In Henry VIII’s time dockyards were established at Woolwich, Erith, and Deptford, as well as at Portsmouth. Originally the custom was to lay up the ships in the autumn and fit out in the spring; but at this time the excellent practice of keeping some ships cruising the Channel in the winter months was developed. The rate of pay in Henry VIII’s navy allowed the admiral ten shillings a day and a captain one and sixpence a day, while the wages of each soldier, mariner, and gunner were five shillings a month plus five shillings a month for victuals. Conduct money for those who had to travel long distances to join their ships was at the rate of sixpence a day, twelve miles being reckoned as one day’s journey.
Copper and gilt ornamentations were added to the end of the bowsprit on Henry VIII’s ships, says Mr. Oppenheim, whilst gilt crowns for the mastheads had been the practice for centuries. Before going into action a ship would sometimes coil her cable round the deck breast high and hang thereon mattresses and blankets as a kind of protection. And here we must say a word concerning the development of naval tactics. As in other maritime departments, so in regard to this England owed a great deal to Spanish influence. Naval warfare in the Mediterranean was already a science, and learned treatises had been written thereon. If the Spaniards were not a race of seamen by nature, at least they had developed the scientific side of the sailor’s life in advance of the English. The awakening from medievalism in marine matters which had spread to our own shores not unnaturally aroused an interest in the proper manner of controlling a fleet. The earliest set of fleet orders in English was that which appeared about the year 1530, written by Thomas Audley, and still preserved in a Harleian MS. This Thomas Audley wrote “A Book of Orders for the War both by Land and Sea,” at the command of Henry VIII. In effect these orders are the final expression of English medieval ideas before the introduction of artillery and the practice of broadside fire had started a new school of modern tactics. Audley’s fleet orders, based on the practice of previous centuries, insisted on the importance of getting the weather-gage of the enemy, laid down how to board an enemy—boarding in those days meaning, of course, engaging him in combat alongside—and denoted the sphere of an admiral’s action.
In 1543 appeared the “Book of War by Sea and Land,” written by Jehan Bytharne, Gunner in Ordinary to the King. This contained a number of regulations for governing the fleet, for ornamenting and painting the ships, and for the use of flags both for celebrating a triumph and—this is important—for the purpose of signalling, as, for example, informing the flagship when the enemy had been espied. Bear in mind that in the Spanish Navy flag signalling had, following the Spanish advance towards science, become already a fine art. It is true that even in England this had been in vogue for centuries, and the earliest code is to be found in the “Black Book of the Admiralty,” and dates from about 1340. But the Spanish system was less crude and elementary.
By the middle of the sixteenth century naval tactics in England had advanced even further still, as the instructions issued in connection with the Battle of Shoreham indicate. They are too long to detail here, but it is noticeable that they show both a knowledge of the handling of ships and a mind that has escaped from medieval muddle. The arranging of the fleet in proper divisions, each with its own work to perform, the exact position which was to be maintained, and so on, are well worth consideration. And each division was to wear the St. George’s ensign at a different place for purposes of recognition. Those in the first rank were to fly it from the fore-topmast, those in the second rank to wear it on the mainmast, and so on.
During the latter half of the sixteenth century, when the autumn came round each year and most of the royal ships had ended their cruising till the following spring, it was customary to take these vessels round to the Medway. Even ships from Portsmouth were hither brought, and they lay moored in Gillingham Reach. This made a convenient and sheltered anchorage, and yet was not too far from the Tower of London. When the time arrived again for fitting out, the ammunition was put on board barges at the Tower and these, taking the ebb down the Thames and the flood up the Medway, discharged their load when tied up alongside the warships at Chatham.
The great achievements of the Elizabethan seamen could not have occurred unless the English had been engaged in the seafaring life for years, since it is impossible to make a landsman a sailor except after much training. The Armada would never have been defeated except for the superior seamanship and gunnery of our forefathers. Slowly, but surely, since the history of our country began, there had been growing up a nucleus of professional seamen. In Tudor times had there been no race of freight-carriers and fishermen, there would have been no virile body of men to fall back on in the hour of danger on the sea, for the merchant sailor often enough had an exciting passage before he landed his cargo safely in port. Both he and the simple fisherman were liable to be assaulted on the sea by hordes of pirates. In the North Sea, the English Channel (especially in the vicinity of the Scilly Isles, where they swarmed), and off the Irish coast these sea-rovers were a terror to the peaceful, honest seaman.
In addition to this, however, there sprang up what is nothing better than a legalised piracy. By a proclamation of 1557, any Englishman could fit out a squadron of ships against the enemies of the Crown, and when he had located these enemies on the high seas, could attack them and confiscate their ships and contents. Now this afforded a fine outlet for those imaginative seafarers who yearned for something more adventurous than catching fish. It was just the kind of life for those who gloried in adventure and wanted it on sea. It helped to turn the fisherman into a fighting man; it was a training school for those who were presently to become the great sea captains and admirals, the gunners and able seamen of the great Elizabethan age.
CHAPTER X
THE ELIZABETHAN AGE
