If Henry VII built few ships he laid the foundation of a permanent establishment for building and repairs in a way hitherto unknown. We have seen that Henry V had storehouses at London and Southampton, and a workshop in the last named town, and that a dock in the fifteenth century meant only a temporary arrangement by which a ship was laid ashore at a suitable place. Such primitive appliances were the completest yet attained. Henry proceeded much further, and in June 1495, Brygandine was ordered to superintend the construction of a dry dock at Portsmouth, the first known to have been built in England. If one existed previously no reference to it has survived, and we may suppose that the new departure was the result of foreign superiority in such matters rather than of native enterprise. No foreigner however was employed in the work, and Brygandine, so far as we know, had had no training as an engineer. The undertaking was completed without accident and without any delay caused by unforeseen difficulties. The total cost was £193, 0s 6¾d; it was built of wood except the dockhead, which was ‘fortifyed’ with stone and gravel, of which 664 tons were used, and although it is not so stated, it may be assumed that the timber walls were backed with stone. During 1495-7 forty-six weeks were spent in the work, operations being suspended between November 1495 and February 1496, and between April of the latter year and July 1497. When the Sovereign came out of this dock twenty men were at work for twenty-nine days ‘at every tide both day and night weying up of the piles and shorys and digging of ye clay and other rubbish between the gates.’ From this it may be conjectured that the gates did not meet in closing, but that the structure was of this form
an arrangement doubtless due to fear of the pressure of the water outside when the one ‘ingyn’ employed for the purpose had succeeded in emptying the dock. The expression ‘as well for ye inner as ye uttermost gate,’ also bears out this view. The dock itself occupied twenty-four weeks, the gates and dockhead twenty-two weeks, the number of men paid each week varying between twenty-eight and sixty. Carpenters received from fourpence to sixpence a day, sawyers fourpence and labourers threepence. Four tons of iron at £3 14s and £4 a ton were used, besides large quantities of nails, spikes and other iron work.[114]
From 1485 a storehouse was hired at Greenwich for the use of the ships lying in the river, at a yearly rental of £5, but down to 1550-60 Portsmouth, in virtue of its dock and the subsidiary establishments which grew up round it, remained the predominant naval port. Few of the townspeople, however, seem to have been able to supply any necessaries, stores having to be sent from London or bought at Southampton; wood was the only thing obtained plentifully in the neighbourhood. When Deptford, Woolwich, and Chatham were founded its one advantage of lying in the Channel did not serve it against the greater facilities they offered in other respects.
Henry VII:—Character of Shipping.
The ships of Henry VII are found to resemble in equipment and fittings those of his successors rather than the mediæval type, but that may be because we have no inventories of the time of Edward IV and the later years of Henry VI. Improvement must have been continuous although there is no trace of the successive steps. The Regent and the Sovereign were respectively four- and three-masters, with fore and main topmasts; although the topmasts were separate spars it is probable that they were fixed and that a method of striking them had not yet been introduced. These two ships must have differed much less in appearance from a sailing ship of 1785 than from one of 1385 or even of 1425. They were fitted with a forecastle, poop, and poop royal, with a bowsprit and spritsail, and the fixed and running gear were, generally, much the same as now. As a detailed inventory of the Henry Grace à Dieu of not many years later, and varying but little in type, is given in this volume it is not necessary to describe them in detail.[115]
The introduction of portholes is usually attributed to Decharges, a French inventor of Brest and the date given is 1501. They were certainly known long before[116] but their adaptation to the purpose of broadside fire was doubtless one of the improvements of the sixteenth century. Still the date of their general acceptation must be before 1501 and earlier than is generally supposed, since the Regent and Sovereign have their poops and forecastles pierced for broadsides, and there is no suggestion that there was anything novel in such a plan. It need hardly be pointed out that the presence of a large number of guns along the sides brought about a complete alteration in shipbuilding. Not only had vessels to be more strongly built to meet the greater weight and strain, but the ‘tumble home’ tendency of the topsides was increased to bring the ordnance nearer the keel line.
The Mary Fortune and the Sweepstake were much smaller vessels but were also three-masters, with a main topmast and sixty and eighty oars respectively for use on board. Vessels of this type, which were frequently called galleys by those who used them, have been erroneously supposed by later writers to denote the real galley, to which they bore not the least resemblance, or to represent a modified type peculiar to the English service. They were ordinary ships differing in no respect but size from their larger sisters, but small enough to permit the use of sweeps when necessary. The serpentine weighing, without any carriage, about 250 lbs. was the usual ship gun, and the Regent carried 151 of these in iron and 29 in brass in 1501.[117] Of course bows and arrows and all the older armament were still carried. The ships’ sides were lined with pavesses or wooden shields painted in various colours and glittering with coats of arms and devices. For painting the Regent and Mary Fortune, and doubtless other ships, vermillion, fine gold, russet, bice,[118] red lead, white lead, brown, Spanish white, verdigris, and aneral[119] were employed.[120] The favourite Tudor colours, white and green, with the cross of St George, flew out in the standards and streamers which were of ‘linen cloth’ or of say.[121]
Henry VII:—Officers and Men.
The pay of the men was one shilling a week as shipkeeper in harbour, and one shilling and threepence when on active service. Victualling at first cost one shilling and a halfpenny a week, but subsequently rose to one shilling and twopence, and shipwrights, sawyers, labourers, and all others employed about the ships received food as well as pay. The jackets noticed under Edward IV, which perhaps signified some sort of uniform, were still provided. One hundred, at one shilling and fourpence apiece, were bought for the same number of men sent from Cornwall to Berwick to join the fleet acting in conjunction with Surrey’s army against Scotland in 1497.[122] The sea captain was still non-existent, that rank being confined to the leadership of the soldiers on board; the master, the highest executive naval officer, received three shillings and fourpence a week, the purser and boatswain one shilling and eightpence, quartermasters one shilling and sixpence, the steward and cook one shilling and threepence.[123] These were harbour rates; at sea the pay appears to have been much higher. When the Sovereign was brought from the Thames to Portsmouth, a voyage which occupied thirty-one days, the master obtained £2 10s, the purser 14s 8d, the quartermasters 10s each, the boatswain 16s 8d, the steward 8s, and the cook 10s.[124]