The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism (Vol. 1-4). Frederick Whymper
times; among other victories, Henry Page, Admiral of the Cinque Ports, captured 120 merchantmen forming the Rochelle fleet, and all richly laden. Towards the close of this reign, about the year 1416, England formally claimed the dominion of the sea, and a Parliamentary document recorded the fact. “It was never absolute,” says Sir Walter Raleigh, “until the time of Henry VIII.” That great voyager and statesman adds that, “Whoever commands the sea, commands the trade of the world; whosoever commands the trade, commands the riches of the world, and consequently the world itself.”
A curious poem is included in the first volume of Hakluyt’s famous collection of voyages, bearing reference to the navy of Henry. It is entitled, “The English Policie, exhorting all England to keep the Sea,” &c. It was written apparently about the year 1435. It is a long poem, and the following is an extract merely:—
“And if I should conclude all by the King,
Henrie the Fift, what was his purposing,
Whan at Hampton he made the great dromons,
Which passed other great ships of the Commons;
The Trinitie, the Grace de Dieu, the Holy Ghost,
And other moe, which as nowe be lost.
What hope ye was the king’s great intente
Of thoo shippes, and what in mind be meant:
It is not ellis, but that he cast to bee
Lord round about environ of the see.
And if he had to this time lived here,
He had been Prince named withouten pere:
His great ships should have been put in preefes,
Unto the ende that he ment of in chiefes.
For doubt it not but that he would have bee
Lord and Master about the rand see:
And kept it sure, to stoppe our ennemies hence,
And wonne us good, and wisely brought it thence,
That our passage should be without danger,
And his license on see to move and sterre.”
When the king had determined, in 1415, to land an army in France, he hired ships from Holland, Zeeland, and Friesland, his own naval means not being sufficient for the transport; among his other preparations, “requisite for so high an enterprise,” boats covered with leather, for the passage of rivers, are mentioned. His fleet consisted of 1,000 sail, and it left Southampton on Sunday, the 11th of August, of the above-mentioned year. When the ships had passed the Isle of Wight, “swans were seen swimming in the midst of the fleet, which was hailed as a happy auspice.” Henry anchored on the following Tuesday at the mouth of the Seine, about three miles from Harfleur. A council of the captains was summoned, and an order issued that no one, under pain of death, should land before the king, but that all should be in readiness to go ashore the next morning. This was done, and the bulk of the army, stated to have comprised 24,000 archers, and 6,000 men of arms, was landed in small vessels, boats, and skiffs, taking up a position on the hill nearest to Harfleur. The moment Henry landed he fell on his knees and implored the Divine aid and protection to lead him on to victory, then conferring knighthood on many of his followers. At the entrance of the port a chain had been stretched between two large, well-armed towers, while it was farther protected by stakes and trunks of trees to prevent the vessels from approaching. During the siege, which lasted thirty-six days, the fleet blockaded the port, and at its conclusion Henry, flushed with a victory, which is said to have cost the English only 1,600 and the enemy 10,000 lives, determined to march his army through France to Calais. It was on this march that he won the glorious battle of Agincourt. On the 16th of November he embarked for Dover, reaching that port the same day. Here a magnificent ovation awaited him. The burgesses rushed into the sea and bore him ashore on their shoulders; the whole population was intoxicated with delight. One chronicler states that the passage across had been extremely boisterous, and that the French noblemen suffered so much from sea-sickness that they considered the trip worse than the very battles themselves in which they had been taken prisoners! When Henry arrived near London, a great concourse of people met him at Blackheath, and he, “as one remembering from whom all victories are sent,” would not allow his helmet to be carried before him, whereon the people might have seen the blows and dents that he had received; “neither would he suffer any ditties to be made and sung by minstrels of his glorious victory, for that he would have the praise and thanks altogether given to God.”
REVERSE OF THE SEAL OF SANDWICH.
Next year the French attempted to retake Harfleur. Henry sent a fleet of 400 sail to the rescue, under his brother John, Duke of Bedford, the upshot being that almost the whole French fleet, to the number of 500 ships, hulks, carracks, and small vessels were taken or sunk. The English vessels remained becalmed in the roadstead for three weeks afterwards. Southey, who has collated all the best authorities in his admirable naval work,131 says:—“The bodies which had been thrown overboard in the action, or sunk in the enemies’ ships, rose and floated about them in great numbers; and the English may have deemed it a relief from the contemplation of that ghastly sight, to be kept upon the alert by some galleys, which taking advantage of the calm, ventured as near them as they dare by day and night, and endeavoured to burn the ships with wildfire.” He adds that the first mention of wildfire he had found is by Hardyng, one of the earliest of our poets, in the following passage referring to this event:—
“With oars many about us did they wind,
With wildfire oft assayled us day and night,
To brenne our ships in that they could or might.”
Next year we read of Henry preparing to again attack France. The enemy had increased their naval force by hiring a number of Genoese and other Italian vessels. The king sent a preliminary force against them under his kinsman, the Earl of Huntingdon, who, near the mouth of the Seine, succeeded in sinking three and capturing three of the great Genoese carracks, taking the Admiral Jacques, the Bastard of Bourbon, “and as much money as would have been half a year’s pay for the whole fleet.” These prizes were brought to Southampton, “from whence the king shortly set forth with a fleet of 1,500 ships, the sails of his own vessel being of purple silk, richly embroidered with gold.” The remainder of Henry’s brief reign—for he died the same year—is but the history of a series of successes over his enemies.
It must never be forgotten that the navies of our early history were not permanently organised, but drawn from all sources. A noble, a city or port, voluntarily or otherwise, contributed according to the exigencies of the occasion. As we shall see, it is to Henry VIII. that we owe the establishment of a Royal Navy as a permanent institution. In 1546 King Henry’s vessels are classified according to their “quality,” thus: “ships,” “galleases,” “pynaces,” “roe-barges.” A list bearing date in 1612 exhibits the classes as follows:—“Shipps royal,” measuring downwards from 1,200 to 800 tons; “middling shipps,” from 800 to 600 tons; “small shipps,” 350 tons; and pinnaces, from 200 to 80 tons. According to the old definition, a ship was defined to be a “large hollow building, made to pass over the seas with sails,” without reference to size or quality. Before the days of the Great Harry, few, if any, English ships had more than one mast or one sail; that ship had three masts, and the Henri Grace de Dieu, which supplanted her, four. The galleas was probably a long, low, and sharp-built vessel, propelled by oars as well as by sails; the latter probably not fixed to the mast or any standing yard, but hoisted from the deck when required to be used, as in the lugger or felucca of modern days. The pinnace was a smaller description of galleas, while the row-barge is sufficiently explained by its title.
The history of the period following the reign of Henry V. has much to do with shipping interests of all kinds. The constant wars and turbulent times gave great opportunity for piracy in the Channel and on the high seas. Thus we read of Hannequin Leeuw, an outlaw from Ghent, who had so prospered in piratical enterprises that he got together a squadron of eight or ten vessels, well armed and stored. He not only