These various attempts at evolving a new type, which should combine the best points of the galley and the sailing vessel, show that Henry recognised at least some of the faults of the man-of-war of his day. He failed because the solution was not within the scientific knowledge of his time, and perhaps also because the work of the galley benches must have been abhorrent to the hereditary instincts and traditions of the English sailor. But he was the first English king who gave the Navy some of that forethought and effort at improvement that had hitherto been devoted wholly to the army. His experiments left so little visible trace in the one direction that in 1551 Barbaro could write to the Seigniory, ‘They do not use galleys by reason of the very great strength of the tides,’[248] but, in another, the drawings of the last ships launched, the four of 1546, one of which, the Tiger, is reproduced in the frontispiece—comparatively low in the water, little top-hamper, neat and workmanlike in appearance—show a very great advance on anything before afloat, and indicate a steady progression towards the modern type.
Royal Ships:—Decoration and sailing qualities.
If we are to judge of the decoration of ships by the references to ornament in the naval accounts, we should have to conclude that it was entirely absent. Unquestionably it was to a certain extent present, since its absence would have been contrary to the instincts of humanity and the customs of every nation that has had a navy. But it could not have been as extensive as it afterwards became, nor have taken any very expensive form. The hulls were doubtless painted as in the previous reign, but the bows and stern seem to have been quite devoid of carving or gilding. The tops, which were large enough to hold heavy guns, were ornamented with ‘top-armours’ of red, yellow, green, or white kersies lined with canvas. The Sovereign had copper and gilt ornaments on the end of the bowsprit, and gilt crowns for the mast heads had been an embellishment used for centuries. The Unicorn and Salamander have representative figures on their beakheads,[249] but as they were prizes no deduction can be drawn as to English custom. The English built ships have no figurehead, but the beakhead sometimes ends in a spur, implying the idea of ramming. This spur, however, points upward and is much too high to have been of any use for that purpose. The ships’ sides were still surrounded with pavesses, now only light wooden shields and decorations, but which were survivals of the real shields of knights and men-at-arms in ancient vessels, ranged round the sides of the ship until needed for fighting. A hundred years later the cloth weather protection round the oarsmen of a Mediterranean galley was still called the pavesade. These pavesses seem to have sometimes taken the place of bulwarks, not always present. In 1513 Sir Edward Echyngham, captain of a ship then at sea wrote that he had fallen in with three Frenchmen,
‘Then I comforted my folk and made them to harness, and because I had no rails upon my deck I coiled a cable round about the deck breast high, and likewise in the waist, and so hanged upon the cable mattresses, dagswayns,[250] and such bedding as I had within board.’[251]
The form of expression suggests that the absence of rails was unusual.
Of the rate of sailing attained by these ships and their weatherly qualities we know hardly anything. On 22nd March 1513 Sir Edward Howard wrote to Henry, evidently in answer to a royal command to make a report on the subject, describing the merits of the squadron he had been trying, apparently between the Girdler and the North Foreland.[252] The Kateryn Fortileza sails very well; the Mary Rose is ‘your good ship, the flower I trow of all ships that ever sailed;’ the Sovereign, ‘the noblest ship of sail is this great ship at this hour that I trow be in Christendom.’ Some time, but not long, before 1525 the Sovereign was in very bad condition, and her repair was urged because ‘the form of which ship is so marvellously goodly that great pity it were she should die.’[253] Her name however does not subsequently occur and she was probably broken up. In 1522 Sir William Fitzwilliam related in a letter to the king that the Henry sailed as well or better than any ship in the fleet, that she could weather them all except the Mary Rose, and that she did not strain at her anchors when it was blowing hard.[254] It seems rather late in the day for a trial of a vessel afloat in 1514, but some alterations may have been previously made rendering it advisable. Even when ill and near his end Henry evinced the same interest in the seagoing qualities of his ships, since we learn from a letter of 1546 that he had required to be informed whether ‘the new shalupe was hable to broke the sees.’
Flags and Signals.
If carving, gilding, and painting were scant on these ships they shone bravely with flags and streamers. Those of the Peter Pomegranate were banners of St Katherine, St Edward, and St Peter, six of the arms of England in metal;[255] of a Red Lion; four of the Rose and Pomegranate; two of ‘the castle,’ and eight streamers of St George.[256] The Henry Grace à Dieu was furnished with two streamers for the main mast respectively 40 and 51 yards long, one for the foremast of 36 yards, and one for the mizen of 28 yards; there were also ten banners 3½ yards long, eighteen more 3 yards long, wrought with gold and silver and fringed with silk, ten flags of St George’s Cross, and seven banners of buckram, at a total cost of £67, 2s 8d.[257] Banners mentioned in other papers were, of England, of Cornwall, of a rose of white and green, of a Dragon, of a Greyhound, of the Portcullis, of St George and the Dragon, of St Anne, of ‘white and green with the rose of gold crowned,’ of ‘murrey and blue with half rose and half pomegranate, with a crown of gold,’ and of ‘blue tewke with three crowns of gold.’[258] White and green were now the recognised Tudor colours, and there is some indication of their use in that sense in the reign of Henry VII; the Greyhound was the badge of that king, the Dragon of his son. The Portcullis referred to the control of the straits of Dover, the Pomegranate to Catherine of Aragon and Spain; the constant recurrence of the Rose as a badge and as a ship’s name needs no explanation. The banner with the representation of a saint upon it was a survival of the custom existing in earlier times, by which every ship was dedicated to a saint, under whose protection it was placed and whose name it usually bore.
Besides ornament flags had long served the more prosaic purpose of signalling. Even among merchantmen there seem to have been some recognised signals, as in 1517 the Mary of Penmark, driven into Calais by bad weather, hoisted ‘a flag in the top,’ for a pilot.[259] This signal must therefore have long been common to at least two seafaring peoples. So far as the Royal Navy was concerned, we can only say that a flag ‘on the starboard buttock’ of the admiral’s ship called his captains to a council.[260] But a system of day and night signalling had long been in existence in the Spanish service, and in view of the close connection between the two countries commercially, and the employment of Spanish ships and seamen by the crown, it would have been extraordinary had it not been known and used here. According to Fernandez de Navarrete[261] a scheme of signals for day and night use was practised in 1430. In 1517 a flag half way up the main mast called the captains to the flagship; sight of land was announced by a flag in the maintop; a strange ship by one half way up the shrouds, and more than one strange sail by two flags placed vertically. A ship requiring assistance fired three guns, and sent a man to wave a flag in her top, while if the admiral’s ship showed a flag on her poop, every captain was to send a boat for orders. A code with guns and lights made the corresponding signals during darkness and fog.[262]
Fleet Regulations.