Decoration of Ships.
Philip’s ambassador told him in 1569 that ‘they expect to be able to repel any attack by means of their fleet,’ and this confidence found natural expression in an inclination to decorate and adorn the weapons on which they relied. At any rate we now find specific payments for these purposes made with a frequency new in naval history. The ‘carving of personages in timber,’ and painting and colouring of ships in 1563 cost £121, 13s 8d and ‘painting and colouring red the great new ship called the White Bear‘[603] £20. Three ‘great personages in wood for the garnishing and setting forth’ of the same vessel were £1, 15s each. The upper works of the Bonaventure were painted black and white,[604] and the Lion in ‘timber colour;’ as the White Bear was red, and the Revenge and Scout, green and white there was evidently no regulation colour. The Bonaventure had a dragon on her beakhead, the royal arms on her stern, and two lions and two dragons in gilt and paint on her galleries. The Foresight carried the Queen’s arms, a rose and a fleur de lis, on her stern, and in 1579 £2, 13s 4d was paid for carving a Saturn and a Salamander for the Swallow. Figure heads were usual. The Nonpareil, Adventure, Dreadnought and Hope, had a dragon; the Charles, Defiance, Rainbow, Repulse and Garland a lion; the Mary Rose, a unicorn, and the Swiftsure a tiger. When the White Bear was rebuilt the carvings included,
‘an image of Jupiter sitting uppon an eagle with the cloudes, before the heade of the shippe xiˡⁱ; twoe sidebordes for the heade with compartments and badges and fruitages xˡⁱ; the traynebord[605] with compartments and badges of both sides viiˡⁱ; xvi brackets going round about the heade at xiiˢ the pece; xxxviii peces of spoyle or artillarie round about the shippe at xivˢ the pece; the greate pece of Neptune and the Nymphes about him for the uprighte of the Sterne viˡⁱ xˢ.’[606]
The whole cost of carving was here £172, and of painting and gilding £205, 10s, but these appear to have been exceptional amounts. Painting the Bonaventure cost £23, 6s 8d, the Dreadnought £20, the Vanguard £30, and the Merhonour £40, and these sums more nearly represented the ordinary expenditure. On the Elizabeth however £180 was spent in 1598 for
‘newe payntinge and guildinge with fine gold her beake heade on both sides with Her Maiesties whole armes and supporters, for payntinge the forecastle, the cubbridge heades[607] on the wast, the outsides from stemme to sterne, for like payntinge and newe guildinge of both the galleries with Her Maiesties armes and supporters on both sides, the sterne newe paynted with divers devices and beastes guilte with fine gold; for newe payntinge the captens cabbon, the somer decke[608] as well overhead as on the sides, the barbycan, the dyninge roome and the studdie.’[609]
The Rainbow’s lion figure head was gilt and on her sides were ‘planets, rainbows, and clouds’ with the royal arms on the upper, middle, and lower counter, but the whole charge was only £58, 6s. Cabins were painted and upholstered in the favourite Tudor colour of green and ‘Her Maiesties badge’ was painted in green and red. The White Bear and the Elizabeth are the only two instances in which comparatively large sums are found to be spent in ornament, and it does not appear that there was as yet more than a bent towards general embellishment. The smaller vessels are never mentioned in this connexion. The opinion of a contemporary was that, both for work and appearance,
‘our navy is such as wanteth neither goodly, great, nor beautiful ships who of mould are so clean made beneath, of proportion so fine above, of sail so swift, the ports, fights, coines, in them so well devised, with the ordnance so well placed, that none of any other region may seem comparable unto them.’[610]
Tonnage Measurement.