the Gabriel Harfleur were rebuilt at Smalhithe, in Kent, but in years unknown. The hulls of several of the ships were sold or given away before the end of the reign.

At one time the king seems to have commenced building abroad. There is a letter of 25th April 1419 from John Alcetre, his agent at Bayonne, describing the slow progress of the work upon a ship there and the sharp practices of the mayor and his associates who appear to have undertaken the contract. Alcetre anticipated that four or five years would elapse before its completion, and it is quite certain that it was never included in the English navy. The most noteworthy points in the details given, are the lengths over all and of the keel—respectively 186 and 112 feet—so that the fore and aft rakes, together, were 74 feet, just about two-thirds of the keel length.

Henry V:—The Grace Dieu.

The only one of Henry’s ships of which the name is still remembered is the Grace Dieu, and she was, if not the largest, probably the best equipped ship yet built in England. She was not constructed under the superintendence of either Catton, the official head of the administration, or of Soper, and with two balingers, the Fawcon and the Valentine, and some other work cost £4917, 15s 3½d.[25] Besides other wood 2591 oaks and 1195 beeches were used among the three vessels and for the various details mentioned, and it is to be remarked that, although the Grace Dieu must have represented the latest improvements, she, like the others, appears to have had only one ‘great mast’ and one ‘mesan,’[26] but two bowsprits. These carried no sails and were probably more of the nature of ‘bumpkins’ than spars. She was supplied with six sails and eleven bonnets, but their position when in use is not described, and some of them were perhaps spare ones. The order to commence her was placed in Robert Berd’s hands in December 1416, when Catton was still keeper and Soper was engaged in naval administration. It would appear to be entirely subversive of discipline and responsibility to distribute the control among three men, each of whom possessed sufficient position and independence to ensure friction, and we can only guess that the motive was pecuniary.

The Administration.

The first keeper of the ships under Henry V was William Catton by Letters Patent of 18th July 1413, who from the third to the eighth year of the reign of Henry IV had been bailiff of Winchelsea, and who subsequently held the bailiffship of Rye conjointly with his naval office. He was succeeded from 3rd February 1420 by the before-mentioned William Soper. Berd’s name only occurs in connection with the Grace Dieu. The river Hamble, on Southampton water, was then, and down to the close of the century, the favourite roadstead for the royal ships lying up, and was defended at its entrance by a tower of wood which cost £40,[27] a storehouse with a workshop[28] was also built at Southampton, and one existed in London near the Tower. If the vessels were not built in royal yards or by royal workmen we may infer the control of a crown officer from the fact of a pension of fourpence a day having been granted, when broken down in health, to John Hoggekyns, ‘master-carpenter of the king’s ships,’ and builder of the Grace Dieu, the first known of the long line of master shipwrights reaching down to the present century.

The fittings of ships do not differ materially from those quoted by Sir N. H. Nicolas under Edward III; we find a ‘bitakyll’[29] covered with lead, and pumps were now in use. Cordage was chiefly from Bridport, but occasionally from Holland, and Oleron canvas was bought abroad. Flags were of St Marie, St Edward, Holy Trinity, St George, the Swan, Antelope, Ostrich Feathers, and the king’s arms. The Trinity Royal had a painted wooden leopard with a crown of copper gilt, perhaps as a figure head. The largest anchor of the Jesus weighed 2224lb. The balingers, besides being fully rigged, carried sometimes forty or fifty oars, twenty-four feet long apiece, for use in calms or to work to windward. But even a vessel like the Trinity Royal had forty oars and a large one called a ‘steering skull,’ to assist the rudder we may suppose. The fore and stern stages were now becoming permanent structures. Two ‘somerhuches’ were built on the Holigost and Trinity Royal. Somerhuche was the summer-castle or poop of the early sixteenth century, and the cost, £4, 11s 3d, equivalent now to some £70, seems too great for a mere timber staging.[30] Sails were sometimes decorated with the king’s arms or badges, but probably only in the chief ships and for holiday use.

Henry VI:—The Sale of the Navy.

After the death of Henry V one of the first orders of the Council was to direct the sale of the bulk of the Royal Navy.[31] Modern writers who hold that the spirit of the ‘Libel of English Policie’ was that representing the ideas of the time must explain this startling contrast between fact and theory. The truth is that the ‘Libel’ described, not existing conditions, but those that the writer desired should exist; the whole poem is a lament over past glories and an exhortation to retrieve the maritime position of the country, but the poet did not look at what lay behind a couple of victories at sea and the capture of Calais.[32] After the real triumphs of Henry V and the memories associated with Edward III, the state of things in the Channel doubtless appeared very evil, although they were hardly worse during the reign of Henry VI than was usual, and not nearly so bad as under James I and Charles I. The poem was really an attempt to obtain continuity in naval policy, a thing of which the meaning is, even now, scarcely understood, and which in 1436, when the man-at-arms was the ideal fighting unit, had as little chance of being accepted and carried out as though it had preached religious toleration.

Changed character of the Keeper’s appointment.

By Letters Patent of 5th March 1423, William Soper, merchant of Southampton, a collector of customs and subsidies at that port, and mayor of the town in 1416 and 1424, was again appointed ‘Keeper and Governor’ of the King’s ships, under the control[33] of Nicholas Banastre, comptroller of the customs there; no such clause existed in the patent of 1420. For himself and a clerk Soper was allowed £40 a year, but Banastre was not given any salary. The appointment is noteworthy for more than one reason. It is the first, and apparently the only, instance in which a keeper of the ships acted under the supervision of another officer little his superior in the official hierarchy, and it, with the previous patent of 1420, marks the commencement of a custom frequent enough afterwards of naming well-to-do merchants to posts in the administrative service of the navy. Besides greater business capacity such a man was useful to the government in that he was expected to advance money, or purchase stores, on his own credit when the crown finance was temporarily strained. There is little doubt that Soper’s appointment was of this character, and that his salary, was really by way of interest on money advanced by him for the construction of the Holigost and Gabriel, and for other purposes, years before. The first named ship was built in 1414, the other perhaps later, but it was not until 1430 that he received the sum which represented the final instalment of their cost.[34] By the will of Henry V the whole of his personal possessions were ordered to be sold and the proceeds handed over to his executors to pay his debts. They received, in 1430, one thousand marks from the sale of the men-of-war, the remainder of the money obtained from this source being retained by Soper in settlement of his claims dating from 1414.

The Navy a personal possession of the King.

The transaction is interesting both as showing that the Council did not consider the men-of-war—if compulsorily put up to auction under the will—of sufficient importance to buy in, and as illustrating the fact that the royal ships were personal possessions of the sovereign in which the nation had no interest of ownership. Tunnage and poundage had been granted for ‘the safe keeping of the sea,’ but the application of the money was at the discretion of the king. He might use it to pay hired merchantmen or he might build ships of his own with it, or with the revenue of the crown estates to fulfil the same purpose; in neither case had Parliament any voice in the employment of the money. While calling upon the Cinque Ports to fulfil the conditions of their charters and impressing merchant ships throughout the country, he might keep his own navy idle; there was no national right to profit by its existence. The tunnage and poundage grant did not interfere with the king’s title to seize every ship in the kingdom, and was only an attempt to secure payment to owners, and the wages and victualling of the crews; it in no way placed upon him the responsibility of providing ships, the supply of which was ensured by the unrestricted exercise of the prerogative, and that prerogative was not used any less frequently because of the existence of the tunnage and poundage. As years passed on and the power of the trading classes increased, and the need for specialised fighting ships grew greater, they made their ethical right to the use of the navy for ordinary purposes felt in practice and implicitly recognised by the crown. Hence the distinction became less and less marked but the note of possessive separation between the ‘King’s Navy Royal’ and the trading navy which was, legally, also the king’s and is so referred to in sixteenth century papers, is to be traced to as late as 1649. Since that date the title ‘Royal Navy,’ although associated with our proudest national memories is, historically, a misnomer as applied to the navy of the state.

Piracy.

In 1425, Parliament raised tunnage and poundage to three shillings on the tun of wine and one shilling in the pound on merchandise, at which rate it continued. Probably very little of it was applied to the specific purpose for which it was given, the struggle for the crown of France absorbing every available item of revenue for the support of armies; in 1450 one of the articles against the Duke of Suffolk was that he had caused money given for the defence of the realm and safety of the sea to be otherwise employed. There still remains a sufficient number of complaints and petitions to show to what little purpose our maritime forces were used. In 1432, the Commons formally declared that Danish ships had plundered those of Hull, to the amount of £5000, and others to £20,000 in one year, and requested that letters of reprisal might be issued.[35] Such attempts to clear the Channel as the government recognised sometimes bore a suspicious resemblance to piracy legalised by success. In 1435, Wm. Morfote of Winchelsea petitioned for a pardon, having been, as he euphemistically put it, ‘in Dover Castle a long time and afterward come oute as wele as he myghte,’ and then, ‘of his gode hertly intente,’ had been at sea with 100 men to attack the king’s enemies. He found it difficult to obtain provisions which seems to have been his only motive in asking for a pardon. The answer to the petition, while granting the pardon for ‘an esy fyne,’ more plainly calls him an escaped prisoner.[36] He was member for Winchelsea in 1428.

Although Parliament was continually complaining of foreign piracy there can be no doubt that English seamen had nothing to learn, in that occupation, from their rivals. ‘Your shipping you employ to make war upon the poor merchants and to plunder and rob them of their merchandise, and you make yourselves plunderers and pirates,’ said a contemporary writer.[37] By a statute[38] of Henry V, the breaking of truce and safe conduct was made high treason, and a conservator of safe conducts, who was to be a person of position enjoying not less than £40 in land by the year, was to be appointed in every port. Under Henry VI, safe conducts were freely granted to neutrals to load goods in enemies’ ships, and protests were made by the Commons about their number and that they were not enrolled of record in the court of chancery and so led to loss and litigation.

Henry VI:—Merchant Shipping.

Notwithstanding the normal drawbacks of piracy and warfare, the over-sea trade of the kingdom seems to have been steadily expanding. A branch of traffic which employed many vessels, and must have been a valuable school of preparation for the longer voyages of the next generation, was what may be called, the pilgrim transport trade. The shrine of St James of Compostella was then the favourite objective of English external pilgrimage and there are innumerable licenses to shipowners to carry passengers out and home. In 1427-8 twenty-two licenses were granted, and in 1433-4 the number reached 65;[39] in 1445, 2100 persons were carried there and back.[40] Some of the licenses were granted to Soper, who was engaged in the business as well as in ordinary trade to Spain, and it is to be remarked that they were sometimes issued during the winter months—January, February, March,—showing that English seamanship was outgrowing the tradition of summer voyages. In 1449 we have the first sign of the bounty system on merchant ships of large size which, in the next century, systematised into five shillings a ton for those of 100 tons and upwards. John Taverner of Hull, had built the Grace Dieu, and in that year, was allowed certain privileges in connexion with lading the vessel in reward for his enterprise.[41] The document seems to imply that she was a new ship, but in 1444-5, she was exempted from the harbour dues at Calais because drawing too much water to enter the harbour,[42] and is probably referred to in 1442.[43]

There are two most valuable papers still existing which enable us to form some idea of the number and size of the merchantmen available for the service of the crown. The first of June 1439[44] is a list of payments for ships taken up for the transport of troops to Aquitaine, and is unfortunately mutilated in some places. Its contents may be thus classified:—

Tons 100 Tons 120 Tons 140 Tons 160 Tons 200 Tons 240 Tons 260 Tons 300 Tons 360

London 2 1 1 1

Hull 2 1 1

Saltash 1

Plymouth 1

Exeter 1

Fowey 1 1 1

Bideford 1

Bristol 2

Penzance 1

Barnstaple 1 1

Southampton 1

Winchelsea 1

Ipswich 1 1

Ash 2

Lynn 1 1

Boston 1

Teignmouth[45] 1

Unknown[46] 1 2 2

Twenty-two other vessels are of eighty tons, twenty of sixty, and six are under forty tons; in two cases the tonnage is not given, nine more are foreign including two from Bayonne, then an English possession, and ten entries are nearly altogether destroyed.

The next list, of 1451,[47] is also one of vessels impressed for an expedition to Aquitaine:—

Tons 100 Tons 120 Tons 140 Tons 160 Tons 180 Tons 200 Tons 220 Tons 260 Tons 300 Tons 350 Tons 400

London 1 3 1

Bristol 1

Southampton 2 1 1 1

Dartmouth[48] 2 2 1 1 2 1 1

Plymouth 2 2 1

Lynn 1 1 1

Fowey 1 1 1 1 1

Looe 1 1

Weymouth 1 1

Penzance 1

Falmouth 1

Portsmouth 1

Winchelsea 1

Ash 1

Hoke 1

Calais 1 2

One vessel of one hundred and forty, one of two hundred, and one of two hundred and twenty tons belong to places unnamed, and there are twenty-three ships of from fifty to ninety tons.

There are, then, at least thirty-six ships in the 1439, and fifty in the 1451, list of one hundred tons and upwards. It must be remembered that they are not schedules of the total available reserves drawn up during a naval war, with an enemy’s fleet at sea, or under the pressure of a threatened invasion, but merely represent the number of vessels required to transport a certain military force, and form only a proportion—whether large or small we know not—of the maritime strength of the country. Certainly the numbers for Bristol did not represent the total resources of that city, and Newcastle and Yarmouth, to name only two flourishing ports, do not occur in either list. Assuming the method of tonnage measurement to have been the same during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries we have here registers which will compare favourably, both in number and size of vessels, with those of the earlier twenty years of the reign of Elizabeth,[49] and imply a naval force superior in extent to anything existing during the greater part of the sixteenth century. There is contemporary evidence from a French author, one therefore not likely to be more than just to England, as to the flourishing condition of the merchant marine during the reign of Henry VI.[50] The author makes the English herald claim that his countrymen ‘are more richly and amply provided at sea, with fine and powerful ships than any other nation of Christendom, so that they are kings of the sea, since none can resist them; and they who are strongest on the sea may call themselves kings.’ The answer of the French herald, too long to quote, after admitting that ‘you have a great number of fine ships,’ is only devoted to showing that France possesses all the natural advantages which go to the formation of maritime power, and that the French king, ‘when he pleases,’ would become supreme at sea. Obviously down to the time of the loss of the English conquests in France, and the outbreak of the wars of the Roses, the wave of prosperity which commenced with the century had not altogether spent its force.

Great or small, the progress was, at anyrate, not a bounty-fed one, since shipowners were experiencing the usual difficulties in obtaining payment merely for the use of their vessels. The bill for ships provided in 1450, came to £13,000, nearly one fourth of the yearly revenue of the crown, but the Treasury, exhausted by the ceaseless demands made upon it by the garrisons in France could not pay.[51] The king, therefore, appealed to his creditors and has left it on record that as £13,000 was a sum

‘Wyche myght not esely be perveyed at that tyme wherefore we comauded oure trusty and welbelovid Richard Greyle of London and others to labour and entrete the seyd maistres, possessores, and maryners for agrement of a lasse sume, the wych maistres, possessores, and maryners by laboar and trete made with hem accordyng to our seid comaundement agreed hem to take and reseve the sume of £6,200 in and for ful contentacyon of their seid dutees; and bycause the seid £6,200 myght not at that tyme esely be ffurnysshed in redy mony we graunted to ye seid maistres and possessores by oure several letters patentes conteynyng diveise sumys of money amountyng to the sume of £2,884 that they, their deputees or attornies shold have to reseyve in theire owne handes almaner of custumes and subsidies of wolle, wollefell and other merchaundises comyng into dyverse portes.’[52]

This was perhaps all they obtained of the £13,000, and such incidents, of which this was doubtless only one, explain the discontent of the trading classes with the house of Lancaster. Shipowners and merchants might be trusted, in the long run, to take care of their own interests, but the seamen were more helpless, and it may be supposed that if employers had to accept less than a fourth of their dues the men did not fare better if as well. Their protests were sometimes neither tardy nor voiceless. The murder of Bishop Adam de Moleyns at Portsmouth on July 9, 1450, is directly attributed to an attempt to force sailors to accept a smaller amount than they had earned, and the bias towards the house of York, shown by the maritime population generally, may be ascribed to this cause.

Henry VI:—The Royal Ships hired out.

Henry V had not considered it beneath the dignity of the crown to hire out his ships to merchants for voyages to Bordeaux and elsewhere when they were not required for service; the Council of Regency, therefore did not hesitate to follow the same course. In 1423 the Holigost was lent to some Lombard merchants for a journey to Zealand and back for £20; and the Valentine from Southampton to Calais for £10.[53] As the Holigost was of 760 tons a rate of £300, in modern values, or about eight shillings a ton for a voyage probably occupying nearly two months, cannot be considered excessive, and does not imply any great fear of sea risks, whether from man or the elements.

And sold.

In the meantime, in virtue of the Council order of March 3, 1423, the destruction of a navy progressed merrily. During 1423 the following vessels were sold to merchants of London, Dartmouth, Bristol, Southampton, and Plymouth, and, from the prices, many of them must have been in good condition[54]:—

George (Carrack), £133 6 8

George (Balinger), 20 0 0

Christopher, 166 13 4

Katrine Breton (Balinger), 20 0 0

Thomas, 133 6 8

Grande Marie, 200 0 0

Holigost (Spayne), 200 0 0

Nicholas, 76 13 4

Swan, 18 0 0

Cracchere, 26 13 4

Fawcon, 50 0 0

Anchors and other stores were sold and, in 1424, the storehouse and forge at Southampton went for £66, 13s 4d; if there were to be no ships there was certainly no reason to keep up any establishment for their repairs. In the same year eight other vessels, mostly described as worn out, followed their sisters. They were sold for very low prices and the description of their state may be exact, although two at least were nearly new, and what we know of administrative methods in later times does not warrant an implicit faith, especially under a Council of Regency. When a 550 ton ship, like the Marie Sandwich, brought only £13, it must be assumed that she was almost worthless even for breaking up, or that the proceedings were not devoid of collusion.

Henry VI:—Subsequent Naval Administration.

We have no record of the expenditure for the first years of Henry’s reign but, from 31st August 1427 to 31st August 1433, the sum of £809, 10s 2d was spent by Soper for naval purposes, being an average of £134, 18s 4d a year.[55] The Trinity Royal, Holigost, Grace Dieu, and Jesus were still in existence, but dismantled and unrigged at Bursledon. Apparently there were no officers attached to them, or at Southampton, of sufficient experience to assume responsibility, since Peter Johnson, master mariner of Sandwich, was paid for coming to superintend the removal of the masts of the Grace Dieu. The Trinity Royal was so far unseaworthy and useless as to be imbedded in the mud of the river Hamble, and fifteen Genoese and other foreign master mariners were employed about dismasting her. There seems at this time to have been some purpose of rebuilding the Jesus, because she was taken to a dock lately prepared at Southampton, and, of the whole amount before mentioned, £165, 6s 10d was laid out in unrigging her, towing to Southampton, expenses of dock, etc. As the sails and stores of the vessels sold in 1423-4 were still under Soper’s care, a new storehouse, 160 feet long and 14 feet broad, was built at Southampton. That at London had not been closed in 1423, possibly because it may have been within the precincts of the Tower, and much of the equipment of the four great ships still remaining was kept in it.

During the four years ending with the 31st August 1437, £96, 0s 2½d was received from the Exchequer and £72, 1s 6d from the sale of cordage, etc., belonging to the ships;[56] the expenditure was £143, 6s 5¾d. For the two years ending 31st August 1439, the outlay on the Royal Navy was £8, 9s 7d. The ‘Libel of English Policie,’ which is now held to have represented the views of the governing statesmen was therefore given to the world when the estimates for the crown navy averaged £4, 4s 6½d a year.

Economy had been further exercised by the discharge of the shipkeepers as superfluous, and possibly one of the results of this careful thrift was the destruction of the Grace Dieu by fire, while lying on the mud at Bursledon, during the night of the 7th January 1439.[57] Some loose fittings were saved and 15,400lbs. of iron recovered from the burnt wreck. Soper’s next account, from 31st August 1439, ends on 7th April 1442, during which time he received £3, 10s from the Exchequer and £3, 0s 11¾d for 1222lbs. of lead from the ships. The disbursements were £4, 16s 4d, chiefly incurred in breaking up the cabins[58] on the Trinity Royal and Holigost and taking away the timber; the Jesus appears to have been too far perished to experience even this fate.[59]

From 7th April 1442, Soper was succeeded by Richard Clyvedon, a yeoman of the crown[60] by Letters Patent, dated 26th March 1442, but at the smaller fee of one shilling a day which had been received by Soper’s predecessors. In all probability Soper’s salary was very irregularly, if at all paid, and an official outlay which averaged some £1, 10s a year, offered few opportunities in the way of perquisites to a prosperous merchant. For five years and ninety days, from 7th April 1442 until 6th July 1447, the receipts were £61, 2s 7d, all from the sale of stores originally belonging to the vessels sold in 1423-4; no expenses of any sort had to be met since the bare hulks of the Jesus, Trinity, and Holigost, still existing were left to take care of themselves.[61] The next and last accounts continue for the following four years and nine months to the 7th April 1452, when they cease. The amount received was £73, 11s 4½d, again altogether from the sale of stores; the expenditure was £16, 12s 10d, mostly referable to the cost of a chain fixed across the Hamble.[62] As only the rotting hulls of the Trinity and Holigost now remained, it is difficult to estimate its value so far as they were concerned, but for the first time for nearly forty years, there were now fears of French reprisals.

Henry VI:—The Substitutes of the Navy.

It must not, however, be supposed that because the Royal Navy was not kept up, no measures were taken to protect maritime interests. The predecessors of Henry V had employed a combination of royal and impressed ships; Henry V apparently intended to increase the crown navy until it was powerful enough to enable him to rely on it for every purpose but that of transport. Rightly or wrongly the Protector and Council adopted a different system and one which was continued through all the political changes of the reign. Instead of keeping up a royal force, or of pressing ships and placing them under the crown officers, indentures were entered into now and again with certain persons supposed to be competent to provide under their own command an agreed number of ships and men to keep the sea for a specified time. In favour of this plan it was perhaps argued that it was cheaper than any other, and that it should prove sufficiently effective as the coast of France was either in English occupation or belonged to a neutral or ally in the Duke of Brittany, and that an expensive Royal Navy was unnecessary when a French navy was impossible and only the ordinary rovers of the sea had to be met and destroyed. Against it might be urged that, besides the delay inevitable to the process of collecting merchantmen at a given rendezvous, it was the object of the persons undertaking the work to make a profit on the bargain and that they would probably minimise effort, time, and expense, as much as practicable. So far as the scanty evidence enables us to judge it is possible that, until the loss of the French coastline, the plan, had it been carried on under the authoritative supervision of an able and honest crown official, might have worked successfully. Doubtless the economy promised was the final argument because, once the Royal Navy had been suffered to perish, there was never throughout the reign any financial possibility of restoring it. By 1433 the royal expenses were nearly double the revenue; and the Lord Treasurer, Cromwell, told the King, ‘nowe daily many warrantis come to me of paiementes ... of moche more than all youre revenus wold come to thowe they wer not assigned afore; whereas hit aperith by your bokes of record which have been showed that they have been assigned nygh for this eleven yeere next folowyng.’[63]

As many of the debts of Henry V for hire of ships and men’s wages were still unpaid, the conditions were evidently not favourable to the direct action of the crown either in replacing its own navy or taking ships into pay. An intermediary of recognised position to whom a payment was usually at once made on account, doubtless inspired more confidence in owners and men. Although not the first in point of time, the commission of Sir John Speke by an agreement of 2nd May 1440, is noticeable in that the service was apparently the first in which the men were paid and victualled at a weekly rate, one and sixpence a week wages and the same for victuals.[64] For at least two centuries the rate had been threepence a day, with usually an additional sixpence a week ‘reward,’ and this reduction of pay seems to imply that there were plenty of men to be obtained. In 1442 the Commons themselves arranged the period—2nd February to 11th November—during which a fleet was to be at sea, and even designated the ships which were to serve, together with the allowances to officers and men.[65] There were to be eight ships, all merchantmen, manned by 1200 men, and each of the eight was to be attended by a barge and balinger having respectively 80 and 40 men apiece. There were also four pinnaces. One of the ships is the Nicholas of the Tower of Bristol. ‘Of the Tower’ was the man-of-war mark, and this is the only one found in the lists of merchantmen of the century. The Nicholas of the Tower of Henry V was sold to some purchasers belonging to Dartmouth, but may have passed into Bristol ownership. It was the crew of this vessel, usually described as a man-of-war, who seized and executed the Duke of Suffolk on his passage to Flanders when exiled in 1450.

The seamen’s pay, two shillings a month, if not an error of entry, can only be explained by the expectation of a liberal division of prize-money, one half of which was to be shared among masters, quartermasters, soldiers and sailors. The other half was divided into thirds, of which two went to the owners and one to the captains and under-captains. The victualling was now one and twopence a week. The captains and under-captains were military officers; there was no ship-captain in the modern sense although the master, whose pay was sixpence a day, was his nearest equivalent. The conditions were beginning to slowly change during this century, but hitherto the fighting had been done on board ship by the soldiers embarked for the purpose. The duty of the sailors, whether officers or men, was only to handle the vessel at sea or in action. The fleet does not appear to have put to sea till August, although the undertakers, Sir William Ewe, Miles Stapylton, and John Heron, were receiving money for its preparation in June.[66] In 1445 the charges for the passage of Margaret of Anjou when she came to share the crown do not show the same tendency to lower wages; masters were still paid sixpence a day, but the men received one and ninepence a week and their sixpence ‘reward,’ and pages (boys) one and three halfpence a week.[67] During the winter of 1444-5 a Cinque Ports squadron was in commission from September to the following April, and this must be almost the last instance of the performance of the ancient service of the ports in a complete manner. Twenty-six vessels were provided—four from Hastings, seven from Winchelsea, four from Rye, Lydd, and Romney, two from Hythe, three from Dover, five from Sandwich, and one from Faversham, numbers which perhaps indicate the relative importance of the towns at this time. The whole cost of the fleet was only £672, 9s 1½d, while Margaret’s journey was considered worth £1810, 9s 7½d.[68] The tonnage of the Cinque Ports vessels is not given, but that they were of no great size may be inferred from the small number of men in each.

In 1449 Alexander Eden and Gervays Clifton, afterwards Treasurer of Calais, were entrusted with the care of the Channel and, although their deeds have left no mark in history, they were considered so satisfactory at the time that, in the following year, Clifton was granted a special reward of four hundred marks for his good service. In 1450 Clifton and Eden were again performing the same duty and, in 1452, Clifton and Sir Edward Hull. Certainly there was now every reason for redoubled vigilance. Between 1449 and 1451 the English Conquests in France had gone like a dream; only Calais was left, and that was considered to be imminently threatened. Notwithstanding loans, mortgages of revenues, and money obtained by pawning the crown jewels, the government owed £372,000, while the receipts from the crown estates were not more than £5000 a year, and the yearly charge of the household alone was £23,000. If we add to these facts a saintly king, and an inefficient government, the first mutterings of the storm of civil war, and a foe, exhausted it is true, but eager for vengeance, we are able to partly picture the extent of the losses in honour and prosperity which made one of the first acts of the Duke of York, when created Protector on 27th March 1454, the appointment of a fresh commission to guard the seas. On the following 3rd April, the tunnage and poundage for three years was assigned to the Earls of Salisbury, Shrewsbury, Wiltshire, Worcester, and Oxford, the Lords Stourton and Fitzwalter, and Sir Robert Vere, for that purpose.[69] That immediate action might be taken a loan of £1000 was raised in the proportions of London £300, Bristol £150, Southampton £100, Norwich and Yarmouth £100, Ipswich, Colchester and Malden £100, York and Hull £100, New Sarum, Poole and Weymouth £50, Lynn £50, Boston £30, and Newcastle £20, to be repaid out of the tunnage and poundage.[70]

Henry VI:—The Civil War.

In 1455, the first battle of St Albans was fought and there was no further question of naval matters until Edward IV was on the throne. Naval power appears to have had but little influence on the result of the wars of the Roses, nor, except at one moment, is the command of the sea shown to be a factor of any great importance in the struggle. Such as it was the Yorkists possessed it, as owners and seamen both affected the white Rose, but the Lancastrians seem never to have experienced any difficulty in obtaining necessary shipping, when in power on land, during the years of war. In 1459, however, when York fled to Ireland, and Warwick to Calais, the attachment the seamen generally felt for the latter enabled him to hold his own there and in the Channel, which perhaps had no inconsiderable influence on the final issue. The naval weakness of the Lancastrians compelled them, instead of protecting the English coasts off the French ports, to issue commissions to array the posse comitatus in the maritime counties to repel invasion, and the sack of Sandwich in 1457, by the Seneschal de Brézé was an outcome of the changed conditions. But Warwick’s fight on 29th May 1458, with a fleet of Spanish ships of more than double his strength, and his capture of six of them, though little better than open piracy, was a sharp reminder that English seamen had not lost the spirit which animated their fathers, and, under the right conditions could still emulate their deeds.[71]

Unless the merchant marine had degenerated very rapidly there must have still been plenty of seagoing ships available in English ports, but the subjoined Treasury warrant perhaps indicates the difficulty the Lancastrians experienced in chartering ships and obtaining men. On 5th April 1460, Henry was once more king and his adversaries in exile, and an order of that date directs the officials of the Exchequer that ‘of suche money as is lent unto us by oure trewe subgittes for keping of the see and othire causes ye do paye to Julyan Cope capitaigne of a carake of Venise nowe beinge in the Tamyse £100 for a moneth, and to Julyan Ffeso capitayne of a nother carrake of Jeane[72] being at Sandwich £105 for a moneth the which two carrakes be entretid to doo us service.’ This is of course not conclusive because foreign vessels were at times hired by all our kings although English ships were available. But in June 1460 the Lancastrian Duke of Exeter, with a superior force, met Warwick at sea, but did not venture to attack him, being unable to trust his men. If, therefore, the men were not reliable there was good reason for the employment of foreigners.

Henry VI:—Results of the Contract System.

Administering the navy by contract had been tried and found wanting; it had never been resorted to before and was never used again. It had proved expensive and ineffective. There can be little doubt that had one half the money wasted in spasmodic efforts been devoted to the maintenance of a small but efficient royal force, always ready for action, the results, if less profitable to the intermediaries, would have been better for the nation. But before all and above all, whatever plan was adopted, there was necessary the hand to control and the brain to govern. The military organisation had been systematised for centuries and would go on working more or less easily whatever the personal qualities of the ruler. The Navy was not yet to the same extent an organised and permanent force, and its strength in any reign was still dependent on the initiative of the sovereign. Henry obtained canonisation at the expense of the lives and prosperity of his subjects, of his followers, and of his son. It had been better for them if he had possessed more of the sinful strength of a man and less of the flaccid virtue of a saint.

Henry VI:—Docks, etc.

There is nothing known positively of any improvements in the form or equipments of ships during this reign. There are no inventories in detail between the time of Henry V and the first years of Henry VII. But while in the first quarter of the fifteenth century we find that men-of-war possess, at the most, two masts and two sails, carry three or four guns, and one or two rudimentary bowsprits, at the close of the same century they are three or four masters with topmasts and topsails, bowsprit and spritsail, and conforming to the characteristics and type which remained generally constant for more than two centuries. It is quite certain that no sudden transition occurred; the changes came slowly with the passing years, but they have left no traces in the records. Whether docks were used in England before the fifteenth century may be doubtful, but the word is in common use in the reign of Henry V, although it did not denote what we now understand by such a structure. Its derivation from the Low Latin Diga a ditch, more exactly indicates its character, but the word was employed in more than one sense, and even after the construction of the first dry dock at Portsmouth in 1496, we find in the sixteenth century an arrangement of timber round a ship in the Thames, to protect her from the ice, called a dock. The Nomenclator Navalis of 1625 describes a wet dock as ‘any creek or place where we may cast in a ship out of the tideway in the ooze, and then when a ship hath made herself (as it were) a place to lie in we say the ship hath docked herself,’ a description which much more nearly portrays the dock of the fifteenth century than the dry dock of to-day. The following details of a dock for the Grace Dieu in July 1434 are perhaps the fullest to be found, and are taken from Soper’s accounts for that year:—[73]

‘And in money paid Thomas at Hythe, and 29 men labourers, for working about, making and constructing anew[74] of a fence called a hedge,[75] by the advice and ordinance of discreet and wise mariners, that is to say on the Wose,[76] near Brisselden aforesaid for the safe keeping and government of the King’s ship, and to the putting out and drying up of the sea water strongly running from the said King’s ship because the same is weak: and also that the said King’s ship may be kept more safely and easily in its said bed[77] called dok within the said enclosure; taking for this work made and built by the said ——[78] by agreement with him made in gross for the King’s advantage the said month of July 12th year xxviiiˢ viᵈ. And in money paid John Osmond, mariner, working about towing and bringing timber and branches with his two boats for the service of the same fence called an hegge[79] and there about the same employed iiˢ. And in money paid to the said Thomas at Hythe and to 29 other men his fellows for labouring and watching in the said ship of the King’s about towing and conducting the same from the same Brisselden where first she was in mooring and in rode to the said enclosure called Dok, and there to the placing, directing and guarding of the said ship of the King’s within its bed called Dok, and to the attending on the safe custody and superintendence of the same for three days, working day and night, besides expenses of victualling, taking for this work and occupation for the time aforesaid by agreement with him in that cause made in the King’s service in gross the month and year aforesaid xˢ.’

It may be inferred from this that the ship was brought to a suitable spot at a spring tide, possibly hauled still further aground by mechanical means, and when she had bedded herself, surrounded by timber and brushwood, perhaps puddled with clay. It will be seen[80] that in 1496 a drydock, the first known to have been made in England was constructed at Portsmouth, but we are without knowledge of the intermediate steps, or whether there were no intervening improvements, and the dock at Portsmouth copied in its completeness from one already existing abroad.

Measurement of Tonnage.

It has been pointed out that the value of the comparison between fifteenth and sixteenth century ships depends greatly on the method of measuring tonnage, and on that subject we have unfortunately but little information. The Bordeaux wine trade was the earliest, and for two centuries one of the most important branches of English maritime traffic; ships were therefore measured by their carrying capacity in Bordeaux cask. The first arithmetical rule for calculating a ship’s tonnage was devised in 1582, and that rule made the net or cask tonnage nearly the same as the average cargo. The unit of measurement was therefore the tun of wine in two butts of 252 gallons which in 1626 were estimated to occupy 60 cubic feet of space. The ancient wine gallon occupies 231 cubic inches and a tun measures strictly therefore only 33¹¹⁄₁₆ cubic feet, but the reckoning is by butts, and much waste of space must be allowed for in view of the usual shape of a cask. In 1626 certain experiments described on a later page were carried out on the Adventure of Ipswich, and it was found that while her burden in Bordeaux cask was 207 tons net, and 276 gross,[81] her tonnage by the Elizabethan rule was again almost exactly the same. If, in the fifteenth century, the shipper allowed 60 cubic feet for two butts of wine, and the allowance of 1626 was doubtless the outcome of long experience, there could have been but little difference between the ship of Henry VI, and indeed of earlier reigns, and that of the period of Elizabeth.

Edward IV:—General Policy.

There is even less material for the naval history of the reigns of Edward IV and Richard III than for that of Henry VI; if, as is probable, a naval administration existed, no records have come down to us. Edward seized the crown on 4th March 1461, but it was not until after the battle of Tewkesbury in 1471 that he could consider himself really and indubitably king. The uncertainty of his position during the intervening ten years must have prevented the systematic organisation of a naval department, but he was not remiss in, so far as was possible, holding the command of the Channel. Doubtless his experience with Warwick at Calais in 1459 had taught him its importance. Not long after Towton, an English fleet under the command of the Earls of Essex and Kent ravaged the coast of Brittany in revenge for the sympathy shown to Margaret by the reigning Duke. In 1462 another fleet was at sea, but we have no details of its action, although it was no doubt fitted for service to anticipate or deal with Margaret’s landing at Bamborough in October. An agreement dated 1st February 1462, placed naval affairs under the control of the Earl of Warwick for three years, the Earl’s salary being £1000 a year.[82] If Edward’s experience in 1459 had instructed him in the significance of the command of Calais and the fleet, he may not have willingly appointed his powerful subject to a position which made the latter practically independent of the crown; it may be, however, that he had little choice, and that Warwick’s power in the country, and his popularity with the seamen made his nomination almost a matter of necessity.

Notwithstanding this indenture made with Warwick we find that in July 1463 the Earl of Worcester was in charge of naval matters, and, in August, that nobleman is described as ‘captain and keeper of the sea.’[83] Warwick may have resigned or may have constituted Worcester his deputy. A later paper[84] tells us that Worcester acted by Letters Patent of 30th June 1463. This would not clear Warwick’s term of office but in any case these appointments of Warwick, or of Worcester, or of both, appear to have been the last survivals of the custom of putting the safeguard of the seas out to contract. And the survival was more due to political conditions than to any intention or desire of renewing the old system. The name of Richard Clyvedon, who succeeded Soper as clerk of the ships in 1442, disappears after a few years; as no payments were made even for his salary, it may be assumed that he either died, resigned, or was dismissed, and the post was not filled up. Under the circumstances there was no use for a clerk of the ships as the contractors who engaged to provide ships and men would prefer to employ their own servants to manage the details. In 1465 Piers Bowman is referred to as ‘clerk of our shippes,’ but his patent is not to be found nor any payments by way of salary, and the document in question[85] is the only one in which his occupancy of the office is mentioned. Three years later, in 1468, Sir John Howard, afterwards Duke of Norfolk, was entrusted with the payments due for the passage of Edward’s sister Margaret on her marriage with Charles of Burgundy. Howard possessed ships of his own, and on 27th August 1470, received twenty marks on account of the victualling of two ships which he had equipped ‘to take certaine rovers that lie in the Tamyse mouth or there aboute, and robbe bothe the kinges subgittes and frendes.’ This was little more than a fortnight before Warwick landed at Dartmouth and shows how little Edward feared the Earl, for he made no preparation to intercept his passage, and his care, even in his uncertain position, of the commercial interests of his subjects.[86] All through the second civil war, Warwick retained the command of the Channel, nor does Edward, whether from indifference or inability, appear to have made any attempt to wrest it from him. He relied for assistance chiefly on the Burgundian navy, of which Philip de Comines says that it was so powerful that ‘no man durst stir in the narrow seas for fear of it.’ By a navy, however, De Comines must be understood as meaning the general shipping strength of the state. Even after Tewkesbury Edward was once more reminded that supremacy on land was only possible to the ruler who controlled the sea. The bastard of Fauconberg,[87] Warwick’s subordinate and in command of his fleet, seized the Thames and raised Kent and Essex; had there been any Lancastrian power able to support him Edward’s newly regained crown would have been once more in jeopardy.

Edward IV:—The Keeper of the Ships.

By Letters Patent of 12th December 1480, the office of clerk of the ships was once more reconstituted in the person of Thomas Rogers, with a salary of one shilling and sixpence a day for himself and a clerk, and two shillings a day for travelling expenses, when employed on the king’s service. In later patents Rogers is described as a citizen and fishmonger, and as a merchant of London, and as having been purser of a king’s ship. He so successfully trimmed his opinions to the varying political currents, as to retain his office during the reigns of Richard III and Henry VII, until his death in 1488.

The Royal Ships.

The re-appointment of a keeper of the ships was the natural corollary of the new formation of a crown navy which was going on slowly throughout the reign. As early as July 1461 the Margaret of Orwell, or of Ipswich, is spoken of as ‘our great ship,’ and was doubtless a merchantman bought by the crown. Without collateral evidence, however, the expression ‘our ship’ does not always prove crown ownership; the phrase seems to have been often used in writing of ships pressed for special service. The Margaret’s equipment included 200 bows at eighteenpence apiece, 600 sheaves of arrows at eighteenpence the sheaf, bow strings at five shillings a gross, 200 spears at sixteenpence each and 1000 darts £5. As it also comprised 600 ‘gunstones’[88] at ten shillings the hundred and 1000 lbs. of powder at fivepence a lb., she must have carried cannon as well as the more primitive weapons.[89] In 1463, a caravel of Salcombe was bought for £80, and the shares of the John Evangelist of Dartmouth purchased from the joint owners in that and the following year.[90] In 1468 the Mary of Grace was bought from Sir Henry Waver[91] and in July 1470 250 marks were given for a Portuguese ship, the Garse, obtained from John de Poinct of Portingale.[92] An order on the Exchequer did not however necessarily mean prompt payment unless money was plentiful, and just a year later another warrant was made out for John de Poinct as he was still unpaid; not long after there is mention made of the St Peter, a Spanish ship bought for £50 which sum had also long been owing.

In 1473 the Grace Dieu once more occurs among the names of men-of-war. Marcus Symonson of Causere was paid £62, 8s 2d for pitch, tar, masts, and other necessaries supplied by him for the ‘new making of our shippe called the Grace Dieu.’[93] Unless she was one of the vessels previously bought rebuilt and renamed, she must have been a new ship but there are no other particulars concerning her. In 1472 there is a grant of an annuity of £20 a year to this Mark Symonson, owner of the Antony of Causere,[94] for the good services he had done and would do; this large reward, equal to at least £200 a year now, points to the possibility of his having been captain and owner of the vessel which brought Edward over to Ravenspurn in 1471. Another Spanish ship, the Carycon was purchased in 1478 for £100 and in the same year William Combresale, who afterwards succeeded Rogers as clerk of the ships, is referred to as master of the king’s ship Trinity, another new name. Carycon or Carraquon was simply old French for a large carrack, and the ship, shortly afterwards, became the Mary of the Tower.[95] With the Carycon and the Trinity there is found, ‘the king’s ship called the Fawcon,’ and in 1483 Rogers was ordered ‘to repaire and make of the newe our shippe the Mary Ashe,’ possibly the older Mary of Grace. The last purchase is at the close of the reign in January 1483, when 100 marks was paid to Roger Kelsale, collector of customs at Southampton for his share in a bark of Southampton lately bought.

Edward IV:—Naval and Commercial Policy.

It is obvious from this list that Edward had set himself to reverse the practice of the preceding forty years, and had determined to restore the Navy. He must have taken a certain pride in it and in the appearance of the men, since, for the first time, we find a payment on one occasion for ‘jackettes’ for the sailors.[96] His interest in the men did not extend, however, to arresting the tendency to lower wages which were now one shilling and threepence a week, while the victualling was reckoned at one shilling and a halfpenny.[97] He had been granted in 1465, tunnage and poundage for life and therefore always had at command money to be devoted to naval purposes. Nor was he indifferent to the commercial interests of the kingdom. In 1464 a navigation act, the first consented to by the Crown since the reign of Richard II came into force, and although it was allowed to lapse at the end of three years was an earnest of future and more effective legislation. He is said to have himself engaged in trade, and the commercial treaties with Burgundy, Brittany and Castile, show that he understood the sources of national wealth. Some of Edward’s business transactions were with the Italian cities, and that the field of trade was generally enlarging is shown by the appointment in 1484 of a consul at Florence, because ‘certain merchants and others from England intend to frequent foreign parts, and chiefly Italy with their ships and merchandise.’ The old custom of hiring out men-of-war for trading voyages was soon revived and, shortly before Bosworth field, the Grace Dieu was lent to two London merchants for a Mediterranean journey but was finally kept back for the protection of the coasts.

The short and troubled reign of Richard III did not allow that monarch much time for naval development, but the crown service was not allowed to retrogress and some fresh ships were purchased. In January 1485 the Nicholas of London was bought from Thos. Grafton, a London merchant, for 100 marks, and the Governor from Thos. Grafton and two others for £600.[98] There seems to have been no attempt during the reigns of Richard and his brother, to form any centre for naval equipment and for stores, such as had existed at Southampton and Bursledon under Henry V, and at other places in the preceding centuries. Ships were fitted at Erith, or in the Orwell, or wherever they happened to be lying when required for service.

Henry VII:—The Royal Ships.

In popular belief Henry VII shares with his son and grand-daughter, the credit of founding the modern navy. This view is so far unfounded, that, although its strength did not recede during his reign, and he prepared the way for further progress, he did not increase the force and reorganise the administration as did Henry VIII, nor use it with effect as did Elizabeth. Henry VII still relied on hired merchantmen to form the bulk of his fleets, an assistance his son almost succeeded in renouncing for squadrons of the same strength. In 1590 out of eighteen vessels at sea only two were men-of-war. There are no accounts extant for the whole reign of the expenditure on the navy, but the amount for the first three years was £1077,[99] and for 1495-8 £2060[100] exclusive of the cost of the two large ships, the Regent and Sovereign, built by his orders. At any rate these sums represent a much more acute appreciation of the necessity for sea power than that shown by his immediate predecessors.

The following is an attempt, perhaps imperfect, at the navy list of this reign:

Grace Dieu

Mary of the Tower

Governor

Martin Garsya

Sovereign

Regent

Le Prise or Margaret of Dieppe

Bonaventure

Fawcon

Trinity

Sweepstake

Mary Fortune

Carvel of Ewe

Of these the Grace Dieu, Mary of the Tower, Governor, Martin Garsya, Fawcon, and Trinity were obtained with the crown, the Margaret was captured in 1490. Only the Regent, Sovereign, Carvel of Ewe, Sweepstake and Mary Fortune were new, the two latter being small vessels built at a charge of £231.[101] The Carvel of Ewe,[102] after having been in the royal service by hire, was bought at some period of the reign. The name of the Bonaventure only occurs once as ‘our ship called the Bonaventure ... William Nashe, yeoman of our crown hath in his rule and governance,’[103] a reference which appears to point unmistakeably to a royal ship; she may have been the bark of Southampton bought by Edward IV, or one of Richard’s purchases. The Martin Garsya was given to Sir Richard Guldeford in December 1485, the Governor disappears after 1488, and the Mary of the Tower after 1496; the Fawcon, Trinity, and Margaret, after 1503. In 1486 Henry commissioned a trusted officer, Sir Richard Guldeford, Master of the Ordnance, to superintend the construction of a large ship, afterwards called the Regent, at Reding on the river Rother, in Kent.[104] An Exchequer warrant of 15th April 1487 directs the Treasurer to pay the money necessary ‘for the building of a ship of which he[105] has the oversight in the county of Kent of 600 tons, like unto a ship called the Columbe of France.’ Nothing is now known of the Columbe, which Henry had perhaps seen when at Rouen, and which had evidently impressed him. Payments on account of the Regent to the amount of £951, 7s 10d can still be traced, but this sum doubtless does not represent the whole cost. While the Regent was on the stocks the Grace Dieu was delivered to Sir Reginald Bray to be broken up and the material employed in building a new vessel, the Sovereign.[106] In neither instance had Rogers, the official head of the administration, anything to do with the construction of these ships. Both Guldeford and Bray were men of rank and credit near the king’s person, and the work may have been assigned to them as a mark of confidence and as a cheap way of conferring some pecuniary advantages on them.

The chronicler Stow says, under the year 1503, ‘the same King Henry made a ship named the Great Harry, which ship with the furniture cost him much.’ Naval historians have successively accepted this statement, but all that can be said is that there is no trace of such a ship in the State Papers. Stow’s naval details are frequently more than doubtful. Under 1512 he writes of ‘the Regent or Sovereign’ of England; the Regent was never called the Sovereign which has an individual existence down to 1525, but he may have meant the sovereign, or greatest ship.

Henry VII:—The Clerk of the Ships.

When Rogers died in 1488, he was a man of substance and a landed proprietor in Hertfordshire. He was succeeded by William Comersall or Cumbresale, of whom we know nothing except that he had held executive rank at sea during the reign of Edward IV, as master of the Trinity. He appears to have been content with a position of minor importance, and during his term of office payments in connection with the Regent and the Sovereign were frequently made through other persons. From 19th May 1495, Robert Brygandine was appointed, and while held by this man, practically, although not nominally the last of the mediæval clerks or keepers, the post regained some of its former dignity. Brygandine was a ‘yeoman of the crown,’ that is to say in the personal service of the sovereign, and, on one occasion, mentions that he had received certain orders from the king vivâ voce. In 1490 he had been granted an annuity of £10 a year, besides other favours, and altogether seems to have belonged to a higher class socially than his predecessors, and was therefore better able to maintain the independence of his office.

General Policy—The Bounty.

Although Henry VII, during a reign of twenty-four years, added only five or six vessels to the navy, it cannot be said that he was indifferent to the maritime strength of the country, or to that of the navy proper. The political conditions did not require fleets at sea as they had done in the fourteenth, and again did in the succeeding century. The objects sought by Louis XI, Charles VIII, and Louis XII did not necessitate strength at sea, at anyrate in the Channel, and when Henry VII did act abroad English ships were only engaged in the unopposed transport of troops. The existence, however, of a Royal Navy did not prevent Perkin Warbeck’s attempted landing in Kent, nor impede his sailing about the narrow seas, subsequently, unmolested and apparently at his own pleasure. Nevertheless Henry recognised that, as fleets were then constituted, the naval strength of the crown was, in the end, dependent on that of the country generally, and acted upon that view in a way that was new in English history. He commenced giving the bounty on the construction of large ships which remained customary for a century and a half, and which did much to encourage the production of vessels fit for war service. Perhaps some similar reward may have been given by earlier kings although the instance of Taverner’s Grace Dieu, previously noticed, is the only one which supports that view. If such rewards had been given they could have been only occasional but Henry made the encouragement much more frequent and a part of his policy. On the other hand the plan may have been copied from the usage of a foreign power, and if so that power was Spain. We know the reverential admiration Henry felt for the Spanish monarchs and their methods; in 1494, 1495, and 1498 Ferdinand and Isabella issued ordinances which promised large rewards of 60,000 to 100,000 maravedis, to the builders of ships of from 600 to 1000 tons.[107] These were probably not the first of such regulations, and the service they did may well have been forced on Henry’s notice when an exile. Certainly the Spanish marine at this time was in a flourishing condition. The fleet of 1496, which carried Dona Juana to Middleburgh consisted of 120 seagoing vessels, and in the same year a royal order directed the preparation of two ships each of 1000 tons, two of 500, two of 400, six of 300, four of 200, and four caravels.[108]