Flag and Fleet: How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas. William Wood
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[Illustration: WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR'S TRANSPORTS]
The Normans at last gave England what none of her other Norsemen gave her, the power of becoming the head and heart of the future British Empire. The Celts, Danes, Jutes, and Anglo-Saxons had been fusing together the iron of their natures to make one strong, united British race. The Normans changed this iron into steel: well tempered, stronger than iron could be, and splendidly fit for all the great work of imperial statesmen as well as for that of warriors by land and sea.
The Normans were not so great in numbers. But they were very great in leadership. They were a race of rulers. Picked men of Nordic stock to start with, they had learnt the best that France could teach them: Roman law and order and the art of founding empires, Frankish love of freedom, a touch of Celtic wit, and the new French civilization. They went all over seaboard Europe, conquerors and leaders wherever they went. But nowhere did they set their mark so firmly and so lastingly as in the British Isles. They not only conquered and became leaders among their fellow-Norsemen but they went through most of Celtic Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, founding many a family whose descendants have helped to make the Empire what it is.
William the Conqueror built a fleet as soon as he could; for only a few of the vessels he brought over from Normandy were of any use as men-of-war. But there were no great battles on the water till the one off the South Foreland more than a century after his death. He and the kings after him always had to keep their weather eye open for Danes and other rovers of the sea as well as for the navy of the kings of France. But, except when Henry II went to Ireland in 1171, there was no great expedition requiring a large fleet. Strongbow and other ambitious nobles had then begun conquering parts of Ireland on their own account. So Henry recalled his Englishmen, lest they should go too far without him, and held a court at which they promised to give him, as their liege overlord, all the conquests they either had made or might make. Henry, who understood the value of sea-power, at once granted them whatever they could conquer, except the seaports, which he would keep for the Crown.
When Henry died Richard the Lion-Hearted and Philip Augustus of France agreed to join in a great Crusade. Zeal for the Christian religion and love of adventure together drew vast numbers of Crusaders to the Holy Land. But sea-power also had a great deal to do with the Crusades. The Saracens, already strong at sea in the East, were growing so much stronger that Western statesmen thought it high time to check them, lest their fleets should command the whole Mediterranean and perhaps the seas beyond.
In 1190 Richard joined his fleet at Messina, in Sicily, where roving Normans were of course to be found as leaders in peace and war. Vinesauf the historian, who was what we should now call a war correspondent, wrote a glowing account of the scene. "As soon as the people heard of his arrival they rushed in crowds to the shore to behold the glorious King of England, and saw the sea covered with innumerable galleys. And the sound of trumpets from afar, with the sharper blasts of clarions, resounded in their ears. And they saw the galleys rowing near the land, adorned and furnished with all kinds of arms, with countless pennons floating in the breeze, ensigns at the tops of lances, the beaks of the galleys beautified by painting, and glittering shields hanging from the prows. The sea looked as if it was boiling from the vast number of oar blades in it. The trumpets grew almost deafening. And each arrival was greeted with bursts of cheering. Then our splendid King stood up on a prow higher than all the rest, with a gorgeously dressed staff of warriors about him, and surveyed the scene with pleasure. After this he landed, beautifully dressed, and showed himself graciously to all who approached him."
The whole English fleet numbered about two hundred and thirty vessels, with stores for a year and money enough for longer still. A southerly gale made nearly everybody sea-sick; for the Italian rowers in the galleys were little better as seamen than the soldiers were, being used to calm waters. Some vessels were wrecked on the rocks of Cyprus, when their crews were robbed by the king there. This roused the Lion-Hearted, who headed a landing party which soon brought King Comnenus to his senses. Vinesauf wrote to say that when Comnenus sued for peace Richard was mounted on a splendid Spanish war-horse and dressed in a red silk tunic embroidered with gold. Red seems to have been a favourite English war colour from very early times. The red St. George's Cross on a white field was flown from the masthead by the commander-in-chief of the fleet, just as it is today. On another flag always used aboard ship three British lions were displayed.
After putting Comnenus into silver chains and shutting him up in a castle Richard set two governors over Cyprus, which thus became the first Eastern possession of the British Crown. Seven centuries later it again came into British hands, this time to stay. Richard then sailed for the siege of Acre in Palestine. But on the way he met a Turkish ship of such enormous size that she simply took Vinesauf's breath away. No one thought that any ship so big had ever been built before, "unless it might be Noah's Ark", Richard had a hundred galleys. The Turkish ship was quite alone; but she was a tough nut to crack, for all that. She was said to have had fifteen hundred men aboard, which might be true, as soldiers being rushed over for the defence of Acre were probably packed like herrings in a barrel. As this was the first English sea fight in the Crusades, and the first in which a King of all England fought, the date should be set down: the 7th of June, 1191.
The Turk was a very stoutly built vessel, high out of the water and with three tall masts, each provided with a fighting top from which stones and jars of Greek fire could be hurled down on the galleys. She also had "two hundred most deadly serpents, prepared for killing Christians." Altogether, she seems to have been about as devilish a craft as even Germans could invent. As she showed no colours Richard hailed her, when she said she was a French ship bound for Acre. But as no one on board could speak French he sent a galley to test her. As soon as the Englishmen went near enough the Turks threw Greek fire on them. Then Richard called out: "Follow me and take her! If she escapes you lose my love for ever. If you take her, all that is in her will be yours." But when the galleys swarmed round her she beat them off with deadly showers of arrows and Greek fire. There was a pause, and the galleys seemed less anxious to close again. Then Richard roared out: "If this ship escapes every one of you men will be hanged!" After this some men jumped overboard with tackle which they made fast to the Turkish rudder. They and others then climbed up her sides, having made ropes fast with grapnels. A furious slashing and stabbing followed on deck. The Turks below swarmed up and drove the English overboard. Nothing daunted, Richard prepared to ram her. Forming up his best galleys in line-abreast he urged the rowers to their utmost speed. With a terrific rending crash the deadly galley beaks bit home. The Turk was stove in so badly that she listed over and sank like a stone. It is a pity that we do not know her name. For she fought overwhelming numbers with a dauntless courage that nothing could surpass. As she was the kind of ship then called a "dromon" she might be best remembered as "the dauntless dromon."
King John, who followed Richard on the throne of England, should be known as John the Unjust. He was hated in Normandy, which Philip Augustus of France took from him in 1204. He was hated in England, where the English lords forced him to sign Magna Charta in 1215. False to his word, he had no sooner signed it than he began plotting to get back the power he had so shamefully misused; and the working out of this plot brought on the first great sea fight with the French.
Looking out for a better king the lords chose Prince Louis of France, who landed in England next year and met them in London. But John suddenly died. His son, Henry III, was only nine. So England was ruled by William Marshal, the great Earl of Pembroke, one of the ablest patriots who ever lived. Once John was out of the way the English lords who had wrung from him the great charter of English liberties became very suspicious of Louis and the French. A French army was besieging Lincoln in 1217, helped by the English followers of Louis, when the Earl Marshal, as Pembroke is called, caught this Anglo-French force between his own army and the garrison, who joined the attack, and utterly defeated it in a battle the people called the Fair of Lincoln. Louis, who had been besieging Dover, at once sent to France for another army. But this brought on the battle of the South Foreland, which was the ruin of his hopes.
The French commander was Eustace