a stone accidentally dropped as it was being hauled up into the top of his own vessel. In the action Sir Baldwin le Strange also fell.[1]
The account of this little affair is of interest as affording an early illustration of the superiority of one large vessel over a number of smaller ones of, probably, greater aggregate force.
A four months' truce having been concluded with France in October, 1416,[2] Henry returned with a small squadron to Dover. Early in 1417, preparations were made for an expedition to Normandy; ships were arrested; and fifteen hundred vessels, sixteen thousand four hundred soldiers, and one thousand workmen were assembled at Southampton for the king's passage.[3] The vessels of the western ports were directed to proceed to sea under Sir Thomas Carew, the Sire de Chastillon, and Sir John Mortimer, and to cruise from March 1st to November 1st, against French, Bretons, Castillians, Genoese, and Scots, unless orders were given to the contrary.[4] Carew's squadron consisted of an unnamed ship carrying seventy-five men-at-arms and one hundred and forty-eight archers, the king's great carrack, called the Mary of the Tower, of 500 tons, the "other carrack of Venice," the barge Katherine of Salisbury, the "Bukky's barge," the Ellen of Greenwich, of 180 tons, the Anthony, Captain Robert Carew, the Trinity of the Tower, of 102 tons, two ballingers of Trebost and Plymouth respectively, and Sir Thomas Carew's own barge, the Trinity.[5] The fleet of the Cinque Ports was called out in March;[6] and in April the assemblage of ships at Southampton was hastened, the passage thither being apparently deemed somewhat perilous by the shipmasters owing to the large force of the enemy that was at sea.[7]
Up to the last moment, Henry, as in the previous year, intended to lead the fleet in person ; but he suffered himself to be dissuaded;[8] and in July, he appointed Edmund, Earl of March, to be his lieutenant on the sea, to bring back the fleet from Normandy, and to return thither with reinforcements, and John, Earl of Huntingdon, to cruise with all the usual powers of an admiral.[9]
- ↑ Elmham, 88, 89; Anon. Chron. in Add. MSS. 1776, f. 70b.
- ↑ 'Fœdera,' ix. 399, 400.
- ↑ Elmham, 92; Anon. Chron. in Add. MSS., 1776, f. 72.
- ↑ Pro. and Ord. of Privy Council, ii. 209.
- ↑ Muster Roll 'E. B. 1626' at Carlton Ride, cited by Nicolas; Issue Rolls, Easter Term, 4 Hen. V.
- ↑ Close Rolls, 5 Hen. V. m. 17.
- ↑ Issue Rolls, 4 Hen. V. 351 (Devon).
- ↑ Elmham, 92.
- ↑ Patent Rolls, 5 Hen. V. m. 22.
