During the greater part of his reign, Henry like his predecessors, allowed merchants to charter men-of-war for trading voyages. In 1511, £200 was paid for the Mary and John by two merchants who hired her to go to the Baltic, a five months’ voyage, but out of this sum the king paid the wages of the crew and supplied flags and doubtless other stores.[283] One reason for putting royal officers and men on board may have been to prevent the ship being used for piratical purposes. In the same year the Anne Gallant also went to the Baltic,[284] and from there to Bordeaux before returning to London, and the Peter Pomegranate to Zealand; in 1515 Richard Gresham freighted the Mary George, and Richard Fermor the Christ, to the Mediterranean. For the Anne Gallant the crown received £300, and for the crew of the Peter 100 ‘jorgnets’ were provided.[285] When the Anne Gallant was wrecked in 1518 the loss seems to have been submitted to arbitration, ‘for the copyinge of the byll of the grosse averies of the same Anne Gallant and the warde of the arbetrers theruppon made iiˢ,’ but there is no trace of the result.[286] In 1524, the Minion and Mary Guildford were at Bordeaux, and in 1533, two other vessels. After that year there is no further instance known of Henry permitting his ships to be hired by private persons.
Convoys.
Convoys were provided by the government during war time. In 1513, the Royal Navy being fully occupied on service, £55 was paid to the owner of the Mawdelin of Hull for escorting a wool fleet to Calais, and there are other similar agreements.[287] In the preceding year there was a guard of the herring fleet afloat, although we have no knowledge of its strength.[288] In 1522 we have the first sign of an attempt to patrol the four seas, four vessels were stationed between the Thames and Rye, four others between Rye and the Channel Islands, and three are assigned to the somewhat unintelligible location of between the Channel Islands and the Tweed.[289] Doubtless it was only a temporary measure, but it is important as showing that it was now understood that the Navy had a more continuous purpose than mere attack or defence in fleets.
Dockyards:—Portsmouth.
Portsmouth dockyard, with the storehouses and workshops attached to it, and said to have been situated at that portion of the present yard known as the King’s Stairs, was the only one existing in 1509. The enlargement of the Navy necessitated a corresponding increase in the accommodation for building and repairs, and naturally the first references are to Portsmouth. In the first year of the reign there are payments for ‘the breaking up of the dockhead where the Regent lay—having put the said ship afloat out of the same dock into the haven of Portsmouth—making a scaffold with great masts for the sure setting on end of her main mast,’[290] and £1175, 14s 2d was expended there on the Sovereign.[291] During the first war with France, additions were made to the establishment,[292] and from a later paper we learn that five of these were brewhouses, the Lion, Rose, Dragon, White Hart and Anchor,[293] while some ‘reparrynge and tylinge of the houses att the dokke,’ was also executed. In other respects the town was cared for, since in 1526, 675 pieces of ordnance were on the walls and in store, and in the same year £20 was spent on repairing the dock.
In 1523, however, the existing dock must have been much enlarged in view of the charges ‘for making a dock at Portsmouth for the king’s ship royal,’ the Henry Grace à Dieu.[294] She was brought into the dock with much ceremony,
‘the same day that the King’s Ship Royal the Henry Grace à Dieu was had and brought into the dock at Portsmouth of and with gentlemen and yeomen dwelling about the country there which did their diligence and labour there in the helping of the said ship, and also with mariners and other labourers in all to the number by estimation of 1000 persons.’[295]
These assistants consumed during their arduous labours through the day eight quarters of beef, forty-two dozen loaves of bread and four tuns of beer. The method of construction was still the same as under Henry VII, as there are payments for ‘digging of clay for the stopping up of the same dock head,’ and for breaking up these solid fabrics. The next event connected with the Portsmouth yard was the purchase of nine acres of land, in 1527, at twenty shillings an acre; this ground was surrounded by a ditch and hedge with gates at intervals.[296] The dockyard however gradually sank in consideration during this reign. Woolwich and Deptford soon disputed supremacy with it, and the gradual formation of Chatham yard between 1560 and 1570 completed its decay. Its last year of importance was 1545, when the fleet collected there, and when its approaching neglect was so little anticipated that the chain across the mouth of the harbour was renewed and fresh improvements were contemplated. But from that year until the era of the Commonwealth it almost disappears from naval history.
Dockyards:—Woolwich.
Woolwich, commonly but erroneously called the Mother Dock, grew up round the Henry Grace à Dieu. The accounts[297] show various amounts expended in the hire of houses and grounds there for purposes associated with the ship, and some of these were converted into permanent purchases. One such occurred in 1518 when the king bought a wharf and houses from Nicholas Partriche, an alderman of London, for £100,[298] but the Longhouse, and perhaps others had been built in 1512. In 1546 the yard was again enlarged by the addition of docks and land belonging to Sir Edward Boughton, which were obtained by means of an exchange of property; these docks had been leased by the crown for at least seven years previously at £6, 13s 4d a year.[299]