of superfluous officials, but more by the opening it provided
for corruption.
The 16th century in England as elsewhere saw a great development in the size and capacity of ships, in the length of voyages, and consequently in the sciences of navigation and seamanship, which brought with them the predominance of the seaman element hitherto subordinate. In the reign of Henry VIII., when a squadron was commissioned in 1512, out of a total of 3000 men, 1750 were soldiers. By the end of the reign of his daughter Elizabeth (1558–1603) it was calculated that of the 8346 men required to man her fleet 5534 were seamen, 804 were gunners, and only 2008 were soldiers. In the early years of his reign Henry VIII. equipped his squadrons on a system which bears some resemblance to the Athenian trierarchies. He made a contract with his admiral Sir Edward Howard (1477–1513), by which the king supplied ships, guns and a sum of money. The admiral, who had full power to “press,” named the officers and collected the crews. Among them are named contingents from particular towns—the representatives of the fyrd. With the exception of the captain, who received eighteen pence a day, all were paid at the same rate, 5s. wages and 5s. for rations per month. Extra sums called “dead shares,” the wages of so many imaginary men, and rewards, were provided for the master and warrant officers. Until the regular returns known as the “weekly progress of the dockyards” and the “monthly lists of ships in sea pay” were established in 1773, no constant strict account of the strength of the navy was kept. The figure must therefore be accepted as subject to correction, but King Henry’s navy is estimated to have consisted of 53 vessels of 11,268 tons, carrying 237 brass guns and 1848 of iron. It sank somewhat during the agitated reigns of his successors Edward VI. (1547–1553) and Mary (1553–1558). By Elizabeth it was well restored. In mere numbers her navy never equalled her father’s. At the end of her reign it was composed of 42 vessels, but they were of 17,055 tons, and therefore on the average much larger. The military services rendered by the great queen’s fleet were brilliant. No organic change was introduced, and fleets continued to be made up by including vessels belonging to the different ports.
The two most notable advances in organization were the establishment of a graduated scale of pay by rank in 1582, and the formation of a fund for the relief of sick and wounded seamen. This was not a grant from the state but a species of compulsory insurance. All men employed by the navy, including shipwrights, were subject to a small deduction from their pay. The amount was kept in the chest at Chatham, from which the fund took its name, and was managed by a committee of five, each of whom had a key, and of whom four were elected by the contributors. The commissioner of the dockyard presided.
It was between the accession and the fall of the House of Stuart (1603–1688) that the navy became a truly national force, maintained out of the revenue voted by parliament, and acting without the co-operation of temporary levies of trading ships. The reign of James I. (1603–1625) is a period of great importance in its history. The policy of the king was peaceful, and he only once sent out a strong fleet—in 1620 when an expedition was despatched against the Barbary pirates. He took, however, a lively interest in shipbuilding, and supported his master shipwright Phineas Pett (1507–1647) against the rivals whom he offended by disregarding their rules of thumb. Under the lax administration of the lord high admiral Nottingham, better known as Lord Howard of Effingham, many abuses crept into the navy. Though more money was spent on it than in the reign of the queen, it had sunk to a very low level of effective strength in 1618. In 1619 the old lord admiral was persuaded to retire, and was succeeded by George Villiers, duke of Buckingham, the king’s favourite. Nottingham’s retirement was made compulsory by the report of a committee appointed to inquire into the condition of the navy in 1618. They reported that while numbers of new offices had been created at a cost treble the whole expense of the permanent staff of Queen Elizabeth’s time, the dockyards had become nests of pilfering and corruption. Ships were rotting, and money was yearly drawn for vessels which had ceased to exist. The committee undertook to meet the whole ordinary and extraordinary charges of the navy (upkeep and new building) for £30,000 a year. The ships in commission at that time during peace were confined to the diminutive winter and summer guards, whose duty was to transport ambassadors to and fro across the Channel and to hunt the pirates who still swarmed on the coast. Buckingham left the administration of the navy in the hands of the commissioners, who by dismissing superfluous officers and paying better salaries had by 1624 fulfilled their promise to restore the fleet. The establishment they proposed was only of 30 ships, but they were larger in aggregate tonnage by 3050 tons than Queen Elizabeth’s.
Charles I. (1625–1649) carried on the work of his father as far as his limited resources allowed. The pay of the sailors, fixed in 1585 at 10s., was increased to 15s. A captain received from £4, 6s. 8d. a month of 28 days (the standard of the navy) to £14, according to the size of his ship. Lieutenants, who were only carried in the larger ships, received from £2, 16s. to £3, 10s., the sailing-master from £2, 6s. 8d. to £4, 13s. 9d., and the warrant officers from £1, 3s. to £2, 4s. The rating of ships by the number of men carried was introduced in this reign. Vessels of good quality were built for the king, and he showed a real understanding of the necessity for maintaining a strong fleet.
But the time was coming when the hereditary royal revenue was no longer adequate to meet the expense of a navy. By the middle of the 17th century a costly warship, far larger than the trading-ship in size and much more strongly built, had been developed. The extension of British commerce called for protection which an establishment of 40 to 50 vessels could not give. When the Great Rebellion broke out in 1641 the navy of King Charles consisted of only 42 vessels of 22,411 tons. At the Restoration (1660) it had grown to 154 ships for sea service, of 57,463 tons. Such a force could only be maintained out of taxes granted by the parliament. The efforts of King Charles to obtain funds for his navy had a large influence in provoking the rebellion (see Ship Money). The government of the navy during this reign remained in the hands of the committee of 1618, under the lord high admiral Buckingham, till he was murdered in 1628. It was then entrusted to a special commission, who were to have held it till the king’s second son James, duke of York, was of age. In 1638 the king restored the office of lord high admiral “during pleasure” in favour of Algernon Percy, 10th earl of Northumberland, by whom the fleet was handed over to the parliament.
During the Great Rebellion and the Protectorate the navy was governed by parliamentary committees, or by a committee named by the Council of State, or by Cromwell. The need, first for cutting the king off from foreign support, and then for conducting successive struggles in Ireland, or with the king’s partisans on the sea, with the Dutch and with the Spaniards during the Protectorate, led to a great increase in its size. These, too, were years of much internal development. Blake and the other parliamentary officers found that the pressed or hired merchant ships were untrustworthy in action. The ships were not strong enough, and the officers had no military spirit. Parliament therefore provided its own vessels and its own officers. The staff was strengthened by the appointment of second lieutenants. The Dutch War of 1652–53 may be said to have seen the last of the national militia, fyrd or levy of ships from the ports for warlike purposes. After the war a code of “fighting instructions” was issued. During it a code of discipline in 39 articles was established. Both embodied ancient practices rather than new principles, yet it marked a notable advance in the progress of the navy towards complete organization that it should pass from the state of being governed by traditional use and wont, or by the will of the commander for the time being, to the condition of being ruled by fixed and published codes to which all were subject. The high military command during the interregnum 1649–1660 was entrusted to committees of admirals and generals at sea.
