It would be of great interest to know exactly the motives moving Henry to the formation of—to use a later name—the Navy Board. Beyond discontent with the administration in 1545, the accessions of 1546 suggest that it was his intention to still further strengthen the Navy, and experience had doubtless shown that the old organisation was too inelastic for more than a limited number of ships acting within a restricted sphere. Hitherto fleets had carried troops, landed them, and returned home; or gone to sea, fought the enemy, and returned home; but now the era of long cruises was commencing, and the transition necessarily involved additional administrative work with which the clerk of the ships or the comptroller could not alone cope. Another subject of inquiry is the model on which the board was formed. It was not derived from any foreign power, for the organisation was then, and long afterwards, superior to and unlike, anything existing abroad. The similarity of many of the titles and of their corresponding duties suggests that it was copied from the constitution of the Ordnance Office, which Henry had also remoulded to suit the altered conditions of warfare. The Lieutenant of the Admiralty, acting under the Admiral of England, as the Lieutenant of the Ordnance acted under the Master General, was intended to be the most important member of the board. But after the death of Clere’s successor, Sir William Woodhouse, the post was not filled up and the Treasurership exercised by an expert official like Benjamin Gonson, or a great seaman like Hawkyns, speedily became the chief administrative office. Another cause of the Treasurer’s ascendancy is to be found in the fact that he had to be a man of some capital, able and willing to advance money to the crown. He was to have allowance for all moneys laid out if his books were signed ‘by two or three’ of the other officers.[384] Originally this may only have been intended to apply to all moneys received from the Exchequer and expended by him, but the yearly accounts show that it soon became a normal condition for the crown to be indebted to him for advances.
Two other officers found their positions altered by the new development. The Lord Admiral had been till now only a combatant officer; from this date he interfered more or less frequently and directly in matters of administration for which he was nominally responsible. But while the members of the Navy Board were men of weight and reputation his action mainly took the course of agreeing with the advice given him. Under the new arrangement the Clerk of the Ships became a very subordinate officer. More than a century later Pepys claimed that the clerk possessed from former times a consultative and equal voice with the other officers. It would be difficult to disprove it, and it is true that the signature of the clerk appears sometimes—but only sometimes—attached to documents with those of his colleagues. In 1600, however, his duties are distinctly said to be confined to registering the resolutions of the board generally.[385] At especially busy periods he shared the active work of superintendence but ordinarily only the Treasurer, Comptroller, and Surveyor, are found to be exercising authority, and the gradual alteration of his title from Clerk of the Ships to Clerk of the Acts is itself a sign that his functions had become purely secretarial.
Hired Ships.
Besides English vessels, Henry hired Spanish during the earlier years of his reign and Hanseatic during the later ones, England being on much more friendly terms with Spain in 1509 than in 1547. One or two ‘Arragoseys,’ i.e. Ragusans were in pay, that republic being a maritime power of some importance in the fifteenth century. The English ships taken up for the crown were mostly employed as victuallers and tenders, and were therefore not required to be large and do not afford any measure of the magnitude of the merchant navy. In April 1513 there were thirty-nine impressed of 2039 tons, and of these the largest was 140 tons; twenty-eight of them were serving as victuallers, one being usually attached to each of the largest men-of-war.[386] The rate of hire was one shilling a ton per month, for both victuallers and fighting ships, and the wages, victualling, and dead shares were the same as on king’s ships; jackets were frequently provided for the crews as for men-of-war’s men. Another account gives a list of twenty-two English vessels of 3040 tons, and six Spanish of 1650 tons as having served.[387] The Spaniards were manned by 289 Spanish and 181 English seamen, with 869 English soldiers and a majority of English officers. Henry had to pay a hiring rate of fifteenpence a ton for them, and 7s 1d a month to Spanish seamen, 4s 9d to gromets, and 2s 5d to pages, while the dead shares allotted to the foreigners were at six shillings each instead of the five shillings of the Englishmen. The difference of pay must have caused a great deal of jealousy but the king’s attempts to obtain Spaniards at the standard rate had failed.[388] The Mary of Bilboa was taken up at fifteenpence-farthing and a half-farthing a month, terms which imply a good deal of higgling.[389] In 1514 there were twenty-one hired fighting ships and fifteen victuallers engaged. The former measured 2770 tons, and included one of 300, one of 240, one of 200, and three of 160 tons.[390]
In 1544 twenty-two foreign ships, now mostly Hanseatic, of 1465 tons were still obtaining fifteenpence a ton, and 379 men in them seven shillings and sixpence a month, while the English pay remained at five shillings, and thirty-five hired English vessels received their one shilling a ton.[391] In the same year the expedition against Scotland required 117 transports of which London furnished 6, Calais 2, Amsterdam 1, Dordrecht 1, Antwerp 4, Hamburg 5, Lubeck 2, Ipswich 31, Yarmouth 31, Newcastle 6, Hull 6, and Lynn 4.[392] English owners did not show themselves eager to send their ships to join the royal fleet and it was necessary to issue a circular letter in August 1545, to the mayors of the various ports which ran:—
‘Fforasmuch as I understand that dyvers and many of the adventurers that are appointed for Portsmouth ... do slacke and drawe back from the same being rather gyven to spoyle and robberye than otherwise to serve His Maiestie and making ther excuses for lack of necessaries do showe themselves not wyllynge to serve the kyng’s Maiestie according to their diewties’
they were ordered to go to Portsmouth immediately on pain of death.[393] Their disinclination to be shackled by the discipline of a fleet can be understood when we find Lisle writing to Paget that ‘nother Spanyard, Portugell, nor Flemynge that cometh from by south but they be spoylid and robbid by our venturers.’ The successful privateering of 1544, when 300 French prizes were taken,[394] was assuredly joyously remembered and similar good fortune hoped for. If there is no exaggeration in Stow’s account the event is remarkable as the first instance of our sweeping the Channel on an outbreak of war, and signifies the steady growth of a marine able to perform the work.
The Merchant Navy.
The materials for an estimate of the strength of the merchant navy are scanty, but we find in this reign a commencement of the plan largely extended under Elizabeth, of obtaining returns of the vessels belonging to various ports. Henry, moreover, followed the example of his father in granting a bounty on large ships. In 1520 an allowance of four shillings a ton was ordered on the customs due for the first voyage of the Bonaventure of London of 220 tons; in 1522 five shillings a ton on the Antony of Bristol, of 400 tons, because she was good for trading purposes and ‘also to doo unto us service in warre.’[395] The wording of the warrant rather implies, however, that the Antony was a purchase from a foreign owner. In 1521 four shillings a ton was paid on the John Baptist of Lynn of 200 tons, and in 1530 five shillings a ton on the John Evangelist of Topsham of 110 tons. If there was any rule regulating the apportionment of the bounty it is impossible to define it now. In 1544 there is a payment of five shillings a ton on the Mary James of Bristol of 160 tons ‘to corage othre our subgetts to like makyng of shippes.’[396] There were doubtless many more similar grants but which were not issued in a form which ensured their survival in the records.
In 1513 Bristol had nine vessels of 100 tons and upwards ready to join the royal fleet. Of these one was of 186 tons, one of 120, one of 130, three of 110 and three of 100 tons.[397] It is significant of the little reliance that can be placed on statements of tonnage that, in another paper, the one of 186 tons is given as of 160, one of 110 as 140 and the one of 120 as of 100. In the case of merchantmen the discrepancies may perhaps be attributed to the fact that it was to the interest of the owner of a hired merchantman to measure his ship at as high a tonnage as possible, as he was paid by the ton, while the navy authorities acting in the interest of the crown desired to rate it as low as they could. In the case of men-of-war the tonnage, unless they had actually performed a trading voyage and stowed goods, could only have been by estimate, which would explain a difference of 100 or 150 tons in the supposed measurement of a large ship.