great effort to put an end to the aggressive naval power of the Moslems, and the combined fleet, under Don John of Austria, dealt an irreparable blow to Turkish prestige in the battle of Lepanto. This victory did not arrest the decline of Venice, whose commercial prosperity was greatly affected by the change in the channels of trade which had been brought about by the discovery in 1497-98 of the water route to India.
Spain made a strong effort to become a great maritime nation, but ultimately failed, partly from governmental mismanagement, partly from various causes connected with the temperament of her people or with the country's environment. In 1588 she sustained a crushing blow in the defeat of the Invincible Armada, which was to conquer England.
Though the fact was not yet recognized, Neptune's sceptre was passing to northern nations, the English and the Dutch. But good sailors as the Dutch were, they were too few in number and too poor long to cope with their great rival, and Britain became mistress of the waves. Alfred the Great is commonly regarded as the founder of the British navy. Before his time the various petty kings had naval forces, but Alfred combined them into an English fleet and took command of it against the Danes in person, and England's first naval victory was gained in his reign off the coast of Essex. Alfred's grandson Athelstan fostered the maritime spirit of his people as regards both commerce and naval affairs. He granted the title of ‘thane’ to any merchant who had made three voyages on the high seas in his own ship freighted at his own expense, though this was a title (previously confined to men of noble rank and extensive landed possessions. Edwy the All Fair is said to have had large fleets, and under Canute the Great English maritime commerce assumed large dimensions. After the Normans had firmly established their rule they also encouraged the growth of shipping and provided for its defense. Henry II. and Richard Cœur de Lion are both known to have had strong naval forces, and under John it was decreed “that any ships of other nations, though at peace and in amity with England, should be made lawful prizes if they refused to strike to the royal flag.” Such an arrogant assumption is not likely to have been made unless the power to carry it out existed, and we know that John's fleet gained a victory over the French in the harbor of Damme. During the century which followed a sort of piratical war existed between England and France and the coasts of both were ravaged by the freebooters on either side. At length, in 1340, the English fleet, commanded by Edward III. in person, won the great victory of Sluis, the French losing nearly their whole force of three hundred vessels and 20,000 men killed, wounded, and prisoners. According to Charnock, this was the first action in which beaked galleys were wholly laid aside and vessels propelled chiefly by sails relied upon. From this time there was no particular improvement in the British navy (except that heavy guns were placed on board ship) until (he reign of Henry VIII., who gave great attention to the fleet, building several relatively very large vessels, of which by far the greatest was the Henry Grace de Dieu. She carried 72 guns and 700 men and her tonnage is variously stated at from 1000 to 1500.
Henry VIII. was the first sovereign in Europe to establish a corps of officers for sea service only; and he did more for the navy than any preceding monarch, using improved models for his ships and employing many Italian shipwrights (then the best in the world) in their construction. He greatly increased the number of vessels and established the arsenals at Portsmouth, Woolwich, and Deptford. Edward VI. and Mary paid little attention to the fleet, but Elizabeth recognized its vital importance and increased the number of ships and their size, besides improving the condition of the officers and gathering vast quantities of naval stores. From her reign to the present day the British navy, though not without rivals, has never been equaled.
In this brief review of the history of ancient and mediæval navies only those are considered which have been of greatest importance in the different periods. This has excluded a very large number from mention except so far as their histories are bound up with the histories of others. The greatest apparent omission is in the case of France. Her navy has always been respectable and occasionally very powerful, but it has never been paramount, and its prestige suffered at different times from defeats brought about by governmental neglect and mismanagement. It has not been to France what that of Great Britain has been to the British Islands and Empire, an absolute necessity. Her fleet has been built up or neglected according to the prevailing policy of the Government.
Modern naval development may be said to have begun with the rapid increase in the size of ships which took place at the close of the fifteenth century (see Guns, Naval); and mediæval history finally closed with the battle of Lepanto in 1571, the last great action in which rowing galleys played an important part. From this time the sail-propelled man-of-war was gradually improved until early in the nineteenth century, when sails began to give way to steam. During this period the British navy managed to retain its general supremacy, though the temporary rise of the Dutch naval power seriously threatened it; and for a few years Louis XIV. managed to maintain a French fleet which was superior to the British, and with which Admiral Tourville defeated the combined British and Dutch forces off Beachy Head (1690). Two years later the French fleet was destroyed at La Hogue by the allied British and Dutch. From this time forward the superiority of the British navy was undoubted. Though it lost many single-ship actions with the French and Americans, no foreign navy could stand before its full strength.
After the close of the Napoleonic wars the great naval Powers were Great Britain and France alone. In the second rank were Spain, Russia, the Netherlands, and Turkey. In the third were Austria, Denmark, the United States, the Two Sicilies, Sardinia, Portugal, and Prussia. In 1860 the conditions were much the same, except that the United States had risen to the second category, the Netherlands had sunk to the third, the Kingdom of Italy was forming, and that of the Two Sicilies tottering to its fall; while Greece, Brazil, Peru, and Chile had organized naval forces.
During the American Civil War the navy of the United States, whose history and present condition will be found fully treated under United States, became greatly expanded, but from 1865
