fleet had fallen from its high estate since the reign of Edward
III., who won a battle from the French and Flemings in 1340, with

260 ships; but his vessels were all of moderate size, being
boats, yachts, and caravels, of very small tonnage. According to

the contemporary chronicles, Weymouth, Fowey, Sandwich, and
Bristol, were then of nearly almost as much importance as

London;[4] which latter city only furnished twenty-five vessels,
with 662 mariners.

The Royal Fleet began in the reign of Henry VII. Only six or
seven vessels then belonged to the King, the largest being the

Grace de Dieu, of comparatively small tonnage. The custom then
was, to hire ships from the Venetians, the Genoese, the Hanse

towns, and other trading people; and as soon as the service for
which the vessels so hired was performed, they were dismissed.

When Henry VIII. ascended the throne in 1509, he directed his
attention to the state of the navy. Although the insular

position of England was calculated to stimulate the art of
shipbuilding more than in most continental countries, our best

ships long continued to be built by foreigners. Henry invited
from abroad, especially from Italy, where the art of shipbuilding

had made the greatest progress, as many skilful artists and
workmen as he could procure, either by the hope of gain, or the

high honours and distinguishedcountenance which he paid them.
"By incorporating," says Charnock, "these useful persons among

his own subjects, he soon formed a corps sufficient to rival
those states which had rendered themselves most distinguished by

their knowledge in this art; so that the fame of Genoa and
Venice, which had long excited the envy of the greater part of

Europe, became suddenly transferred to the shores of Britain."[5]
In fitting out his fleet, we find Henry disbursing large sums to

foreigners for shipbuilding, for "harness" or armour, and for
munitions of all sorts. The State Papers[6] particularize the

amounts paid to Lewez de la Fava for "harness;" to William Gurre,
"bregandy-maker;" and to Leonard Friscobald for "almayn ryvetts."

Francis de Errona, a Spaniard, supplied the gunpowder. Among the
foreign mechanics and artizans employed were Hans Popenruyter,

gunfounder of Mechlin; Robert Sakfeld, Robert Skorer, Fortuno de
Catalenago, and John Cavelcant. On one occasion 2,797L. 19s. 4

1/2d. was disbursed for guns and grindstones. This sum must be
multiplied by about four, to give the proper present value.

Popenruyter seems to have been the great gunfounder of the age;
he supplied the principal guns and gun stores for the English

navy, and his name occurs in every Ordnance account of the
series, generally for sums of the largest amounts.

Henry VIII. was the first to establish Royal dockyards, first at
Woolwich, then at Portsmouth, and thirdly at Deptford, for the

erection and repair of ships. Before then, England had been
principally dependent upon Dutchmen and Venetians, both for ships

of war and merchantmen. The sovereign had neither naval arsenals
nor dockyards, nor any regular establishment of civil or naval

affairs to provide ships of war. Sir Edward Howard, Lord High
Admiral of England, at the accession of Henry VIII., actually

entered into a "contract" with that monarch to fight his enemies.
This singulardocument is still preserved in the State Paper

office. Even after the establishment of royal dockyards, the
sovereign--as late as the reign of Elizabeth--entered into formal

contracts with shipwrights for the repair and maintenance of
ships, as well as for additions to the fleet.

The King, having made his first effort at establishing a royal
navy, sent the fleet to sea against the ships of France. The

Regent was the ship royal, with Sir Thomas Knivet, Master of the
Horse, and Sir John Crew of Devonshire, as Captains. The fleet

amounted to twenty-five well furnished ships. The French fleet
were thirty-nine in number. They met in Brittany Bay, and had a

fierce fight. The Regent grappled with a great carack of Brest;
the French, on the English boarding their ship, set fire to the

gunpowder, and both ships were blown up, with all their men. The
French fleet fled, and the English kept the seas. The King,

hearing of the loss of the Regent, caused a great ship to be
built, the like of which had never before been seen in England,

and called it Harry Grace de Dieu.
This ship was constructed by foreign artizans, principally by

Italians, and was launched in 1515. She was said to be of a
thousand tons portage --the largest ship in England. The vessel

was four-masted, with two round tops on each mast, except the
shortest mizen. She had a high forecastle and poop, from which

the crew could shoot down upon the deck or waist of another
vessel. The object was to have a sort of castle at each end of

the ship. This style of shipbuilding was doubtless borrowed from
the Venetians, then the greatest naval power in Europe. The

length of the masts, the height of the ship above the water's
edge, and the ornaments and decorations, were better adapted for

the stillness of the Adriatic and Mediterranean Seas, than for
the boisterous ocean of the northern parts of Europe.[7] The

story long prevailed that "the Great Harry swept a dozen flocks
of sheep off the Isle of Man with her bob-stay." An American

gentleman (N.B. Anderson, LL.D., Boston) informed the present
author that this saying is still proverbial amongst the United

States sailors.
The same features were reproduced in merchant ships. Most of

them were suited for defence, to prevent the attacks of pirates,
which swarmed the seas round the coast at that time.

Shipbuilding by the natives in private shipyards was in a
miserable condition. Mr. Willet, in his memoirrelative to the

navy, observes: "It is said, and I believe with truth, that at
this time (the middle of the sixteenth century) there was not a

private builder between London Bridge and Gravesend, who could
lay down a ship in the mould left from a Navy Board's draught,

without applying to a tinker who lived in Knave's Acre."[8]
Another ship of some note built at the instance of Henry VIII.

was the Mary Rose, of the portage of 500 tons. We find her in
the "pond at Deptford" in 1515. Seven years later, in the

thirtieth year of Henry VIII.'s reign, she was sent to sea, with
five other English ships of war, to protect such commerce as then

existed from the depredations of the French and Scotch pirates.
The Mary Rose was sent many years later (in 1544) with the

English fleet to the coast of France, but returned with the rest
of the fleet to Portsmouth without entering into any engagement.

While laid at anchor, not far from the place where the Royal
George afterwards went down, and the ship was under repair, her

gun-ports being very low when she was laid over, "the shipp
turned, the water entered, and sodainly she sanke."

What was to be done? There were no English engineers or workmen
who could raise the ship. Accordingly, Henry VIII. sent to

Venice for assistance, and when the men arrived, Pietro de
Andreas was dispatched with the Venetian marines and carpenters

to raise the Mary Rose. Sixty English mariners were appointed to
attend upon them. The Venetians were then the skilled "heads,"

the English were only the "hands." Nevertheless they failed with
all their efforts; and it was not until the year 1836 that Mr.

Dean, the engineer, succeeded in raising not only the Royal
George, but the Mary Rose, and cleared the roadstead at

Portsmouth of the remains of the sunken ships.
When Elizabeth ascended the throne in 1558, the commerce and

navigation of England were still of very small amount. The
population of the kingdom amounted to only about five

millions--not much more than the population of London is now.
The country had little commerce, and what it had was still mostly

in the hands of foreigners. The Hanse towns had their large
entrepot for merchandise in Cannon Street, on the site of the

present Cannon Street Station. The wool was still sent abroad to