I make no apology to the reader for having taken up so much of his time in a consideration of the methods which obtained during the time of Christopher Columbus, not merely because by his splendid seamanship and navigation a new world was revealed to the old, but because of the two arts in question at the time when the Middle Ages were beginning to ebb into obscurity, he was one of the finest if not the very best exponent. Not that he was very amply rewarded for his wondrous achievements. Although it is true he did receive other remuneration, yet his pay was only at the rate of 1600 francs per annum, and that of his two captains was but 960 francs. The crew’s wages were from 12 to 25 francs a month in addition to their mess allowance.

But now we find ourselves in the sixteenth century. Thanks to the new interest in nautical matters which had been aroused by Prince Henry the Navigator, thanks to the marvellous and true yarns which ocean-going skippers brought back of their discoveries, there began a new sort of profession for men who were at all attracted to the sea. It was a profession which, obviously, could not exist for many, nor last for many centuries. But for those who were wearied of shore monotony, who had ambition and dash and loved adventure, there was a keen fascination in becoming one of that great band of “new land seekers.” Charles V, you will remember, became King of Spain in the year 1517, while the period of 1485 to 1547 was covered by the reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII of England. Not till the year 1555 did Charles V retire into the monastery of Yuste. Besides the influence of these three remarkable men at a critical time of the world’s history, there was also roaming over Europe that Renaissance movement which, checked here and there, could not be utterly constrained when it spread itself over shipping. Or, to change altogether the metaphor, spring was in the air: the buds were about to burst forth into the glorious flowers of new colonies.

And since it was obvious that discovery had to be made by traversing long expanses of ocean, and that this could only be done by a sound knowledge of navigation, those in authority were not slow to realise that lectures and instruction on this subject at home meant presently an increase of territory and wealth across the seas. Prince Henry on his promontory had been the first to grasp this. Now also Charles V not only established a Pilot Major for the examination of those who sought to take ships to the West Indies, but also founded a lecture on the art of navigation which was given in the Contractation House at Seville. Those anxious to qualify as pilots had to learn thoroughly the use of the astrolabe and quadrant, and obtain a thorough grasp of the theory and practice of sailing a ship from one port to another out of sight of land. For this instruction they had to pay fees, but it more than repaid them many times over when they were able to bring back such valuable commodities. Furthermore, as experience gains knowledge, so every voyage taught them something of their art which hitherto they had not known—the direction of a current, the state of the moon when high tide occurred at such and such an hour, the depth of those new harbours they had entered, the position of the outlying shoals, the landmarks on shore, the temper of the natives, the kind of commodities which could be obtained in the districts, and so on. The pilots brought all these details home at the end of every voyage, made the necessary corrections in the charts (and this not by choice, but by compulsion), so that always there was being compiled a set of sailing directions and an ever improving bundle of charts which were simply invaluable to State and seamen alike.

Thus also there came to be published treatises and manuals on the seaman’s art, for the instruction of a community that numbered very few sailors in proportion to its landsmen. Such authors as Martin Cortes, Alonso de Chavez, Hieronymo de Chavez, Roderigo Zamorano in time wrote these works, and their influence not merely on Spain, but upon England, was considerable, until the English seamen of the time of Elizabeth had produced such nautical experts of their own that they were able to write better books themselves. But even prior to that time England had begun to see the wisdom of Spain; and Henry VIII, following the example of Charles V, “for the increase of knowledge in his Seamen, with princely liberalities erected three severall Guilds or brotherhoods, the one at Deptford here upon the Thames, the other at Kingston upon Hull, and the third at Newcastle upon Tine.” So, indeed, states Hakluyt. That at Deptford was licensed in 1513, “in honour of the Holy Trinity and St. Clement in the Church of Deptford Stronde for reformation of the Navy lately much decayed by admission of young men without experience, and of Scots, Flemings, and Frenchmen as loadsmen.” Navy is used here in its literal sense, meaning shipping as a whole. The word “loadsmen”—otherwise “leadsmen”—was the customary expression in the North of Europe for pilot. To this day the Dutch word for pilot is “loods,” “lood” being the Dutch for lead. What does this signify? It shows—does it not?—that until, thanks to Spain, the astrolabe began to be used in Northern Europe, the pilot was not so much he who found his way by fixing his position from the heavenly bodies, but he who felt his way by the sounding of the lead. In a sentence, then, whilst of course the lead and line are essential even to modern navigation, yet historically they belong to the Middle Ages and right back to Greece and even earlier; while the astrolabe and the finding of a ship’s latitude are essentially the beginning of that new order of things which we have already noted. So long as ships were content to do little more than coasting they had no need of an astrolabe; but as a lead and line are not much good to one who navigates the Atlantic to the West Indies, so the new species of voyaging coincided with the new instrument for ascertaining a ship’s position.

What, then, was the astrolabe? It was an instrument used for taking the altitude of the sun and stars. For two hundred years before it was used by the Christian seamen of the Mediterranean, it had been employed by the Arabian pilots in the eastern seas. The derivation of such a curious word is not without interest. The Arabic is “asthar-lab,” and this in turn came from the two Greek words, ἀστήρ and λαμβανω, meaning “to take a star.” It consisted of a flat brass ring, some 15 inches in diameter, of which an excellent illustration can here be seen. It was graduated along the rim in degrees and minutes, fitted with two sights. There was a movable index which turned on the centre and marked the angle of elevation. When the mariner wished to take the height of the sun with this instrument he proceeded as follows: The sun being near the meridian or south, the pilot observed the same until it reached its greatest height. Then, holding the ring on one of his fingers, he turned the alhidada up and down until he saw the shadow of the sun pass through both the sights thereof, being sure that the astrolabe hung upright. The astrolabe was best for taking the height of the sun when the sun was very high at 60, 70, or 80 degrees; for the sun, coming near “unto your zenith,” has great power of light for piercing the two sights of the alhidada of the astrolabe, and then it was not good to use the cross-staff (reference to which will be made below), because the sun hurt a man’s eyes and was also too high for the cross-staff. Furthermore the astrolabe, was a more correct method than that of the cross-staff.

It was thanks to the aid of Martin Behaim, a distinguished cosmographer who came to Lisbon to co-operate with the learned men there assembled, that an improved sea astrolabe was adapted for the purpose of determining the distance from the Equator, by means of the altitude of the sun or stars at sea. There had, indeed, been in use for some time a land astrolabe for finding the latitude of a place, and it was but a natural advance that this instrument should be adapted for use on board ship, so that the mariner might be able to ascertain his position on the vast expanse of trackless ocean. We are all most ready to admire and extol the men and the ships which made such daring voyages and discoveries in the past; but I submit that nothing like adequate recognition has been paid to the essential value of the astrolabe and cross-staff, or their successor, the modern sextant. Even if in those days which marked the close of the Middle Ages there had suddenly been invented and built a whole fleet of turbine steamships with capable crews, yet still without the instrument of finding latitude they could have had only vague ideas as to their position and would only have been able to produce unsatisfactory charts. Indeed, as a modern writer has remarked, it was this improved sea astrolabe which “removed the last doubt in Columbus’s mind as to the possibility of carrying out his plans of discovery.”

Thus it came about that the man who could work an astrolabe was a person of some importance. He was held in high honour by the crew, since he alone was able to state the ship’s position and her course thence to her nearest port. Naturally, therefore, those Arabian pilots and Oriental astronomers who had been brought to the Iberian peninsula would go swaggering along the streets of Lisbon wearing these sea-rings conspicuously both as their badge of office and as indicative of their dignity. It was Behaim’s astrolabe which was used by Columbus, by Vasco da Gama, by Diaz, and others in their stupendous voyages: and still more valuable was it with the addition of the tables of the sun’s declination, first reduced by Behaim also. Nevertheless, we must not omit to bear in mind that as far back as the eighth century Messahala, a learned Rabbi, had already written a treatise on the astrolabe, and that even earlier still—in the sixth century B.C.—the astrolabe for use on shore had been invented by Hipparchus. But had the achievements of the ancients much influence, do you ask, on the cosmographers and astronomers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries? The answer is most certainly in the affirmative; and the greatest experts of this period had a very complete knowledge of the work of their predecessors.

But for the same purpose of taking the height of the sun there was employed an instrument called the cross-staff; of which the Spanish word (adapted from the Greek) was the “balla stella.” The drawback to the astrolabe was that it was difficult to use it with accuracy owing to the rolling and pitching of the ship. Therefore the cross-staff, being more steadily held in the hand, began to supersede the astrolabe. Bourne, the famous Elizabethan navigational expert, insisted that because the sea “causeth the shippe to heave” the best way to take the sun’s height was with the cross-staff: furthermore, the degrees on this instrument were marked larger than on the astrolabe. Also in a larger instrument an error was seen sooner. The method of use in taking the height of the sun, he explained, was as follows: Note with your compass the sun when the latter approaches the meridian. When it has arrived at S. by E. then begin to take the sun’s height thus: Put the “transitorie” (or cross-piece) on the long staff, set the end of the long staff close to the eye, “winking with your other eye,” and then move the transitory forwards or backwards until you see the lower end of it (“being just with the horizon”) and the upper end of it (“being just with the middle of the sun”), “both to agree with the sunne and the horizon at one time.” Observe the same until you see the sun at the highest and beginning to descend. You have then finished.

It is not my intention to digress from the path of historical continuity, but let the reader bear in mind how very little the navigator of this period had to help him. He had the compass for indicating the direction of the ship’s head, and he had the astrolabe and cross-staff for showing him his altitude. But two intensely important data he could not yet obtain accurately: (1) his longitude, and (2) the distance run by the ship in any given time. Very great errors were made in both of these. It was not until the introduction of the log-line in the seventeenth century that a ship could tell with even approximate accuracy her daily run. For many a long year all the cunning Jews and Arabs, all the philosophers, the astronomers and physicians, all the cleverest men out of Portugal, Spain, Genoa, Venice, and the Balearic Isles had tried but failed to solve this proposition. And the coming of the perfect chronometer for finding the longitude was delayed even longer still.

Every modern deep-sea navigator is familiar with what is known as Great Circle Sailing. For the landsman it may be sufficient to explain that this principle seems to contradict Euclid’s assertion that the shortest distance between any two points is a straight line. In the case of a globe this statement of Euclid does not apply. Every steamer between Liverpool and New York to-day sails on a great circle for the most part of her passage. “Great circles” are those whose plane passes through the centre of the earth: for example, the Equator is a “great circle.” Now as far back as the year 1497 Pedro Nunez made the startling but true announcement that in sailing from one port to another the shortest course was along an arc of a great circle of the terrestrial sphere. And this fact was appreciated by such Elizabethan navigators as John Davis in his voyaging across the North Atlantic.

The training of a navigator such as went on in Seville was very thorough, so that it formed an excellent precedent for all who had at heart the education of the complete navigator. The training in the year 1636 was a three-year course, and the following curriculum is given for that year by Sir Clements Markham in his “Sea Fathers”:—

First Year: (1) The sphere of Sacrobosco. (2) The four rules of Arithmetic: Rule of three, extraction of square root, cube root, and fractions. (3) The theory of Purbach, or planets and eclipses. (4) The spherical trigonometry of Regiomontanus. (5) The Almagest of Ptolemy.

Second Year: (1) The first six books of Euclid. (2) Arcs and chords, right sines, tangents and secants. (3) To complete Regiomontanus and Ptolemy.

Third Year: (1) Cosmography and navigation. (2) Use of astrolabe. (3) The methods of observing the movements of heavenly bodies. (4) The use of the globe and of mathematical instruments. (5) The construction of a watch.

It must not be forgotten that the life on board a Tudor ship was, even for rough, rude, untutored seamen, full of hardships, even if full of adventure. Anyone who cares to look through the records of the voyages can see this for himself. We are accustomed to regard that as a romantic age; but the romance is only visible through the avenue of distance which now separates us from those times. The victualling was disgracefully mismanaged at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The crews of ships were actually allowed to fight in the English Channel for their country in a condition that was almost sheer starvation. Actually the commissariat department was so bad that ships had to return home from the region of battle to fetch supplies. There was nothing very romantic, either, in having to serve on ships which exuded a terrible stench from their holds. A horrible mixture of bilge-water and decayed food, coupled with the heat of the galley, helped to make the health of the Tudor sailorman anything but good.

Henry VII had done his best to encourage enterprising shipbuilders by giving them a bounty on the tonnage built, and there is a record of at least one ship’s smith being given an annuity for his services to the king’s ships. This, like many other customs, had been derived from Spain. Still, for all that, the warships put to sea with so many leaks that “the water cam in as it wer in a seve.” And there was no dry dock until Henry VII built the first at Portsmouth with timber gates and “one ingyn to draw water owte of the seid dokke.” When they went forth to the naval wars of this period they fought with bows, arrows, spears and demi-lances, morris-pikes, halberds, bills, guns (including falcons and harquebuses). There were rammers and powder for the guns, and shot of iron, stone, and lead, artillery having been recently introduced. Portholes had also been introduced in the reign of Henry VII, and the passing of the Viking type of ship to that of a bigger, more seaworthy type, with high-charged stern and bow, was the beginning of a new order of things. Gradually the merchantman became separated from the pure warship, and cannon took the place of the hand-to-hand encounter. But these changes came only by slow stages.

In the time of Henry VIII England was still leaning on the work of the foreign shipwright. Spain, Genoa, Venice, and the Hanseatic League all helped. The arsenal at Venice at this time was a wonderful depôt for shipping—wonderful in its completeness and systematisation. There was everything always ready here for the ship to be used at a moment’s notice. Over a hundred ship-houses were there, containing all the component parts of craft. Armouries, foundries, rope-works, workshops, stores of timber, provisions, and munitions of war—it was all done on a big scale. Such was the perfection of organisation that the master-carpenters and their men actually demonstrated their ability to put together all the detached parts of a galley—rigging included—in less than a couple of hours.

Spain supplied a good deal of the iron for the anchors and guns of England until our forefathers quarried for themselves. Thanks to Continental influence, a knowledge of artillery was growing up in England and employed usefully on board our ships of war. Had you met any of these craft at sea you would have been struck by the painted sails, bearing the picture of a saint or whatever device the admiral preferred. Those high forecastles and poops were also most splendidly decorated, so likewise the shields round the upper part of the castles were emblazoned with the arms and devices of the admiral. There were flags bravely flying on the forecastle, on the poop, and amidships; from the main-top a broad swallow-tailed standard flew bearing the admiral’s devices and reaching down to the water. Every mast had its bunting, and for celebrating a triumph the ship was still further draped with rich cloth. Thus she looked, with her many flags fluttering in the wind, more like a fair-ground than an instrument of war.

Such a ship as the famous Great Harry (1500 tons) carried quite a big company—400 soldiers, 260 sailors, and 40 gunners. Admirals and captains were still rather military officers and courtiers than sailors, though the masters were responsible for the handling of the ship. On this same vessel there were below the rank of master the following ratings: master’s mate, four pilots, four quartermasters, quartermasters’ mates, boatswain and boatswain’s mate, cockswain and his mate, master-carpenter and his mate, under-carpenter, two caulkers, purser, three stewards, three cooks, cooks’ mates, two yeomen of the stryks (ropes) and their mates, and two yeomen of the ports with their mates. Some sort of uniform was worn by the officers, consisting of green and white coats—the Tudor colours.

In Henry VIII’s time dockyards were established at Woolwich, Erith, and Deptford, as well as at Portsmouth. Originally the custom was to lay up the ships in the autumn and fit out in the spring; but at this time the excellent practice of keeping some ships cruising the Channel in the winter months was developed. The rate of pay in Henry VIII’s navy allowed the admiral ten shillings a day and a captain one and sixpence a day, while the wages of each soldier, mariner, and gunner were five shillings a month plus five shillings a month for victuals. Conduct money for those who had to travel long distances to join their ships was at the rate of sixpence a day, twelve miles being reckoned as one day’s journey.

Copper and gilt ornamentations were added to the end of the bowsprit on Henry VIII’s ships, says Mr. Oppenheim, whilst gilt crowns for the mastheads had been the practice for centuries. Before going into action a ship would sometimes coil her cable round the deck breast high and hang thereon mattresses and blankets as a kind of protection. And here we must say a word concerning the development of naval tactics. As in other maritime departments, so in regard to this England owed a great deal to Spanish influence. Naval warfare in the Mediterranean was already a science, and learned treatises had been written thereon. If the Spaniards were not a race of seamen by nature, at least they had developed the scientific side of the sailor’s life in advance of the English. The awakening from medievalism in marine matters which had spread to our own shores not unnaturally aroused an interest in the proper manner of controlling a fleet. The earliest set of fleet orders in English was that which appeared about the year 1530, written by Thomas Audley, and still preserved in a Harleian MS. This Thomas Audley wrote “A Book of Orders for the War both by Land and Sea,” at the command of Henry VIII. In effect these orders are the final expression of English medieval ideas before the introduction of artillery and the practice of broadside fire had started a new school of modern tactics. Audley’s fleet orders, based on the practice of previous centuries, insisted on the importance of getting the weather-gage of the enemy, laid down how to board an enemy—boarding in those days meaning, of course, engaging him in combat alongside—and denoted the sphere of an admiral’s action.

In 1543 appeared the “Book of War by Sea and Land,” written by Jehan Bytharne, Gunner in Ordinary to the King. This contained a number of regulations for governing the fleet, for ornamenting and painting the ships, and for the use of flags both for celebrating a triumph and—this is important—for the purpose of signalling, as, for example, informing the flagship when the enemy had been espied. Bear in mind that in the Spanish Navy flag signalling had, following the Spanish advance towards science, become already a fine art. It is true that even in England this had been in vogue for centuries, and the earliest code is to be found in the “Black Book of the Admiralty,” and dates from about 1340. But the Spanish system was less crude and elementary.

By the middle of the sixteenth century naval tactics in England had advanced even further still, as the instructions issued in connection with the Battle of Shoreham indicate. They are too long to detail here, but it is noticeable that they show both a knowledge of the handling of ships and a mind that has escaped from medieval muddle. The arranging of the fleet in proper divisions, each with its own work to perform, the exact position which was to be maintained, and so on, are well worth consideration. And each division was to wear the St. George’s ensign at a different place for purposes of recognition. Those in the first rank were to fly it from the fore-topmast, those in the second rank to wear it on the mainmast, and so on.

During the latter half of the sixteenth century, when the autumn came round each year and most of the royal ships had ended their cruising till the following spring, it was customary to take these vessels round to the Medway. Even ships from Portsmouth were hither brought, and they lay moored in Gillingham Reach. This made a convenient and sheltered anchorage, and yet was not too far from the Tower of London. When the time arrived again for fitting out, the ammunition was put on board barges at the Tower and these, taking the ebb down the Thames and the flood up the Medway, discharged their load when tied up alongside the warships at Chatham.

The great achievements of the Elizabethan seamen could not have occurred unless the English had been engaged in the seafaring life for years, since it is impossible to make a landsman a sailor except after much training. The Armada would never have been defeated except for the superior seamanship and gunnery of our forefathers. Slowly, but surely, since the history of our country began, there had been growing up a nucleus of professional seamen. In Tudor times had there been no race of freight-carriers and fishermen, there would have been no virile body of men to fall back on in the hour of danger on the sea, for the merchant sailor often enough had an exciting passage before he landed his cargo safely in port. Both he and the simple fisherman were liable to be assaulted on the sea by hordes of pirates. In the North Sea, the English Channel (especially in the vicinity of the Scilly Isles, where they swarmed), and off the Irish coast these sea-rovers were a terror to the peaceful, honest seaman.

In addition to this, however, there sprang up what is nothing better than a legalised piracy. By a proclamation of 1557, any Englishman could fit out a squadron of ships against the enemies of the Crown, and when he had located these enemies on the high seas, could attack them and confiscate their ships and contents. Now this afforded a fine outlet for those imaginative seafarers who yearned for something more adventurous than catching fish. It was just the kind of life for those who gloried in adventure and wanted it on sea. It helped to turn the fisherman into a fighting man; it was a training school for those who were presently to become the great sea captains and admirals, the gunners and able seamen of the great Elizabethan age.