How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves. William Henry Giles Kingston
31st of August, 1422, aged thirty-three years, worn out with the fatigues of his late campaign in Normandy. He had reigned nine years, five months, and eleven days.
I have before me a curious history in verse relating to navigation and nautical affairs, written during the reign of Henry, entitled De Politia conservativa Maris. The author, in his preface, urges the importance of England maintaining the dominion of the channel.
“The true process of English policy,
Of utterward to keep this regne in
Of our England, that no man may deny,
Nor say of sooth but it is one of the best,
Is this that who seeth south, north, east, and west,
Cherish merchandise, keep the Admiralty
That we be masters of the narrow sea.
Who can here pass without danger and woe?
What merchandise may forby be ago?
For needs him must take trewes every foe:
Flanders, and Spain, and other, trust to me
Or else hindered all for this narrow sea.”
The whole poem is very curious, and full of information respecting the commerce of England in those days. It shows us how extensive it had already become, and how much alive the British merchants were to its importance, although the monarchs and chief nobles, madly engaged in civil wars or foreign conquests, did their utmost to destroy it, instead of endeavouring to protect and improve it. The more we study history, the more we shall be convinced that England owes her present greatness and prosperity to the enlightened energy and perseverance of her merchants and manufacturers, and the seamen of the mercantile marine.
Without them her brave armies and navies could not have been created or maintained, nor won the renown which England proudly claims.
“From Spain,” says our poetical author, “we import figs, raisins, wine, dates, liquorice, oil, grains, white pastil soap, wax, iron, wool, wadmolle, goat-fell, kid-fell, saffron, and quicksilver.
“From Flanders, fine cloth of Ypre and Curtike, fine cloth of all colours, fustian, linen cloth; for which England returns wool and tin.
“From Portugal, always in unity with England, we obtain wine, osey, wax, grain, figs, raisins, honey, cordmeynes, dates, salt, hides.
“With Bretaigne we deal in salt, wine, crest cloth, and canvas; but this is only of late years, for the Bretons were noted pirates, and greatly interrupted the navigation of this kingdom, both by taking the merchant-ships and plundering and burning the towns on the sea-coast, till Edward the Third granted letters of reprisal to the inhabitants of Dartmouth, Plymouth, and Fowey, which obliged the Duke of Bretaigne to sue for peace and engage for the future good behaviour of his subjects.”
Here we have an example of the advantage of allowing people who possess the sinews of war to take care of themselves. We may depend on it they will, in most instances, give a good account of their proceedings.
The same principle may be applied to our larger colonies at the present day, and we may have little fear that if attacked they will maintain their independence, and the honour of the British name.
“We trade with Scotland for felts, hides, and wool in the fleece; and with Prussia, High Germany, and the east countries for beer, bacon, almond, copper, bow-staves, steel, wax, pelt ware, pitch, tar, peats, flax, cotton, thread, fustian, canvas, cards, buckram, silver plate, silver wedges, and metal.
“From Genoa we import most of the articles which we now procure from Africa, and which come in large ships called carracks, such as cloth of gold, silk, black pepper, and good gold of Genne (Guinea).”
Our author does not at all approve of the articles which were imported from Venice and Florence. They were very similar, in some respects, to those which now come from France, and without which, most undoubtedly, we could do very well.
“The great gallies of Venice and Florence
Be well laden with things of complacence,
Allspicery and of grocer’s ware,
With sweet wines, all manner of chaffare;
Apes and japes, and marmusets tailed,
Nifles and trifles that little have availed,
And things with which they featly blear our eye,
With things not enduring that we buy;
For much of this chaffare that is wastable,
Might be forborne for dear and deceivable.”
On the death of his father, August, 1422, the unfortunate Henry the Sixth, when not a year old, was proclaimed King of England and heir of France, and when eight years of age he was crowned both in London and Paris. No improvements in naval affairs were introduced during his inglorious and disastrous reign. The chief battle at sea was fought by a fleet under the command of the famous king-maker, the Earl of Warwick. In the Straits of Dover he encountered a fleet of Genoese and Lubeck ships laden with Spanish merchandise, and under the convoy of five carracks. Of these he captured six, and sunk or put to flight twenty-six more, took numerous prisoners, and slew a thousand men, while his prize-money amounted to 10,000 pounds, an enormous sum in those days, when the whole revenue of England did not exceed at one time 5000 pounds.
The Earl of Warwick was soon afterwards, with his fleet, instrumental in dethroning Henry, and placing Edward of Lancaster on the throne, under the title of Edward the Fourth. It was not, however, till the victory of Tewkesbury placed the crown securely on his brows that Edward was able to turn his attention to naval affairs. In the year 1475, having resolved to make war on France, he collected at Sandwich five hundred flat-bottomed vessels, in which he purposed to carry his army across the channel. He succeeded, indeed, in transporting them to the French coast, but the King of France suing for peace, and undertaking to pay a large tribute to England, he returned home. By similar means he brought the King of Scotland to submission. He granted many privileges to merchants trading to foreign countries, and encouraged commerce by every means in his power.
It is scarcely necessary to allude to the reign of his son, poor young Edward the Fifth, who had worn the crown but two months, when it was grasped by his uncle, Richard the Third, who was crowned at Westminster on the 5th of July, 1483.
When threatened with an invasion of England by the Earl of Richmond, he kept a powerful fleet in readiness to defend the shores of his kingdom. On hearing, however, that the earl had been driven off the coast, he very unwisely laid up most of his ships, and disbanded the greater part of his army. On discovering this, the sagacious earl immediately embarked all the forces he could collect in a few transports, and, landing at Milford Haven, gained the battle of Bosworth, which placed the crown of England on his head, and in which Richard lost his life.
Since old Nicholas of Lynn’s expedition to the northern regions of the world in the reign of Edward the Third up to this period, no voyages of discovery had been performed under the patronage of Government; and probably but little, if any, improvement had taken place in marine architecture. A new era was about to commence, which was to see the establishment of England’s naval glory. Other European nations were at that time far in advance of our country as regarded all affairs connected with the sea. It was a period rife with maritime adventure and enterprise. Men began to perceive that there were other achievements more glorious than those which the sword could accomplish, more calculated, at all events, to bring wealth into their coffers.
It was now that the ardent, bold, and sagacious spirit of Columbus devised the scheme for reaching India by the west, which resulted in the discovery of a new world. In 1485, having fully instructed his brother Bartholomew in his intended project, he sent him to England in order that he might apply to Henry, under the belief that the king would at once embrace his proposals. Unfortunately, he fell, it is said, into the hands of pirates, who stripped him of all he had; and on his reaching England in poverty he was attacked with a fever, which caused a still further delay. When he recovered he had to raise