For celebrating a triumph the ship was to be covered in and curtained with rich cloth and draped. “You may also paint your sails with such devices and colours as you choose, or with the representation of a saint if you prefer it.” Then follow the signals to be employed for summoning the captains of the ships to come aboard the flagship. If a strange ship were espied, this was to be signalled by putting a square banner in a weft in the shrouds half-way up on that side on which the strange ship was seen. At sunset all the ships of the fleet were to pass ahead of the admiral’s ship and to shout three times, one after the other, and if they had trumpets they were to be sounded. At the third shout the master of the admiral’s ship was to return the salute “causing all those of your ship to shout and the trumpets and drums to sound.” And each ship as she made the salute was to ask for the watchword for the night and what course to steer. These having been given, the ships were all to drop astern again, and not pass ahead of the flagship during the night on pain of severe punishment.
Nor to any one gifted with imagination and a love of the beautiful can the following picture make an ineffectual appeal. For, after the above instructions had been carried out, the admiral was to cause to be sung the evening hymn to our Lady before her image, after which all lights were to be put out except those in the cabins of the gentlemen, who may have lamps trimmed with water covered with oil, but neither candles nor any other kind of light, owing to the risk of fire. The grandeur of these old ships with their plentiful freeboard towering high above water, pitching backwards and forwards to the swell of the sea, their highly coloured hulls lit up by the last rays of a glowing sunset, and the strong rough voices of the crew singing their solemn plain-chant as the freshening breeze wafted it to leeward—such an incident would have impressed itself on our minds scarcely less forcibly than the massive Mauretania to-day racing over the Atlantic eastward with the sun sinking astern, her masthead, port and starboard lights showing, while the rich notes of a grand piano come floating out from the luxurious drawing-room.
The admiral was further to appoint persons who should see that all the crew not kept up on duty were to retire—soldiers and officers alike. At the stern of the ship a cresset with flaming combustibles was to burn so that every one might recognise the admiral’s ship and follow, no other vessel being allowed to carry such a fire. But if the fleet contained a vice-admiral, he was allowed to carry just such a light, but the admiral must then carry two instead of one. The ship was also to carry a large lantern in which were three or four great lamps with great lights to make a powerful illumination. The use of this lantern in place of the cresset was when the wind was blowing hard or from astern, and it became necessary to put out the cresset lest the ship should catch fire. At break of day the “two nimble ships” which sailed some distance ahead of the fleet were to come back and salute the admiral as at nightfall. They were then to take their orders for the day, go on ahead again and keep just in sight. At sunrise a fanfare was to be sounded on the trumpets, the other ships to salute as at sunset, the admiral’s ship keeping under easy sail until they had done so. Then “at such hour of the morning as shall please you your chaplain” is to say a dry Mass.[72]
For his interest in the Navy, England owes a debt to Henry VIII. Under him it became a separate, organised force instead of being a mere auxiliary of the army. About eighty vessels and thirteen row-barges of twenty tons were added during his reign to the ships inherited from his predecessor. Many were purchased from the Venetians and the Hanseatic League, who were the great merchant seamen of this time. Some also were prizes taken from the enemy, but about forty odd were actually built during this reign, among which may be mentioned the Tiger, which was flush-decked without any superstructures and heavily armed; and the Ann Gallant. Whereas clinker-built vessels had been almost universal from the times of the Vikings, carvel-built ships were now being used, as being both stronger and faster. Coloured cloths were put round the fighting-tops, and the hulls, besides being carved and gilded, were painted various colours. Sometimes the Tudor colours of green and white were seen, but ash and timber shafts became common under Elizabeth. In the ships of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the yellow colour above the waterline of our ships was more pronounced. The crews of Henry VIII.’s ships wore the Tudor colours of white and green also, cloth being used for the sailors and satin or damask for the officers.[73]
Under Edward VI. the power of the Hanseatic League began gradually to wane, and consequently the superiority which in respect of ships it had possessed over those of our nation became less marked. Perhaps no maritime incident of this reign is more interesting than the preparation, the setting out, and the partial accomplishment of the voyage from our shores to discover a passage by way of Archangel to China. Those who know their Hakluyt will agree that few yarns written nowadays by either professional or amateur sailormen are so absorbingly interesting as this record: those who have still to read this record will enjoy it thoroughly. It is not possible here to give even a summary of this lengthy voyage, in which Sir Hugh Willoughby and his crew perished of cold and starvation, though Richard Chancellor reached as far as Archangel. But there are some details given in the account that are pertinent to our inquiry of the sailing ship. Among the instructions given to the voyagers were that the fleet should keep together as far as possible. A log was to be kept by day and night, “with the points and observation of the lands, tides, elements, altitude of the sunne, course of the moon and starres.” The fleet comprised the Bona Esperanza, flagship, of 120 tons, “having with her a pinnesse and a boate,” the Edward Bonaventure, 160 tons, and the Bona Confidentia, 90 tons, the last two ships having the same number of boats as the first. Their progress down the Thames was not rapid, for it took them from the tenth of May till the twenty-second to get from Ratcliffe to Hole Haven. They could not sail nearer to the wind than seven points, for the statement is made that “the wind veared to the West, so that we could lie but North and by West.”[74] Approaching a strange harbour, they would first send forth the ship’s “pinnesse” before entering. They were not long in discovering that “the land lay not as the Globe made mention.” The “Confidence being troubled with bilge water, we thought it good to seeke harbour for her redresse.”
The cost of purchasing these three ships was £6000 according to another account also included in Hakluyt, and written by one, Clement Adams, who praises very highly the “very strong and well seasoned plankes for the building,” as well as the skill of the shipwrights who “calke them, pitch them, and among the rest they make one most stanch and firme, by an excellent and ingenious invention.” This invention is that “they cover a piece of the keele of the shippe with thin sheetes of leade, for they had heard that in certaine parts of the Ocean a kinde of wormes is bredde, which many times pearceth and eateth through the strongest oake that is.” The reader will recollect that this “invention” was known to the inhabitants of the Mediterranean for many hundreds of years before this.[75] The same writer states that when they departed from Ratcliffe “upon the ebbe” “with the turning of the water” the “greater shippes” were “towed downe with boates, and oares, and the mariners being apparelled in watchet or skie coloured cloth, rowed amaine.” The Court being at Greenwich they fired a salute while “one stoode in the poope of the ship, and by his gesture bids farewell to his friendes ... another walkes upon the hatches, another climbes the shrowds, another stands upon the maine yard, and another in the top of the shippe.” When they arrived at Harwich, to Chancellor’s dismay, part of the victuals were found to be “corrupt and putrified” “and the hoggesheads of wine also leaked, and were not stanch.”
During the reign of Mary the fishing and coasting traffic flourished, but it is when we enter upon the reign of Elizabeth that we find the greatest encouragement given. It was she who repealed all existing restrictions in connection with navigation laws, so that merchants were allowed to use whatever ships they possessed, whether foreign or English-built. More sensible and far-sighted than some of our modern legislators, she was wise enough to restrict the coasting trade to British ships. In this reign, too, telescopes were invented, Mercator’s chart of the world completed, the art of navigation developed, hydrography taken up seriously, the harbours of England and estuaries well surveyed, pilotage and buoyage systematised and placed under the care of the corporation of Trinity House. The variation of the compass had been already observed by Columbus and Cabot, but under Elizabeth the matter was given serious study.
The carrying trade, which for so long a time between England and the Mediterranean had been the monopoly of ships belonging to Venice or Genoa or Spain, now belongs exclusively to English vessels. Our shipwrights, too, were building craft of finer lines and longer on the keel. Hawkins, perhaps the ablest shipbuilder of the reign and a practical seaman who had roved over the seas as pirate and slave-hunter too, was foremost in designing ships on what were then new principles. He it was who recognised that the enormously high poops and forecastles of the prevailing type were as unnecessary as they were unwieldy. These were cut down considerably, and the reader will notice the changes effected if he will compare the illustration of the Ark Royal in Fig. 50 with that of a Spanish galleon in Fig. 55. Practical test was made of the new type as soon as the Armada came sailing up the English Channel in July of 1588, with the usual south-west wind blowing. Howard’s ships sailed close-hauled out of Plymouth, succeeded in getting to windward of the Spanish craft, and keeping out of range of their guns, his own ordnance being of much longer range, poured a terrific fire into the enormous freeboard of the enemy, who found themselves at once both outsailed and outcannoned.
By adding also to the draught of water the Elizabethans were making their ships more weatherly and less likely to roll in a seaway. Among other advantages arising from this would be better marksmanship than could ever be obtained on a galleon pitching her head into every sea and making good gunnery almost impossible except in calms. An interesting comparison is possible when we mention that the new English ships possessed a length three and a half times their beam; nevertheless, the galley had been about seven times the breadth. Besides the green and white colours, Elizabethan ships were also painted outside black and white, red, or the timber-colour previously mentioned. Figureheads, consisting of a dragon or a lion, were in vogue, and carved figures of men and beasts decorated also the interior. Cabins were painted and upholstered in green and white, whilst at the stern the royal arms were displayed in gold and colours. Sir Walter Raleigh in his “Judicious and Select Essayes and Observations,” printed in London in 1650, refers to the recent invention of topmasts, which could be lowered or raised instead of being kept permanently fixed as hitherto had been the custom. He describes these as being “a wonderfull great ease to great ships, both at sea and harbour.”[76] He also mentions as recent innovations chain pumps, studding sails, topgallant sails and the weighing of the anchor by means of the capstan, and the introduction of the bonnet on the lower courses. But as to these last two items he is quite incorrect. The bonnet had existed at least from the Viking times, and we saw it on some of the seals. But below the bonnet was now laced on another called a drabbler. Instead of reefing as nowadays by taking in the foot of the sail, the drabbler would be unlaced, for one or two reefs, and the bonnet removed for a close reef. The yard would then be lowered away some distance from the mast. The same authority refers to the practice which had come into fashion of using long cables by which “we resist the malice of the greatest winds that can blow.”
He tells us also how the Marie Rose of Henry VIII.’s time was lost when getting under way. She heeled over, and the water rushing in through her ports, which were only sixteen inches above the water, she sank. Raleigh goes on to say that they were now making such improvements in their ships as would prevent such a catastrophe occurring again; but we know that more than one instance of this kind of calamity happened in later times owing to the same cause, notably the case of the Royal George. Royal ships, he tells us, were being strengthened by pillars fastened from keelson to the beams of the second deck and so keeping them from giving way in bad weather. He rejoices over the improvement of the lines in the new ships mentioned above “whereby they never fall into the sea after the head and shake the whole body, nor sinck a sterne, nor stoope upon a wind.” He gives the following essentials for the building of a good ship: That she be strong, swift, stout-sided, able to carry her guns in all weathers, be seaworthy and stay well when boarding and turning on a wind. He advises that in order to make her sail well the ship should be given a long run forward and not sink into the water, but lie clear above it. He suggests, too, that her lowest tier of guns be four feet above water, and in order to be a good sea-boat she have a good draught of water and not be overcharged with towering poops, “which commonly the king’s ships are.” This “overcharging” compelled the ships in bad weather to “lie at trye” (i.e., heave-to, hence the derivation of the word try-sail), under main-course and mizzen. In protesting against this excessive overcharging of poops and decks he adds, “two decks and a half is sufficient to yield shelter and lodging for men and mariners and no more charging at all higher, but only one low cabbin for the master.”