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.