The Marie la Cordelière was probably the largest warship of her time. She is said to have carried 1,200 men, and to have lost 900 killed in the action. She was built at Morlaix at the sole cost of Anne of Brittany, then Queen of France.
Fig. 41.—The Henry Grace à Dieu. Pepysian Library, Cambridge.
The Regent was replaced by a very famous ship called the Henry Grace à Dieu, otherwise known as the Great Harry. As a consequence, most probably, of the size and force of some of the French ships, as revealed in the action off Brest, the Henry Grace à Dieu was a great advance on any previous British warship. She was built at Erith, and was probably launched in June, 1514. Her tonnage is given in a manuscript in Pepys' "Miscellanies" as 1,500; but it is generally believed that she did not in reality exceed 1,000 tons.
Fig. 42.—The Henry Grace à Dieu. After Allen.
There are more drawings than one in existence, supposed to represent this famous warship. One of them, shown in Fig. [41], is from a drawing in the Pepysian Library, in Magdalene College, Cambridge. Another, shown in Fig. [42], is from an engraving by Allen of a picture ascribed to Holbein. The two illustrations differ in many important respects and cannot both represent the same ship. There is very little doubt that Fig. [41] is the more correct representation of the two, because it is confirmed in all essential respects by Volpe's picture of the embarkation of Henry VIII. at Dover in 1520 on this very ship. Volpe's picture is now at Hampton Court Palace, and shows four other ships of the Royal Navy, which were all built in the same style as the Pepysian drawing of Fig. [41], with enormous forecastles and poops. The vessel represented in the picture ascribed to Holbein appears to belong to a later date than 1520, and is, in fact, transitional between the ships of this period and those of the reign of Elizabeth. One of the warships of the latter period is shown in Fig. [45].
According to a manuscript, in the Pepysian Collection, the Henry Grace à Dieu was armed with twenty-one guns and a multitude of smaller pieces. The numbers of the various guns and the weights of their shot are given in the following table:—