In 1350 Edward III. and the Black Prince fought a famous naval battle off Winchelsea against a fleet of forty Spanish ships. The battle is generally known by the name of L'Espagnols-sur-Mer. Edward was victorious, though he lost his own ship, through its springing a leak when colliding with one of the Spanish vessels. The tactics of the English consisted chiefly of boarding, while the Spaniards, whose vessels were much the higher, attacked with cross-bows and heavy stones; the latter they hurled from their fighting-tops into their adversaries' ships.
From the foregoing, we can infer that the naval resources of England in the first half of the reign of Edward III. were very great. During the latter half of his reign he neglected his navy, and the French and Spaniards, in spite of all their previous losses, rapidly gained the upper hand at sea, and ravaged the English coasts. In 1372 the Spanish fleet assisting the French inflicted a severe defeat upon an inferior English squadron which had been sent to the relief of La Rochelle. This battle is memorable because it was, probably, the first sea-fight in which artillery was employed, the Spanish ships having been partly armed with the new weapon. The Venetians are usually credited with having been the first people to employ naval guns; but we do not find them using artillery against the Genoese till the year 1377.
The introduction of cannon as the armament of ships of war was the cause of several modifications in the construction of their hulls. Most of the early vessels fitted with cannon were of the galley type, the guns being mounted on the upper deck, and fired over the bulwarks, en barbette. Afterwards portholes were cut through the bulwarks. Fig. [31] represents a Venetian galley of the fourteenth century, as given by Charnock, with a single gun mounted in the bow.
Fig. 31.—Venetian galley. Fourteenth century.
The new form of armament of ships involved a considerable raising of the height of side, and in order to counteract the effect of the high topside, carrying the weight of guns aloft, the beam of the vessel relatively to its length had to be much increased. The Venetians were, however, afraid to make the transverse section wide throughout, lest the weight of the guns near the sides of the vessel should cause the connection of the sides with the beams to strain; hence they gave the sides considerable "tumble home," or fall inboard, as represented by Fig. [32], which shows the cross-section of a Venetian galleon. It will be noticed that the width of the upper deck is only about half that of the greatest beam. This practice was afterwards carried to an absurd extent by the Venetians and their imitators, even in cases where guns were not carried aloft, as may be seen from the sketch of a galleon given in Fig. [33]. Hence it is evident that the introduction of ordnance on board ship accounted for a complete revolution in the proportions of hulls hitherto in vogue. The rig of ships also underwent a considerable development about this period. The old single mast of the galley was supplemented by two and in some cases by three others. The sails were still square sails carried on spars, and the practice of reefing the sails to the spars aloft, instead of lowering spars and sails together on deck, had now become common.
Fig. 32.—Cross-section of a Venetian galleon.