Naval Expenditure.
The only accounts of the Navy Treasurer which have survived for this reign are from 25th December 1546 to 25th December 1547, and from 29th September 1548 to 24th October 1551.[459] During the first period his expenses were nearly £41,000, of which sea-charges (wages) were £6926, Deptford £18,824, Woolwich £3439, Gillingham £4167, Harwich £1631, Colne £484, and Portsmouth £1211. It will be noticed that there are heavy payments in relation to Gillingham nearly three years before the action of the Council, in 1550. There is no obvious explanation of this; the body of the account does not show what particular work was carried on there but it may have been done by way of experiment. In the second period the Treasurer received £65,809 and spent £66,250. Of this sum sea-charges were £14,400, press and conduct money £2900, Deptford £30,300, Woolwich £2054, Gillingham £6600, and Portsmouth £1157. Edward VI inherited his father’s interest in maritime affairs and appears to have been continually at Deptford. There is a charge of £88, 6s 2d for paving ‘the street,’ presumably the High Street, which was ‘so noysome and full of fylth that the Kynges Maiestie myght not pass to and fro to se the buylding of his Highnes shippes.’[460] Deptford, it is seen, was now the leading dockyard, a position it retained for the remainder of the century.
All such improvements as seemed beneficial were adopted that the service might be rendered more efficient. A warrant for £70, 11s was issued to pay for ‘bringing over certain Bretons to teach men here the art of making polldavies.’ From another document we find that two of these Bretons were attached to Deptford. Lead sheathing was newly applied to English ships in 1553, but had been since 1514 in use in the Spanish marine.[461]
There can be little doubt that Henry VIII had intended the formation of a Victualling Department, and that the Council only executed a set purpose already fully discussed and resolved upon. To a man with Henry’s clear perception of the needs of the growing Navy, and his liking for systematic and responsible management, the haphazard method of a dozen agents acting independently and uncontrolled by any central authority, must have been peculiarly hateful. Edward Baeshe who, until 1547, had been merely one of the many agents employed, was chosen in that year to act with Richard Wattes, the two being appointed ‘surveyors of victuals within the city of London,’ with power to press workmen, seamen, and ships, and with a general superintendence over their local subordinates. They supplied not only the fleet but the troops acting against Scotland. This was a tentative movement onwards, but by Letters Patent of 28th June 1550, Baeshe alone was appointed ‘General Surveyor of the Victuals for the Seas,’ with a fee of £50 a year, three shillings and fourpence a day for travelling expenses, and two shillings a day for clerks. Provisions were obtained by exercising the crown prerogative of purveyance, and the money required was received from the Treasurer of the Navy and included in his estimates, although Baeshe also kept separate accounts which were examined and signed by not less than two of the Admiralty officers. Between 1st July 1547, and 29th September 1552, £51,500 passed through his hands and his inferior officers were acting under his directions wheresoever ships were stationed.
Admiralty Officers.
Death and other accidents soon altered the arrangement of the Navy Board as appointed by Henry VIII. Robert Legge, the first Treasurer by patent, died some time in 1548, and his accounts determined on 29th September. He was succeeded by Benjamin Gonson, although Gonson’s Letters Patent bear the date of 8th July 1549. William Wynter, son of John Wynter the first Treasurer, and who was making a name as a seaman, succeeded Gonson as Surveyor by Letters Patent of the same date. William Holstock, formerly an unclassified assistant, became keeper of the storehouses at Deptford by patent of 25th June 1549, at a salary of £26, 13s 4d a year and £6 for boat hire. Sir William Woodhouse, originally Master of the Ordnance of the Navy, succeeded Sir Thomas Clere as Lieutenant of the Admiralty by a patent of 16th December 1552, and on the same day Thomas Windham replaced Woodhouse as Master of the Ordnance of the Navy. From the date of the institution of the Admiralty the post of Lord Admiral, hitherto one of dignity and occasional high command, became an office necessitating work of a more everyday character. Although there is no precise order bearing on the subject it is evident that its holder was at the head of the Board and decided questions referred to him by the inferior officers. Thomas, Lord Seymour of Sudeley, was appointed on 17th February 1547, and was beheaded on 20th March 1549. John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, who, under his earlier title of Lord Lisle had held the post under Henry VIII was again nominated for a short time from 28th October 1549, but from 4th May 1550 Edward, Lord Clynton, became High Admiral.
Piracy and Privateering.
Strangely as it may read, there was for the moment a direct connection between this great office of the crown and piracy, for Lord Seymour was implicated in several nefarious transactions of the kind. But the government itself, while publicly denouncing pirates and equipping ships to apprehend them, was secretly encouraging acts which were only to be faintly distinguished from open robbery. In August 1548 certain vessels were sent out against the Scots and pirates, but private instructions were given to the captains that, because we were on very doubtful terms with France, they were to seize French ships, ‘saying to them that they have been spoyled before by frenchemenne and could have no justice, or pretending that the victualles or thinges of munition found in any such frenche shippes weare sent to ayde the Scottes or such lyk.’[462] It is true that if peace continued all such cargoes were to be restored and the captors’ expenses discharged by the government, but in face of such teaching it cannot be a matter for surprise that the generality of owners and captains bettered their instructions and failed to draw the line at the exact point marked for them. One of the articles against Seymour at his trial included accusations that goods taken by pirates were seen in his house and distributed among his friends; that when plunder had been recaptured from the freebooters the captors were sent to prison, and that pirates taken and committed to prison were set free. As a rule the charges made in an indictment of a fallen minister require to be very closely scanned, but for these there is a good deal of corroborative evidence. As early as 20th September 1546, the Council were hearing the complaint of ‘oon that sueth against a servant of Sir Thomas Semars for a pyracie.’ After his death the Council awarded £40 to a Frenchman in compensation for losses sustained through ‘the ministres of Lord Seymour.’[463] There is a distinct statement that when pressed for money after the death of his wife, the Dowager Queen, he was, among other things, in partnership with many pirates and received half the booty.[464] Although some of the details of the complaints made against him may be inexact there can be no doubt that the charges as a whole were well founded, and it is significant that the Council dealt with the trouble more successfully after his execution.
In view of the proceedings of the government and the Lord Admiral, it is not surprising that piracy advanced in popularity. Ships, either of the Navy or hired, were being continually sent to sea to keep order; sometimes the latter joined in the business themselves[465] and the former often gave but half-hearted service. As many of the company of a man-of-war might, a month before, have been members of a pirate’s crew, and perhaps expected at their discharge to again tread a rover’s deck, no great ardour was to be expected from them. At times they seem to have been unable even to wait for their discharge. When Tyrrel and Holstock were serving in the Channel, their men, when they boarded foreigners for inquiry, robbed them of property and provisions.[466] The superior officers had to be spurred on to their duty. On one occasion it was necessary to order the Admiral commanding in the Channel to attend to his business, ‘and not lye in the haven at Dover idlye as the Navye doth.’[467] When a leader of the fraternity was caught, the haul usually proved expensive and useless, as he was speedily free again; £300 was granted to the captors of Cole, a well-known name about this time, but Cole is soon found to be at work once more. Strangeways who later died in Elizabeth’s service at Havre, Thomson, and Thomas and Peter Killigrew were others whose names were too familiar to the Council. English, Irish, and Scotch pirates swarmed in the narrow seas, a fleet of twenty sail were on the Irish coast, and the Scotch seem to have been particularly active.
These adventurers, whether licensed or unlicensed, were usually gallant enough and thought little about odds. A privateer of 95 tons and 28 officers and men fell in with a fleet of 27 Normans and Bretons returning from Scotland where they had served for six months. Nothing daunted, ‘althugh our powr were litle yet as pore men desyrus to do our dewtye,’ they closed with one and drove it ashore where they left it ‘rolling uppon the terrabile waves,’ then drove two others ashore and captured a fourth. The French fleet carried 120 guns and 1100 men.[468] The incident is remarkable as showing the careless indifference, born of centuries of struggle with the sea and the enemies it carried, with which our seamen regarded superior strength, long before the outburst of successful piracy on a large scale, which is supposed to have taught them their peculiar faculty.