CONTENTS

PAGE
List of Illustrations[viij]
Preface[ix]
Introduction—The Navy before 1509[1]
Henry VIII, 1509-1547[45]
Edward VI, 1547-1553[100]
Mary and Philip and Mary, 1553-1558[109]
Elizabeth, 1558-1603[115]
James I, 1603-1625[184]
Charles I, 1625-1649, Part I—The Seamen[216]
—— Part II—Royal and Merchant Shipping[251]
—— Part III—The Administration[279]
The Commonwealth, 1649-1660[302]
Appendix A—Inventory of the Henry Grace à Dieu[372]
—— B—The Mutiny of the Golden Lion[382]
—— C—Sir John Hawkyns[392]
—— D—A Privateer of 1592[398]
Index[401]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE
The Tiger (of Henry VIII). Hand-coloured in facsimile of a portion of the original MS. in the British Museum, (Add. MSS., 22047)[Frontispiece]
Wyard’s Medal, 1650. From one of the four Remaining Medals (British Museum)[Title Page]
The Seal of the Navy Office[xiij]
An Elizabethan Man-of-War. From a contemporary Drawing in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, (Rawlinson MSS., A 192, 20)[130]
The Medway Anchorage (temp. Elizabeth). Hand-coloured in facsimile of a portion of the Original MS. in the British Museum, (Cott. MSS., Aug. I, i, 52)[150]

PREFACE

Of the following pages the Introduction and the portion dealing with the period 1509-1558 are entirely new. The remainder originally appeared in the English Historical Review, but the Elizabethan section has been rewritten and much enlarged in the light of fresh material found since it was first printed, and many additions and alterations have been made to the other papers. Of the four Appendices three are new.

Sixteen years ago the doyen of our English naval historians, Professor J. K. Laughton, wrote,

‘Every one knows that according to the Act of Parliament, it is on the Navy that “under the good providence of God, the wealth, safety, and strength of the kingdom chiefly depend,” but there are probably few who have realised the full meaning of that grave sentence.’[1]