CHAPTER X.
CIVIL HISTORY OF THE NAVY, 1399–1485.
HENRY IV., of Bolingbroke, eldest son of John of Gaunt by Blanche, daughter of Henry, Duke of Lancaster, began his reign on September 29th, 1399. Under him and his two successors of the House of Lancaster, there seem to have been comparatively few changes in the material of the navy, though ships grew steadily larger and though the new weapons, which had been introduced early in the fourteenth century, and which were the outcome of the application of gunpowder to the purposes of war, were gradually developed and improved, and yearly became more potent factors in the determination of actions by sea as well as by land. But the period was one of exceedingly slow progress. Engines of more ancient type continued to be employed side by side with cannon, and bows and cross-bows side by side with hand-guns. Indeed, such was the conservatism of the navy, that not until towards the close of the sixteenth century did artillery finally assume the position of dominant arm in the service, and musketry fire altogether displace the arrow and the bolt.
The opening of the fifteenth century introduces us to one or two types of vessels which may possibly have then been new; but more probably it was the names and not the types which were really novel. The "fare-coast," for example, was, in all likelihood, the earlier "passager" or packet-boat; the "helibot" seems to have been the "hoc-boat"; and there is no evidence that the "collett"
