Two other third-rates, the Mercury and Spy, were built in 1620 by Phineas Pett—who went as captain of one of them—for some London merchants to go with the Algiers fleet. By a warrant of August 1622 they were ordered to be taken into the Navy, but their names do not appear in any list of James or Charles.
Of the nineteen vessels added to the Navy during Mansell’s term of office two were commenced before his appointment, one was bought, two of the five new ones were mere pinnaces, and of the remainder most were very expensive repairs rather than rebuildings.
The New Ships.
In 1603 James had resolved to have three ships built, but the Nonsuch and Assurance, both ordered before his accession, were the only quasi new ones. Although no real accessions were made for some years James took sufficient pride in his fleet to be eager to show it to visitors; in 1606 he ordered all the available vessels ‘to be rigged and put in warlike order’ preparatory to a visit from himself and the King of Denmark, which took place in August. In 1610 the Prince of Brunswick came to see the Navy. In 1608 the Ark Royal, Nottingham’s flagship in 1588, was rebuilt, and her name which should have lived in popular memory with that of the Golden Hind, changed to the Anne Royal, in honour of the commonplace Queen. She was rechristened by Sir Oliver Cromwell. The Swiftsure, rebuilt and renamed the Speedwell, is noteworthy as being the first important English man-of-war lost by misadventure at sea since the Mary Rose foundered in 1545. She went ashore near Flushing in November 1624, a mischance that her captain—Chudleigh—attributed to a drunken pilot.[906] He, at any rate, lost all control over his crew, whose discipline seems to have been quite unequal to the sudden strain of an unexpected accident. Of Mansell’s rebuildings the most striking points are the amounts spent—nearly £60,000 can be traced in the Pipe Office Accounts—and the time taken, ships being usually two, three, or four years in hand.
It was probably due to the express desire of James that on 20th October, 1608 the keel was laid of the Prince Royal of 1200 tons, the largest ship yet designed for the Navy. Under the new rules of measurement in force in 1632, she was certified as of 1035 net, and 1330 gross tonnage. Her construction was assigned to Phineas Pett, and many intrigues, reaching even the Court, centred round her. The other shipwrights were both jealous and critical, and openly expressed their disapprobation both of the material used and the manner in which it was employed. In 1609, Baker, now an old man of seventy-nine years, but still in active employment, William Bright, Edward Stevens, and some other shipwrights, with Waymouth as an unofficial expert, were ordered to report on the execution of the work. Pett did not like Waymouth, whom he describes in his autobiography as ‘great kilcow Waymouth,’ and ‘a great braggadocio, a vain and idle fellow.’ Baker, and perhaps some of the others must have been chosen on the governmental principle of setting personal enemies to inspect each other’s performances, seeing that he had not long before stated on oath that he thought both the Petts ‘simple’ and quite unfit to be entrusted with the production of a large ship.[907] Pett naturally had little love for Baker, although he had years before attempted to be friendly with the veteran, begging him not to so easily credit malicious reports, and ascribing all his knowledge of his art, ‘if I have any,’ to the elder man.[908] But the system that made it to each man’s pecuniary interest to obtain as many ships as possible to build and repair, and to exert all his personal influence to that end, converted the dockyards into nests of intrigue.
Pett was protected by Nottingham and Mansell, and ‘he is reported to be their right hand and they cannot do without him,’ said Bright, another of Pett’s competitors, and who was therefore chosen to sit in judgment upon him. Nottingham, Suffolk and Worcester were then appointed to make further inquiry, and their report being satisfactory, and therefore displeasing to Northampton, the latter desired another investigation, which the King acceded to by naming a day when he would examine the vessel and hear the conflicting evidence himself. He and Prince Henry came to Woolwich on 8th May 1609, and after a long day of scrutiny and discussion, Pett emerged triumphant from the ordeal. Time, however, was on the side of the objectors. The Prince Royal was never subjected to any serious work, but in 1621 the Commissioners wrote to Buckingham that she was then only fit for show, that she cost in the first instance, £20,000, and would require another £6000 to make her fit for service, and that she was built of decaying timber and green unseasoned stuff.[909] These were the very points on which Baker and his fellows had insisted, and on which they had been defeated in 1609. She attracted universal attention when building. The King, the Prince of Wales, Princess Elizabeth, and the French ambassador came several times to visit her when approaching completion, and ‘nobles, gentry, and citizens from all parts of the country round,’ resorted to Woolwich. An attempt to launch her was made on the 24th September 1610, the whole of the Royal family being present, but, as in the case of the Trades Increase, the dockhead was too narrow to permit her to pass. A second essay was more successful.
The Prince Royal was the first three-decker built for the English Navy.[910] She was gorgeously decorated, according to the taste of the time, with carvings and ‘curious paintings, the like of which was never in any ship before.’ She was double-planked, ‘a charge which was not formerly thought upon, and all the butt-heads were double bolted with iron bolts.’[911] There is one payment of £868 for her painting and gilding, work done by Robert Peake and Paul Isackson, the latter of whom belonged to a family for several generations employed in decorating men-of-war. The four upper strakes were ornamented with gilt and painted badges, arms and ‘mask heads,’ and the Prince’s cabin was ‘very curiously wrought with divers histories.’ Carving cost £441, and included fourteen ‘great lions’ heads for the round ports.’[912]
The Commissioners’ Improvements.
It was possibly the result of Cotton’s abortive effort in 1613 to procure a further inquiry into the administration, that several of the old ships were rebuilt about that time, but, as the Commissioners subsequently remarked, at prices that would have more than provided new ones in their stead. It was not until the Navy Commission took control in 1618 that the systematic production of new ships was commenced. It will be seen from the preceding list that from that date they carried out for five years their expressed intention of adding two ships a year to the Navy. They also made certain recommendations, to be kept in view by themselves and their successors, that embodied improvements, perhaps the result of the trenchant criticisms of the beginning of the reign.[913]
The fleet was to average thirty seagoing ships, and building was to be confined to Deptford, where two vessels could be worked upon simultaneously. The length of keel was to be treble the breadth, ‘but not to draw above sixteen feet because deeper ships are seldom good sailors,’ besides, ‘they must be somewhat snug-built, without double galleries and too lofty upperworks, which overcharge many ships and make them loom fair but not work well at sea.’ It is no reproach to the Commissioners, who could but act on the best professional advice obtainable, to have to remark that their ships were nearly as crank as their predecessors, and all required to be furred or girdled to make them at all trustworthy in a seaway; and at a later date, even the smaller stern galleries given them excited much adverse criticism.