In 1512 the cost of provisioning each man stood at one shilling and threepence a week. There were some complaints that year, but in 1513 Sir Edward Howard, like many a later admiral, was begging earnestly for stores, ‘let provision be made, for it is a well spent penny that saveth the pound.’ A captain, William Gonson, finding that he was running short, wrote to the Council that unless he received fresh supplies for his men, ‘I cannot keep them in order, for if we lack victuals and wages at anytime as well Spaniards as Englishmen shall murmur.’ That also was an experience many later captains were to find commonplace. Most of the victualling difficulties in subsequent reigns were due to want of money or to absolute knavery, but the embarrassments at this date seem to have been as much caused by lack of organisation due to want of experience in the supply of large fleets longer at sea than formerly. There is, however, a letter of Howard’s, belonging to 1512 or 1513, which shows that roguery was already at work: ‘they that receved ther proportion for ii monthes flesche cannot bryng about for v weekes for the barelles be full of salt, and when the peecis kepith the noumbre wher they shulde be peny peces they be scante halfpeny peces, and wher ii peces shulde make a messe iii will do but serve.’[362] Short measure was therefore a frequent experience. In April 1513 a convoy reached the fleet off Brest just in time, ‘for of ten days before there was no man in all the army that had but one meal a day and one drink.’ After Howard’s death, when the captains of the fleet returned to Dartmouth, and they were asked why they had come back, ‘they all replied for default of victuals not having three days allowance.’[363] The pursers, a class who move through naval history loaded with the maledictions of many generations of seamen, were already condemned. It is doubtless in connection with the return of the fleet that two officials wrote on the same day, ‘I fear that the pursers will deserve hanging for this matter,’ and ‘an outrageous lack on the part of the pursers.’[364] It may have been the experiences of 1512 and 1513 that led to an order in September of the latter year, of which there is no previous example that the vessels named for winter service should be provisioned for two months at the time.[365] They were directed ‘to victual at Sandwich from two months to two months during four months.’ Although the regulation remained in force, Surrey complained in 1522 that some of his ships had only supplies for eight days instead of two months.[366] In 1545 the French were said to carry two months’ stores.[367]

Victualling stores and requisites were obtained by purveyance, and there was not consequently much eagerness displayed to sell to the crown. There is a proclamation of 1522 ordering, under penalty of £5, every one possessing casks to put them out of doors that the King’s purveyor might take them at ‘a reasonable price,’ one, that is to say, to be fixed by him. The prices paid for provisions, are, therefore, no absolute indication of the market rates, but the following are some for this period.[368]

Biscuit(1512)3s 6d and 5s a cwt.
Do.(1554)7s 6d a cwt.
Salt beef(1512)£1, 11s a pipe
Do.(1544)£3, 12s a pipe
Beer(1512)13s 4d a tun
Do.(1547)16s and 21s a tun
Red Herring(1513)5s the cade
Do.(1547)9s 6d and 11s the cade
White Herring(1513)10s a barrel
Do.(1547)21s a barrel

By 1545 the rate had run up to eighteenpence a week per man, or perhaps more,[369] and two months’ provisions were estimated to occupy 83 tons of space in 100 ton ship with a complement of 200 soldiers and sailors. A pound of biscuit and a gallon of beer a day were allowed to each man, and ‘200 pieces of flesh’ to every hundred men on four days of the week. Beer was the recognised right of the sailor, and the exigencies of warfare had to yield to his prerogative. After Surrey captured Morlaix in 1522, he announced his intention of going on a cruise and of not returning ‘as long as we have any beer, though in return we should drink water.’[370] Evidently it was considered out of the question to remain at sea without beer, and again when Lisle was off the French coast in 1545 he gave pointed expression to the fear that if the victuallers did not arrive ‘a good meynye of this fleet may happen to drynck water.’ The payments for provisions from September 1542 until the death of Henry in January 1547, amounted to £65,610 10s 4½d,[371] and we can still trace the proceedings of the various agents at Sandwich, Lowestoft, Portsmouth, Yarmouth, and Southampton. ‘Necessary money,’ an allowance to the pursers for candles, wood, etc., was in operation according to the ‘old ordinance’ at the rate of twopence a man per month.[372]

The new Administration.

The increase in the navy and the additional work caused by the mobilisation of fleets necessitated an augmentation from the first on the administrative side of the department though no systematic and permanent change was made until the close of the reign. Brygandine remained clerk of the ships till about 1523; in that year he was granted a release—a customary proceeding—for all embezzlements or misdemeanours committed while in office, and this probably means that he resigned then or shortly afterwards.[373] But although he had been the chief administrative officer, he was now by no means the only one even during his term of service, though it is not easy to define the exact duties and responsibilities of his associates. The fleets of 1513-14 carried a ‘Treasurer of the Army by Sea,’ in the person of Sir Thomas Wyndham,[374] who was also allowed one shilling and fourpence a day for two clerks, and Brygandine had nothing to do with payments made for stores or wages in these ships.

In 1513 John Hopton, a gentleman usher of the chamber was given charge of the fleet conveying troops to Calais,[375] and from that time until his death Hopton was closely connected with naval affairs. In 1514 he was made keeper of the storehouses at Erith and Deptford, with a fee of one shilling a day, and as such received under his charge the fittings of the ships dismantled and laid up that year; it has been noticed that he contracted for the work required for the formation or enlargement of the pond at Deptford in 1517. He was an owner of ships and sold at least one to the king, and, in the same year, he is called ‘clerk comptroller of the ships.’ His duties must have been mainly clerical and financial, for we have many separate series of payments made by him to Brygandine who seems to have retained the active direction of executive work, and certain passages in the records known as the Chapter House Books, seem to imply that they were written under his supervision. Hopton held a definite appointment, but there are others mentioned as employed in purchasing stores, travelling for certain purposes, or in charge of ordnance taken out of the ships, who can only have held temporary and subordinate situations. There were sometimes local clerks of the ships, as at Portsmouth when Thomas Spert was given ‘the rule of all the forsaid ships, maisters, and maryners with the advise of Brygandine.’[376] Here, however, the whole control was really in the hands of the customers of Southampton who were ordered to provide the money requisite, muster the men once a week, and exercise a general oversight. Again, in 1529, Edmund More, of whom nothing is known beyond this single reference, was acting as clerk of the ships at Portsmouth. When there was only one naval centre the clerk of the ships resided there, but after the foundation of Woolwich and Deptford his place was in London, and the local clerk represented the later Commissioner in charge of a dockyard.

Hopton died in or before July 1526,[377] and had been succeeded from 1524 by William Gonson, also a gentleman usher of the king’s chamber, as keeper of the storehouses at Erith and Deptford.[378] Although in 1523 Thomas Jermyn was the recognised Clerk of the Ships,[379] and in 1533 Leonard Thoreton,[380] Gonson, who also commanded ships at sea, soon became the dominant official. He is found equipping men-of-war, directing their movements and making payments for wages, victualling, and the purchase of necessaries, but notwithstanding the extent of his authority he does not seem to have held any titular rank. In 1538 Sir Thomas Spert was Clerk of the Ships,[381] but appears to have had very little to do unless Gonson happened to be suffering from gout. Spert was followed by Edmund Water, another gentleman usher of the chamber, who held his office by patent, neither Jermyn, Thoreton nor Spert acted under Letters Patent, and in the absence of an enrolled appointment, they were doubtless considered merely acting officials.

Large payments to Gonson can be traced down to 1545. Then for the first time we have the titles of ‘Treasurer of the See,’ ‘Paymaster of the See,’ and ‘Treasurer of the See Maryne Causes’[382] as describing John Winter, who, however, died in less than a year. It was possibly the loss of William Gonson’s practised experience, and dissatisfaction with his successors, which helped to move Henry to make in 1546, the most important change in naval administration that had yet occurred. In one day the naval organisation was revolutionised. By Letters Patent of the 24th April 1546, Sir Thomas Clere was constituted Lieutenant of the Admiralty, with a fee of £100 a year, ten shillings a day for travelling expenses when engaged on the business of his office, £10 a year for boat hire and twentypence a day for two clerks; Robert Legge, ‘Treasourer of our maryne causes’ with 100 marks a year, six shillings and eightpence a day for travelling expenses, eight pounds a year for boat hire, and sixteenpence a day for two clerks; William Broke, ‘Comptroller of all our shippes,’ with £50 a year, four shillings a day for travelling expenses, eight pounds for boat hire, and sixteenpence a day for two clerks; Benjamin Gonson,[383] ‘Surveyor of all our shippes,’ with £40 a year, the same travelling allowance and boat hire as the comptroller, but only eightpence a day for one clerk; Richard Howlett, Clerk of the Ships, with £33, 6s 8d a year, three shillings and fourpence a day travelling expenses, and six pounds for boat hire. William Holstock and Thomas Morley were granted annuities of one shilling a day without specific duties, but they were both employed in assisting the other officers. All these fees were paid from the Exchequer. By another patent of the same day, the supply of guns, powder, and other ordnance necessaries for the Navy was placed under the direction of Sir William Woodhouse, called ‘Master of the Ordnance of the ships,’ at a fee of 100 marks a year, six shillings and eightpence a day travelling expenses, eight pounds a year for boat hire, and two shillings and fourpence a day for three clerks. The stores were still kept at the central office in the Tower, and became separate from, if subordinate to, the old Ordnance Office, remaining so until 1589.