The illustration in Fig. 50 is of the Ark Royal, from a contemporary print in the Print Room of the British Museum. Built for Sir Walter Raleigh in 1587, she was sold while on the stocks to Queen Elizabeth for £5000. Her name was to have been the Ark Ralegh, but on being purchased it was changed as above. Her name was, after the end of this reign, changed to the Anne Royal, and in 1625, while returning from Cadiz, she began to leak like the proverbial lobster-pot and only reached home with difficulty. In 1636, while lying in the Thames, she bilged on her own anchor and sank. It was this Ark Royal that was Elizabeth’s flagship of the fleet that defeated the Armada, and for this reason, if for no other, she is deserving of a more complete consideration than we have room to devote to other ships of this period. Sir William Monson,[79] who was already a captain by 1587, gives her tonnage as 800, and the number of her crew as 400. Happily the complete inventory of the Ark Royal is still in existence, and the reader is referred to the “State Papers Relating to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada, anno 1588.”[80] It was compiled in September 1588 after the Ark Royal had come in for a survey, having been out in the Channel in the memorable victory. All the tackle and spars and sails, every item of the inventory down to the kettles for the cooking-room is mentioned. From this list we find that the spritsail, besides its yard, had clew lines, braces, sheets, halyards, and “a false tye.” Sir Henry Manwayring, who also fought in the fleet against the Armada, in his “Seamen’s Dictionary” defines ties as four-strand ropes, hawser-laid, being the ropes by which the yards hang. But the spritsail yard having no ties, was made fast by a pair of slings to the bowsprit. Among the items of the rigging of the foremast are included the “fore pennants,” and both the falls and pennants of the “swifters.” Referring to Manwayring’s “Dictionary,” we find that “swifters doe belong to the maine and foremast, and are to succour the shrowdes and keep stiffe the mast. They have pendants, which are made fast under the shrowdes at the head of the mast with a double block, through which is reeved the swifter.” Mention must be made of the “forebolings” and main bowlines. Our ancestors made great use of these bowlines in order that these great square sails might set quite flat. Until the triangular head sails came in about the middle of the eighteenth century, the foremast was stepped very far forward, for the spritsail was only used off the wind and when getting under way. The manner in which the spritsail in this illustration of the Ark Royal is shown in the head stowed is quite correct.

The inventory mentions also the clew-garnets and martnets (leech-lines) of the foresail, and the “fore-puttocks” (i.e., futtock shrouds) of the foretopmast. The fall of the martnets of the topsails led down into the fighting-top where it was hauled, and the expression “top the martnets” was the order for hauling the martnets up. The yards were hoisted by jeers or halyards. Manwayring defines “jeere” as a hawser, made fast to the main or fore yard close to the ties of great ships only. It came through a block which was seized close to the top and led down to another block at the bottom of the mast close to the deck. Great ships had one on either side of the ties. Apart from the use of the jeer to hoist or lower the yards, it was especially serviceable for taking some of the weight off the ties, and to hold the yard from falling down if the ties should break. In fights, when the sickle-shaped shear-hooks already mentioned were used by the enemy, the opponent would sling his yards in chains “for feare least the ties should be cut, and so the yards fall downe, and these chaines are called slings” (Manwayring). The lateen yards on the mizzen and bonaventure-mizzen had parrals to secure them to the masts.

The Ark Royal carried three bower anchors of 20 cwt. as well as three others and a grapnel. She had fifty fathoms of 15-inch cable, three compasses, four running glasses, three flags of St. George and two of the Queen’s arms, as well as a silk ensign. In the illustration before us the St. George’s flags will be noticed flying at the fore and bonaventure mizzen; at the main is the royal standard, and at the main-mizzen the Tudor Rose. From the spritsail yard flies a pennant surcharged with a St. George’s cross, from the foretop a pennant bearing a foul anchor, being the pennant of the Lord High Admiral. This flag will also be noticed on the foremast of the ship of Charles II.’s time of the frontispiece. In fact, as the reader is probably aware, this is still used as the Admiralty’s flag. From the fore topgallant yard is a streamer bearing a lion rampant, of Lord Howard of Effingham, Lord High Admiral of England; from the maintop another streamer, striped, whilst at the waist is a large banner with Howard’s arms thereon. The inventory includes ballast baskets for carrying the gravel on board, or in which it would be stowed; netting for the forecastle, the waist and the half-deck, as well as cloths for the waist and top armours for the mizzen top, but we shall refer to these later.

Touching the sails of the Ark Royal, she had a bonnet to her spritsail laced on in the manner adopted to-day by the wherry-man of the Norfolk Broads. The mainsail and foresail and main mizzen also had the bonnet, but the others had not, although a topsail bonnet was found rarely. The foresail had a double bonnet with a single drabbler, likewise the mainsail. In the case of the main mizzen the bonnet was a double one. The inventory only includes one topgallant sail, although three are shown in this engraving. This fact is certainly an argument for those who assert that the illustration represents not the Ark Royal, although the rest of the evidence is against this assertion. Much more likely is it that the other topgallant sails were added at a later date.

The inventory includes a sail for the ship’s boat, and two for the pinnesse. A longboat with a brass sheave in the head and supplied with oars, a pinnesse and a “cocke” (derived from the French coque) which was a ship’s boat, as well as an older pinnesse, were carried on board the Ark Royal. During the survey at Chatham it was decided to have her overlop in the waist made less curved and more level for the sake of placing the guns in better position, a lesson that had been impressed on them even more forcibly by the ill-success of the fire of the Spaniards. In our illustration it will be noticed that the curve has disappeared. I therefore conclude that this engraving was made after the ship had been altered at Chatham. It seems very probable that it was during this overhaul that the other topgallant sails were added, in which case the argument against the veracity of this engraving is rebutted.

Elizabeth’s own royal ships were undoubtedly fine able vessels for their time. They were seaworthy, and at any rate during the time of the Armada did not suffer from leaks. But the same statement cannot be made of the merchant ships that joined the royal fleet from the various English ports. These were far from sound and leaked badly. In a letter from Howard to Walsyngham[81] we find that the merchants besought the former that he and the rest of Her Majesty’s fleet would carry less sail for they could not endure it, while “we,” writes Howard, “made no reckoning of it.” This inferiority is confirmed also by Seymour, who writes to say that the merchant ships in the English fleet were not as good sea-boats as the Queen’s.

Before we leave the Ark Royal, let us call to the reader’s attention a detail that, if he is a sailorman, he will have already noticed. The furling of the sails, correctly shown here, is very clumsy and bungling. The custom was when the sails were furled to bind them to the yard with rope yarns, and these yarns were cut to loose the sail when getting under way. Thus Sir William Wynter, writing on February 28, 1587, concludes his letter: “Written aboard the Vanguard, being in the Downs, ready to cut sail.”[82]

Centuries ago, when England had only her Viking-like craft, she had bravely claimed for herself the Sovereignty of the Seas. It was to the foreigner an insolent, arrogant boast. She had fought for the distinction many times. Spain had grown up to be the first maritime nation of the world, but just as in after years the Dutch and the French had, not without a severe tussle, to be prevented from usurping this distinction, so England had to smash the Armada—the greatest aggregation of naval power the world had ever seen on one sea—and with this defeat England was again, for a time at least, the mistress of the sea. Drake’s voyage round the world with a squadron of five ships, the largest of which did not exceed 100 tons, set the final seal on the abilities of English seamanship and navigation. The victory over the Armada settled their superiority in ships, strategy and shooting.

Before we pass from the story of the fight that never grows old—and there is no more stirring reading than the plain narrative included in Hakluyt—let us not forget that capable as were the royal ships of Elizabeth, they could never have been victorious had not the West countrymen of England come to help with their ships and their crews. The former may have been leaky, the latter may have been not as skilled as Howard’s men in the finer arts of war, but they did their duty, in spite of a thousand drawbacks, and did it well. Where had they learned their seamanship? How was it that they had even such good ships as they possessed but a hundred years after Henry VII. had come to the throne? As Mr. Blackmore points out,[83] ever since the discovery of Newfoundland the men of Cornwall and Devon had gone forth year after year to fish for cod off the Banks. Kipling, Connolly, and others, have sung the epic of the brave fishermen who to-day race out to the same banks from Gloucester, U.S.A. Most readers of fiction know that cruising about there is no latitude for a fair-weather sailor, yet three hundred years before them, when the arts of shipbuilding and navigation were not what they are now, Englishmen in ships built at Dartmouth and elsewhere were making regular voyages across the broad Atlantic to those fishing banks. Big vessels and brave capable seamen were essential for these trips. Both, at the summons of necessity, had gradually evolved from the West Country, and, at the hour of need, placed themselves at the service and in the defence of their fatherland.

What were the kinds of ships that sailed in English waters during the reign of Elizabeth? As far as historical research will suffer us let us try and obtain a general idea as to their rig and appearance. Fig. 51, which is taken from the Rawlinson MSS. in the Bodleian, affords an excellent example of an Elizabethan man-of-war. The flags flying are the green and white Tudor colours on the ensign staff and the St. George at the main, which was the national flag, but it was men-of-war only that were allowed to fly it at the main. According to Manwayring the Elizabethan ships, when running before a wind or with the wind on the quarter in the case of a fair fresh gale, often unparralled the mizzen lateen yard from the mast, and launched out the yard and sail over the quarter on the lee side, fitting guys at the further end to keep the yards steady. A boom also appears to have been used in this case. If a ship gripe too much, says Manwayring, then the mizzen was stowed, for otherwise “she will never keep out of the wind.” The mizzen was sometimes used when at anchor to back the ship astern in order to keep her from fouling her anchor on the turn of the tide.

Perhaps in the mind of the general reader the one type of ship of this age that he has any vague knowledge of is the galleon. He associates her with the Armada and with the Spanish nation exclusively. He has not forgotten that he learned in the days of his youth that the ships of the Armada were of enormous size, and that the English ships were victorious because they were small and nimble. It is perfectly true to say that our vessels were light and comparatively handy, but we must not omit to throw into the balance the superiority of our seamanship and gunnery, as we pointed out just now. The English had a natural taste for the sea; the Spaniards, in spite of all their trading and exploring across the ocean, had for it an equal distaste. They were admittedly bad seamen.[84] I am not expressing an opinion but asserting a fact, and this was as much the cause of their defeat as anything else. But the English ships were not particularly small. At least seven were of between 600 and 1100 tons. There were in the whole Spanish Armada only four ships larger than our Triumph, whilst of the English merchantmen the Leicester and the Merchant Royal were each of 400 tons.

Nor did the word “galleon” necessarily denote a Spanish ship. It is perfectly true that the Spanish Armada contained a number of cumbrous galleons, but it must not be inferred from this that a galleon was necessarily clumsy. In point of fact, Spain was the last of the great maritime nations to adopt the galleon. In England the galleon denoted a vessel built expressly for war, as distinguished from the adapted merchantmen. She was essentially a ship built with finer lines, and in every way smarter than the ordinary vessel. The type had been first introduced into the English service by Henry VIII. long before Spain had adopted it, although, as we mentioned earlier, there was considerable confusion as to the actual names. Thus Henry VIII.’s ships were classed as “great ships,” “galleasses,” and “galleys,” while for a long time, both in England and France, the galleon was called indifferently “galleon,” “galleasse,” “galley,” and “galliot.” By the outbreak of the Spanish war practically all the men-of-war in our country were galleons, and were thus described by foreigners. Nevertheless, as Mr. Corbett points out,[85] English seamen never took kindly to the word galleon. They continued to confuse “galleasse” and “galleon” in describing the ships of foreigners. But for all that English shipwrights understood perfectly the technical characteristics, and in official building programmes after the middle of Elizabeth’s reign the three terms “galleon,” “galleasse,” and “galley” appear correctly. The galleon, as Mr. Masefield well describes her, was roughly the prototype of the ship of the line, the galleasse the prototype of the frigate, and the pinnace of the sloop or corvette. The galleon was low in the waist with a square forecastle and a high quarter-deck just abaft the mainmast, rising to a poop above the quarter-deck. Reckoning upwards, the two decks, according to Manwayring, were called lower orlop or first orlop, and the next the second orlop. But if a ship had three decks they never called the uppermost—the third—by the name of orlop, but simply “upper deck.” The wooden bulkheads that separated the stern from the waist were pierced with holes for small quick-firing guns.

The length of the galleon was three times that of her beam, whereas the ordinary merchantman was only twice her own beam, thus preserving the old distinction that we saw in classical time existing between the long ship and the round ship. Yet the newer class of Elizabethan merchantman was getting longer, influenced by the experience gained on the long voyages across the Atlantic. It had been in Italy, the great home of maritime matters in earlier days, that the galleon had first been built. The galleon was in fact the child of necessity. The Mediterranean possessed the galley-type from very early times as we have already seen; she had, as we have also seen, the “round” merchant type. But as time went on a demand arose for a compromise between the two. Able to hold as much cargo, and more, than the old rounships, yet not utterly helpless like them in calms and narrow waters, the galleons were yet to be of such a kind as to be capable of acting with the galleys in war time. So they were made not as long but with more beam than the galleys, with a built-up structure fore and aft and—let us note this carefully—though they were sailing ships they had at first auxiliary oar-propulsion. The smaller English galleons also retained their oars for a long time.

The immediate ancestor of the English galleon was the Italian merchantman that traded between Venice and London. This had three masts with a square sail on the foremast, but lateen on the main and mizzen. She carried also oars as auxiliaries. Afterwards, by degrees the oars were dispensed with, so that by the end of the sixteenth century the galleon was a purely sailing vessel with sometimes two and sometimes three decks, while the galleasse had oars as well. Her special claim was that she was both faster and more weatherly than the older type of warship. English shipwrights understood a galleasse to be similar to a galleon but with more length in proportion to her beam, though strictly speaking the galleasse should designate a large ship with high freeboard, using oars as well as sails. The ships, however, that fitted this description were known to them by the name of “bastard galleasses.” The galleasse was sometimes flush-decked and minus both poop and forecastle and never so highly charged (i.e., with such high decks at stern and bow) as the galleon. A good illustration will be found in the foreground of Fig. 52, which contains two of these with their oars out. This picture represents the Spanish Armada coming up channel when first sighted off the Lizard. The illustration has been taken from one of the plates in “The Tapestry Hangings of the House of Lords,” engraved by John Pine, London, in 1739. If the reader will pardon a short digression it may not be out of place to say a few words in explanation of these engravings.

After he had defeated the Armada in 1588, Lord Howard of Effingham, later raised to an earldom, determined to commemorate the victory by depicting the scenes he had so recently passed through. Accordingly Hendrik Corneliszoon Vroom, who had at this time obtained a European reputation as a marine artist, was invited from Haarlem to paint the pictures. From these Francis Speiring, an eminent craftsman, wove the designs into tapestry. Howard, or, as he now was, the Earl of Nottingham, sold them in his old age to James I., who hung them in the precincts of the House of Lords. When, during the Commonwealth, the House of Lords was abolished, the tapestries were fitted into brown wooden frames and hung on the walls of the chamber which had been used for the Upper House. Here they remained until the House was burned down in 1834, when the ten tapestries perished. Fortunately, however, even in the inartistic eighteenth century, an artist, John Pine, and a friend of Hogarth, had the inspiration to reproduce them by engraving, But for this we should lack what is a most valuable record. It is so easy to fall into inaccuracies a century after an event, but since Pine copied from the tapestries, and the tapestries were executed under Howard’s own supervision, there cannot be much room left for anything incorrect in respect of the ships. Howard had fought against the Spanish ships night and day in that memorable month of July, and had every opportunity of noting the rigging and lines of his enemy’s vessels, so that when he had left the sea and, not unnaturally, devoted his attention to his own memorial, he would be the ideal person to see that accuracy was insisted upon. These engravings are still to be picked up occasionally in some of the London print-sellers, but the illustration here given is from the collection in the Print Room of the British Museum.[86]

The reader who is familiar with Elizabethan literature must have found considerable confusion existing in his mind as to what a “pinnesse” really was. Let us say at once, then, that the name was indiscriminately given to two distinct classes of craft. One class was a kind of galleasse, only smaller; that is to say, she relied on both oars and sails. She was a sea-going ship and decked. Under this heading came also row-barges, and at various times also galleots, galleys, frigates, and shallops. The point to notice is that this class comprised really big craft. The other “pinnesses” were ships’ boats. The modern use of the word pinnace expresses pretty clearly its relation to the mother ship. The greatest critics are unable to define exactly what a “bark” was, but from an early Venetian print I gather that she was smaller than the prevailing Mediterranean galley. At the same time the word seems to have included also vessels ranging from fifty, to a hundred and fifty tons. Thus they were sometimes small ships, and sometimes large pinnaces. Whilst Elizabethan seamen included all sailing vessels fit to take their place in the line of battle under the generic term of ship, the shipwrights divided them according to their design into “ships,” “galleons,” “galleasses”; “barks” being a convenient term for vessels of smaller ability.

The “brigandine” or “brigantine” was a Mediterranean type of small galley, rowed by its own fighting crew and without slaves. Sometimes she was classed as a “pinnesse” and sometimes as a bark, but never as a galley. Whether or not she possessed sails she was primarily a rowed boat. The illustration in Fig. 53 represents a big sea-going pinnesse as distinct from the ship’s boat. This was the vessel that carried home the body of Sir Philip Sydney, and is taken from “Sequitur celebritas et pompa funeris...” (of Sir Philip Sydney) by Thomas Lant, printed in 1587. The Elizabethan deep-sea pinnaces were from eighty to fifteen tons. The present illustration shows the vessel with her waist-cloths rigged up to prevent boarding, and with nettings[87] drawn over the waist to intercept the missiles dropped from the fighting-tops of the enemy. Mr. Masefield says that this cloth was of canvas two bolts (three feet six inches) deep. It was gaily painted with designs of red, yellow, and the Tudor green and white. It was of no protection against the enemy’s guns, yet it helped the sail trimmers on board from being aimed at. But against the enemy’s arrows sent from the tops it was efficacious, for though they penetrated the texture they were caught. We have already called attention to the additional protection of the shields or pavesses that ran around the outside of the deck.

The illustration in Fig. 54 shows a galleon with decorated sails, a practice that died out about the close of Elizabeth’s reign.[88] This decoration was effected by stitching on to the canvas cut-out pieces of cloth with twine. Most of the sails were woven in Portsmouth on hand looms, and the stuff was of good quality. But during the reign of James II. when the Huguenots took refuge in England, among the many new trades which the settlers brought over was that of the manufacture of sail-cloth. A French refugee, Bonhomme, who had settled down at Ipswich, taught the secret of its manufacture. Previously, England had imported her sail-cloth from France. The new factory was assisted in every possible way, but was finally destroyed by French agents, who bribed the artisans to return once more to France. Another factory was set up in London during the reign of William III., but as late as the time of George I. sail-cloth was imported from abroad.

As to the rigging of Elizabethan ships: the shrouds of the fore and main masts led outside the ship to chains to which they were made fast. The platforms in the “chains” of the ships of this time were of no small size as we shall see when we come to consider the Spanish vessels. The shrouds of the mizzen and bonaventure were set up usually from inside the bulwarks on deck. The fighting-tops were of elm, being entered through a lubber’s hole in the floor. Contemporary prints show sheaves of arrows projecting from the tops. At a later date light guns were placed here, but as this necessitated the use of lighted matches there was always the risk of setting fire to the sails. The shrouds and stays were of thick nine-stranded hemp. We see from old prints of this time that those parts, as for instance where the foresail came into contact with the bowsprit, which were liable to suffer from chafing were protected by matting made of rope or white line plaited, and then tarred. Masts were made of pine or fir. In dirty weather the fore-yard and fore-topsail yard could be sent on deck. Parrals of course kept the yard to the mast. There is not so very much difference between the sailor language of Elizabeth’s time and that in use on board a modern sailing ship. Mr. Bullen in an essay on “Shakespeare and the Sea” reminds us that “Elizabethan England spoke a language which was far more studded with sea-terms than that which we speak ashore to-day.” In such plays as Twelfth Night, Comedy of Errors, Macbeth, King Henry VI., and The Tempest, we have instances of this. Thus in Act III. Scene I. of the latter the first sailor commands the other to “slack the bolins there.” Modern bowlines are slight ropes leading from forward to keep the leach or weather edge of the courses flat and rigid in light winds when on a wind. But in olden times the bowline was of far greater importance, as we have seen, and led well out on to the bowsprit. Not merely the lower course, but topsail and topgallant sails possessed them.

When the English fleet opposed the Armada it consisted of 197 vessels made up as follows: 34 of Elizabeth’s own royal ships, 34 merchant vessels, 30 ships and barks paid by the City of London, 33 ships and barks (with 15 victuallers not reckoned in the total number), 23 coasters varying from 160 to 35 tons, 20 other coasters and 23 voluntary ships. Of the merchant ships the Galleon Leicester and the Merchant Royal are each given as of 400 tons and carrying 160 men. The smallest was the small caravel of 30 tons with 20 men. But we have spoken at some length of the English ships. Let us now turn to consider the ships of other nations of this period.

The Armada consisted of 130 vessels if we add up the list given in Hakluyt. This number was made up of the following types: galleons, patasses or pataches, galleasses, zabras, galleys and hulks. Besides these there were 20 “caravels rowed with oares, being appointed to Performe necessary services unto the greater ships,” making a total of 150. The tonnage of the fleet came to 60,000. There were 64 galleons “of an huge bignesse” and “so high that they resembled great castles,” but in attacking ability “farre inferiour unto the English and Dutch ships, which can with great dexteritie weild and turne themselves at all assayes.” It was this “bignesse” and the high castles at bow and stern that caused the prevailing fallacy to arise that the Armada ships were far larger than ours. The former were very high but very short on the keel, and in consequence equally unseaworthy. Ours were, as we pointed out above, long on the keel and not highly “charged” with castles. The Hakluyt account says the upperworks of the galleons were so thick and strong as to resist musket shot. The lower part of the hull and its timbers also were “out of measure strong, being framed of plankes and ribs foure or five foote in thicknesse, insomuch that no bullets could pierce them, but such as were discharged hard at hand: which afterward prooved true, for a great number of bullets were founde to sticke fast within the massie substance of those thicke plankes. Great and well-pitched cables were twined about the masts of their shippes, to strengthen them against the battery of shot.”

The galleasses “were of such bigness, that they contained within them chambers, chapels, turrets, pulpits, and other commodities of great houses. The galliasses were rowed with great oares, their being in eche one of them 300 slaves for the same purpose, and were able to do great service with the force of their ordinance.[89] All these together with the residue aforenamed were furnished and beautified with trumpets, streamers, banners, war-like ensignes, and other such like ornaments.” The various vessels also carried 12,000 pipes of fresh water and plentiful supplies of bacon, cheese, biscuit, fish, rice, beans, peas, oil, vinegar and wine. Among their stores were candles, lanterns, hemp, ox-hides and lead sheathing to be used to stop the holes that should be made by the enemy’s guns.

The Spanish ships had been built unnecessarily strong by very heavy scantlings. They were, according to Mr. Oppenheim,[90] of light draught with broad floors and were both crank and leewardy. The seams opened in spite of the strength with which they had been put together. They were bolted with iron spikes and it was not long before these ships became “nail-sick.” Their masts and spars were too heavy and their standing rigging too weak; in fact, whilst the demand had to be met for big ocean-going ships, the Spanish shipwrights and naval architects were not sufficiently advanced at this time to deal with such enormous masses of material.

We have mentioned above that Spain was the last of the great maritime Powers to adopt the galleon. In Fig. 55 the reader will see a representation of her galleons. It was not till about 1550, Mr. Oppenheim states, that the great galleon was introduced. The print here reproduced is in the British Museum, and the date the authorities assign to it is about 1560, so that we have every reason for supposing that this illustration is a correct one. The reader will at once notice the high-charged stern immediately abaft the mainmast. The Spanish ships were notorious for their wall-like sides; and for the height to which the bowsprit was “steeved,” both of which details will be noticed in the illustration before us. We mentioned in this chapter that in her origin the galleon owed something to the galley. Now, one of the chief characteristics of the galley type was the ram which was handed down from ancient times. Here, then, in this picture will be seen the survival of the ram affixed to the galleon. But it is here no longer entirely for the purpose of attacking the enemy’s ships but for boarding the fore-tack when by the wind. The bowlines are clearly seen on the vessel to the right of the print, leading from both the foresail to the bowsprit and from the mainsail. On both the fore and main courses, the martnets or leach lines are shown very clearly in the print; it is a little difficult to indicate these so clearly in reproduction. Notice, too, that both foresail and main have got both bonnet and drabbler laced on. Below the bowsprit is seen the spritsail. The main-mizzen topsail is stowed, and the bonaventure does not carry a topsail above her lateen. The under portion of the hull of these Spanish ships was painted white, but ochre was frequently used for the stern. They had lids to their portholes, nettings and waist-cloths, and “blinders” to avert the arrows and musket fire. The armament of the Spanish merchantman was, in the case of vessels of 100 tons, four heavy iron guns and eight hand guns aside as well as eight other hand guns; but after about 1550 the armament became heavier.

We pass now to speak of the Spanish treasure-frigates. These were an important class of vessel during the last quarter of the sixteenth century. The length on their upper deck was nearly four times the beam, and they possessed considerable speed. They were not properly cargo ships, but built in order to carry the valuable treasures from the Spanish Main across the Atlantic to Spain. Specially designed by Pero Menendez Marquez about the year 1590, to get across from the West Indies with the utmost despatch, they carried 150 men with soldiers and marines. Hakluyt[91] contains “certaine Spanish letters intercepted by shippes ... containing many secrets touching” South America and the West Indies. The extremely interesting drawing in Fig. 56 was sent home by an English spy and is now preserved in the Records Office, by whose permission it is reproduced here. This illustration shows very clearly that she had evolved from a galley. She has three masts of which the main and mizzen are seen to possess topmasts that lower. These two masts also have topsails. The yards of the mainsail and foresail have also affixed to their extremities crescent-shaped shear-hooks for tearing the enemy’s rigging. The forestay and foretopmast stay are well indicated. The mizzen has a lateen as usual, and the ram still survives. The artist has also shown the netting mentioned just now. As to the hull, we see from the spy’s handwriting that she was “104 foote by the keele” and “34 foote in breadth.” She has three tiers of guns, these being mounted also forward, so as to be able to fire straight ahead. She appears to have as many as six decks aft—main, upper, spar and four poop decks. The greatest precaution was taken by the Spanish government to ensure seaworthiness in the ships leaving their shores for the West Indies. Three times they had to be inspected before being allowed to set forth: once when empty, then when laden, and lastly, immediately before departure. No cargo was allowed to be carried on deck except water, provisions and passengers’ luggage. In the huge “channels” which were mentioned above were stowed such commodities as wool, small casks of water, and straw. Mr. Oppenheim mentions that an ancient “Plimsoll” mark was ordered by the inspectors in the year 1618, although the Genoese statutes had ordained this as early as 1330.

When in 1592 the English captured the “huge carak” called the Madre de Dios belonging to Portugal, there were found stowed in her capacious channels about 200 tons of goods. This will give some idea of the extent to which these channels grew in size. Hakluyt contains a long and detailed account of the capture and dimensions of this carack, which was the largest the English seamen had yet encountered. She was 1600 tons, having between 600 and 700 souls aboard, besides her rich cargo of jewels and spices and silks and other goods. She was eventually brought into Dartmouth, and is said never again to have left the harbour. When surveyed, Hakluyt says that she measured from beak-head to the stern, 165 feet, extreme beam, 46 feet 10 inches. Her draught when laden had been 31 feet, which, being about the draught of one of the largest modern liners, would seem exaggerated did not the account definitely state that the survey was exactly made by “one M. Robert Adams, a man in his faculty of excellent skill.” When, after being lightened, she was taken into Dartmouth, she drew only 26 feet, which is still enormous. Her decks at the stern comprised a main orlop and three closed decks. At the bows she had a forecastle and a spar-deck “of two floors apiece.” The length of her keel was 100 feet, of the mainmast 121 feet, while the circuit at the partners was 10 feet 7 inches, the main yard being 106 feet long. The following year another enormous carack was fired and sunk by the English. Her name was Las Cinque Llagas (“The Five Wounds”), and she is said by some to have been bigger even than the Madre de Dios.

One of the most memorable of naval battles was that which was fought on the Adriatic Sea in 1571. On the one side were the allied forces of Venice, Spain, and the Papal States: on the other, the Turks who were defeated. Galleys and galleasses played an important part in obtaining this victory. To what development the galley had attained since the times of the early Greeks and Romans will be seen in Figs. 57 and 58. But in spite of all that history had added to them, it is surprising how little they differ in essentials. Fig. 57 has been sketched from a model in the South Kensington Museum. It is quite old, and is said to have belonged to the Knights of Malta. Her dimensions if built to scale would work out at about 165 feet long, by 22 feet beam, with extreme beam from gunwale to gunwale, 31 feet. The depth would be 9·9 feet, and the number of sweeps 44. In the United Service Museum there is also an instructive Maltese galley model of a large size which, though of the eighteenth century, differed so little as to be closely similar to the excellent illustration which we give in Fig. 58. This has been taken from an important publication, of the beginning of the seventeenth century, by Joseph Furttenbach, entitled “Architectura Navalis,” printed at Ulm in 1629. As will be seen, each oar is still worked by a gang of men. At the stern the captain sits with his knights by his side, while at the extreme stern is the pilot. Along the corsia or gangway down the ship walk two men with long poles with which to beat the lazy oarsmen. The principal armament was carried in the bows and so was unable to be used for broadside fire. Notice also the survival of the trumpeters. The length of this vessel was 169 feet from beak to stern, with an extreme beam of about 20 feet. The word antennæ is still found at this time as applied to the yards. In spite of the handiness of the galley and her consequent popularity in the Mediterranean, she was thoroughly despised by Elizabethan seamen. Much more after their own heart was the nave or ship shown in Fig. 59, and also taken out of Furttenbach. The reader will notice a wise restriction of high-charged structures. This vessel, in fact, shows a steady improvement in naval architecture. Thus, besides the lateen mizzen she carries a square topsail above, while in addition to the spritsail seen furled to its yard on the bowsprit, there has now been added a sprit topsail whose yard is seen to hoist up a sprit topmast. When we compare this vessel with the wooden walls of the eighteenth century, she will be seen to be wonderfully modern. The last traces of crude mediævalism are disappearing. Science in design has fast begun to supplant rule of thumb and guess-work based only on ignorance. Skill has taken the place of inexperience in the work of the shipwright, and both design and construction have been based on the knowledge obtained not only in long and tedious voyages, but in the brisk fighting between nation and nation and privateer against treasure ship and trader. In the same volume of Furttenbach a useful plan of the lines of this ship is given, from which we see that whilst the mainmast is stepped at the keelson, the fore and mizzen are stepped on the main deck.

A favourite vessel with the Turkish pirates who infested the Mediterranean at this time was the carramuzzal, classed as a brigandine. Her sail, says Hakluyt, consisted of “a misen or triangle” sail, that is of course a lateen. She is shown in Furttenbach purposely without rigging or sails so as to indicate clearly her method of firing. The tartana, with her lateen sail, sometimes seen in contemporary prints, was a Mediterranean fishing vessel.

In spite of the great interest manifested by England and other nations recently in Arctic exploration, let us not forget that the first true polar voyage was undertaken during the reign of Elizabeth by Dutchmen. Their object was to find the North-East passage to China, and terrible were the privations and perils endured. The reader who has become familiar with Franklin’s, McClintock’s, Nansen’s, Scott’s, Shackleton’s, and other explorers’ travels to the poles, is advised to compare the experiences which these Dutchmen endured. Many of them have their counterpart in the accounts written by modern explorers. Thus one of the ships was tilted over to a dangerous angle, though ultimately righted. Once one of the ships was caught in a driving pack of ice, and suddenly freeing herself three of her crew who were on the ice had barely time to be drawn quickly up the ship’s sides and saved from drowning. These and the other incidents mentioned here are all delightfully illustrated in “A true account of the three new unheard of and strange journeys in ships ... in the years 1594, 1595 and 1596,” by Levinus Hulsius, printed at Frankfort in 1612. The type of ship used for this expedition appears to be the galleon. The rigging and sails, the lacing holes for the drabbler and bonnet, the topsails “goared” out to the clews, and the bowlines, are all shown. One illustration proves that when close-hauled these ships stowed both spritsail and sprit topsail.

Unhappily for the navigators, but luckily for us, their big ship stuck fast in the ice and remained there. Anxious, therefore, to return to Holland with the approach of summer, they determined to attempt the journey in open boats. Now much as we sympathise with the sufferings of these brave men, this unfortunate incident of an abandoned ship has given us a picture of the men engaged in adding raised gunwales to their small boats and afterwards sailing across the sea. Hitherto in this history of the sailing ship, except when we spoke of the lateen, we have always had in mind the squaresail rig. Its virtues never grow old when utilised for big ships and deep-sea sailing. But for small craft and for handiness there is nothing to beat what is known as the fore and aft rig. Just exactly when the fore and aft rig originated is not possible to determine, although its rise and influence have been since very powerful, especially in the modern yacht and fishing vessel. But it may be taken as practically certain that the sloop rig (by which I mean a vessel with a peaked mainsail and a triangular headsail), like many other good points of ship development, came from the Low Countries during the first half of the sixteenth century. In a map[92] sent in 1527 from Seville, in Spain, by M. Robert Thorne to Doctor Ley we see a Dutch-like sloop depicted. A map of Ireland of 1567 contains two vessels of this rig. H. C. Vroom, whom we referred to above as the designer of the House of Lords tapestries, painted a picture entitled The Arrival at Flushing of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, 1586. The date of Vroom’s birth was 1566. Now this picture shows about half a dozen small vessels rigged exactly like the small boat given in Hulsius. This rig consists of a triangular sail hoisted up the forestay, and with a mainsail having no boom or gaff, but a large sprit across; in fact, exactly resembling the rig of the Thames “stumpey” barge to-day. It was only at a later date that the jib was added to the foresail and a topsail to the sprit mainsail. The other small boat given in Hulsius is shown square-rigged, with one course on her main and the same on her fore, but the latter mast is stepped very far forward and right at the bows. The design of the latter boat’s hull shows the remnant of the Viking influence, which is not obliterated even in the modern Dutch schuyt. It should be mentioned also that the cutter-rigged boat in Hulsius just alluded to has a yard-tackle coming down from the top of the mast to about the middle of the sprit, while from the peak of the sail two vangs lead down aft, just as in the modern barge.

Before we close this eventful period we must not omit to mention the East India Company, which ranks after the Armada and the Battle of Lepanto as the most important item to be reckoned with in connection with the development of the sailing ship. Formed by a company of merchant-adventurers to trade to the East Indies, Elizabeth granted its charter in 1600: its first fleet consisted of the Red Dragon (600 tons and 200 men), the Hector (300 tons and 100 men), the Ascension (200 tons and 80 men), and the Susan (240 tons and 80 men), together with a deep-sea pinnesse of 100 tons with 40 men.

The Tudor period had seen the most wonderful innovations and developments in connection with the sailing ship. Under no period had it altered so much or in so short a space of time. Not, indeed, until we come to the middle of the nineteenth century did the sea witness such original craft voyaging across its surface. But let us see now what happened during the reigns of the Stuarts and their successors.