The ships of the Cinque Ports seem to have been at frequent feud with those of the other ports of the kingdom (see Matthew Paris under A.D. 1242). For example, in 1321 Edward II. complained of the great dissension and discord which existed between the people of the privileged Cinque Ports and the men and mariners of the western towns of Poole, Weymouth, Melcombe, Lyme, Southampton, &c.; and of the homicide, depredation, ship-burning, and other evil acts resulting therefrom. But in place of taking vigorous measures to repress these disorders, the king did not apparently find himself able to do more than issue a proclamation against them.
When so loose a morality prevailed among seafaring men, and the police of the seas was so badly maintained, it follows almost as a matter of course that piracy should flourish. The people of Brittany, and especially the men of St. Malo, at one time were accustomed to roam the sea as the old sea-kings did, plundering merchant-ships, making descents on the coasts of England, exacting contributions and ransoms from the towns. In the time of Alfred it would seem by one of his laws as if English vessels sometimes pillaged their own coasts.[405]
About the year 1242 a Sir William de Marish, who was accused of murder and treason, took refuge in the Isle of Lundy, whence he robbed the merchantmen passing to and fro, and made descents on the coast. He was building a galley in which to carry on his piracies when he was taken and hanged.
The spirit that lingered to very recent times among the “wreckers” of remote spots on our coast seems to have prevailed largely in the days of which we are writing. A foreigner was regarded as a “natural enemy,” and his ships and goods as a legitimate prize, when they could be seized with impunity. So in 1227 A.D. we find a mariner named Dennis committed to Newgate for being present when a Spanish ship was plundered and her crew slain at Sandwich. In the same year the inhabitants of some towns in Norfolk were accused of robbing a Norwegian ship. And, to give a later example, in 1470 some Spanish merchants applied to King Edward IV. for compensation for the loss of seven vessels, alleged to have been piratically taken from them by the people of Sandwich, Dartmouth, Plymouth, and Jersey. Yet there is a Saxon law as early as King Ethelred, which gives immunities to merchant ships, even in time of war, which the Council of Paris a few years ago hardly equalled:—“If a merchant ship, even if it belonged to an enemy, entered any port in England, she was to have ‘frith,’ that is peace, and freedom from molestation, provided it was not driven or chased into port; but even if it were chased, and it reached any frith burgh, and the crew escaped into the burgh, then the crew and whatever they brought with them were to have ‘frith.’”
The shipping of the time of Henry VIII. is admirably illustrated in Holbein’s famous painting at Hampton Court. The great vessel of his reign, the Henri Grace à Dieu, is also illustrated in the Archæologia. Both these subjects are so well-known, or so easily accessible, that we do not think it necessary to reproduce them here. In the MS. Aug. 1, will be found a large size drawing of a galley intended to be built for King Henry VIII.
The discovery of the sea-passage to India, and of the new world, opened up to commerce a new career of heroic adventure and the prospect of fabulous wealth. England was not backward in entering upon this course. In truth, although Sebastian Cabot was not an Englishman by birth, we claim the honour of his discoveries for England, inasmuch as he was resident among us, and was fitted out from Bristol, at the cost of English merchants, on his voyages of discovery. It was in this career—which was part discover, part conquest, part commerce—that our Hawkinses, and Drakes, and Frobishers, and Raleighs were trained. And besides those historic names, there were scores of men who fitted out ships and entered upon the roads these pioneers had opened up, and completed their discoveries, and created the commerce whose possibility they had indicated.
The limitation of our subject to the mediæval period forbids us to enter further upon this tempting theme. But we may complete our brief series of illustrations of merchant shipping by giving a picture of one of the gallant little ships—little, indeed, compared with the ships which are now employed in our great lines of sea-traffic—in which those heroes accomplished their daring voyages. The woodcut is a reproduction from the frontispiece of one of Hulsius’ curious tracts on naval affairs, and represents the ship Victoria, in which Magellan sailed round the world, passing through the straits to which he gave his name. The epitaph that the author has subjoined to the engraving tells briefly the story of the famous ship:—
“Prima ego velivolvis ambivi cursibus orbem
Magellane novo te duce ducta freto.
Ambivi meritoque dicor Victoria: Sunt mihi
Vela, alæ, precium, gloria, pugna, mare.”
The ship, it will be seen, is not very different in general features from those of the Middle Ages which we have been considering. It has the high prow and stern with their castles, it has shields outside the bulwarks, in imitation of the way in which, as we have seen in former illustrations, the mediæval men-at-arms hung their shields over the bulwark of the ship in which they sailed. But it has decks (apparently two), and is armed with cannon at the bows and stern.
