Other ships of the following reign were the Jesus (1000 tons), the Holigost (760 tons), the Trinity Royal (540 tons), and the Christopher Spayne (600 tons). In the navy were also seven caracks, barges (see Fig. 40), as well as the “ships” that had taken the place of the Viking galley. The largest caracks were between six and five hundred tons burthen, the barges a hundred tons, whilst a class of vessel called “ballingers,”[51] ranged between one hundred and twenty, and eighty tons. It was during Henry V.’s reign also that, the Battle of Agincourt having been fought, the king set forth two years later from Southampton for a fresh invasion of France, having caused to be built for this purpose ships the like of which was to be found nowhere, “naves quales non erant in mundo,” as the old chronicler quoted by Hakluyt expresses it.
“The Libel of English policie, exhorting all England to keepe the sea,” contains in the following rhyme some references to the vessels we are considering:
And if I should conclude all by the King
Henrie the fift, what was his purposing,
Whan at Hampton he made the great dromons,
Which passed other great ships of all the commons:
The Trinitie, the Grace de Dieu, the Holy Ghost,
And other moe, which as nowe bee lost....
or again: