The New Navy

The New Navy is the Royal Navy

Before you read this Naval History; if you havn't already, you might like to read: "England's First Navies"

The New Navy had arrived on 10th July 1660, but there were no proper full-time personnel to man it; no organised Naval Profession and there was no proper Admiralty to direct it; and no proper administration to run it. And they did not have any dockyards or dock staff to carry out repairs-they had nothing-but everything to gain.

There was instantly something like a revolution in the use which the New Navy was put. It began at once seriously to protect the nation's maritime interests: seriously and directly-not rather casually and indirectly as before.

King Charles II did the paying but he did not feel himself obliged to use his ships exclusively for the benefit of his merchant subjects. The most he ever did was occassionally to organised patrols, escorts and convoys, strictly at the expense of the convoyed.

Otherwise, most of the time he was so badly off that he would keep his ships "in ordinary." It meant, in the phraseology of the time, "laid-up" or "out of commission." He was so pressed for money, and ships in commission were so expensive to maintain, that their "ordinary" condition was not "in commission."

And even when they were in commission, as we have seen, he was all too often impelled, whenever possible, to make his ships a revenue-making department, rather than a revenue-spending one.

Englands First Navies

Elizabeth encouraged War

This was one reason, of course, why Elizabeth found it so convenient to wage war by means of joint-stock companies. Her subjects, under this system, bore a good percentage of the initial outlay and running expenses, while occassionally a really fat dividend might come her way.

"Drake's Voyage of Circumnavigation," is believed to have paid a dividend of 4,800 per cent; and the Queen, who was an investor in it, of course got her full share.

Waging war by joint-stock company had its disadvantages, as Sir Julian Corbett underlined when he declared that it was the lure of Philip's treasure galleons which was the real cause of our failure to beat him. National naval strategy was sometimes unduly influenced by the paramount necessity for collecting funds.

But now all that was changed. The new paymasters, Parliment and people, naturally insisted on calling the tune; and it was a very different tune-their tune. Their Navy must protect their commerce. Moreover, the new Paymasters usually had a good deal more money in their pockets, or at least, at their command, than the old one ever had.

So the New Navy acquired from the first what has since become its primary function-Trade Protection. In a state already so dependent upon sea-trade, it could not be otherwise. Henceforward the Trade and the Navy grow together, becoming completely complimentary and inter-dependent, both in peace and war.

The Reason for the Royal Navy

The ultimate reason for the Royal Navy's existance, is based upon the only foundation that makes navies durable-a strong merchantile marine to protect. Though in our queer English way we took a long time to work out, that we actually did need a navy.

The Royal Navy was infact a foregone conclusion from the moment when the people of Tudor England, and especially the Elizabethans, discovered that the sea was theirs to use, and profitable in the using.

In England there was no basic difference whatever between the ordinary ship and the warship. We have seen the conditions under which the King obtained the use of such a ship. She might, may we recall, be his own property; but more likely she was not.

In earlier days she would probably be a Cinque Port's ship, but later in the Middle Ages she probably hailed from the West-from Bristol perhaps. The ship would sail, probably, from Bristol, in every respect a typical merchant ship of the day. Unless there were some special cause for haste, she would make her way up-Channel, round Kent and so up the Thames, dropping anchor at last off the Tower of London Port.

Thenceforward, during the rest of her association with the Crown and the Crown's business, she would probably-but not necessarily-change her name. She came there because the Tower was the King's port, chief store-house and arsenal, and because certain adjustments to her were considered desirable, since, in the Crown's service, she might be called upon to fight, or at least should be able to do so if necessary.

Ships carpenters built the first castles

The ship's Carpenter, aided and directed by the King's Carpenters, erecting on the bow and stertn of his ship, and high up the mast, certain frail looking structures like towers, crowned with small breastwork. These erections bore, from early times, with the suggestive name of "castles" to gain height.

These castles were fighting platforms. Man must always have known what martial advantages accrue to him who is situated above his opponent. Indeed, height would seem to confer two great military advantages in all ages-superior visibility for observational purposes, and the aid of gravity as an ally.

Other things being equal, it is usually desirable to have gravity fighting on one's side, but it was particularly so in those days, when most of the weapons were essentially gravity weapons.

These "fighting castles" remained of the flimsy and unstable nature up until the fourteenth century. Till then they were often, even, temporary, and were sometimes removed altogether when the cruise for which they were intended was over. But during the following century they tended to become more permanent, and gradually more elaborate.

One explanation for this greater permanence is that they were found to be useful, not only to the king and his men when they had temporary use of the ship, but also to the Merchant-the real owner-and his men. The owner's representative on board-the Master-may well have reported favourably, when he returned home, on the advantages of such structures, and recommended that they be retained even when the ship reverted to her normal life of trading.

The sea, after all, was a very lawless place, and the ordinary merchant ship was liable to meet a whole host of natural enemies from the moment she left her home port to the moment of her return. So it was not only when it was on the King's business that it had to be prepared to fight.

Castles had to be adapted for new weapons

The principal reason, for the gradual elaboration of the castles was different. Was mainly due to the gradual change in weapons, and, above all,to the appearance on board ship of the most revolutionary of all weapons-the Gun.

Tradition has it, that it was first brought on board a ship called; "Christopher of the Tower"-one, that is, in the Crown's employ-in the year 1406. This is probably wrong by as much as half a century, but the exact date is not very important because it took a long time for the gun to establish itself as a ship's-weapon.

It was, like all other northern ship's-weapons of the day, a man-killer, and at first rather a different one. And it is best regarded as being, for a long time, just one sort of man-killer competing with other old and well-tried rival man-killers like arrows and darts.

It won the competition in the end, but the process was slow, and it did so when it had been greatly improved. But when it did win, there was a sudden demand for it; and that led to the necessity of finding sites on board to house a very large number of "peices"; which, in return, led to a great increase in the size of the "castles." This process was already far advanced by the end of the fifteenth century.

Obviously-indeed the only-place wherein to house those guns in large numbers was these castles. Tradition had always insisted that all serious fighting should take place from these advantage-points, and in fighting which consisted almost exclusively of "boarding and entering" the principal role of the gun was to repel the invader. But also it was the only place for them.

People imagined the Royal Navy was older

The alternative, to the modern mind, would be to place them in the hull of the ship, and to fire upon the enemy through the port-holes in her side. But it must be remembered that, in all probability, such holes, cut in the solid timbers of the ship, did not exist at all. Tradition-which again may be slightly out, but not much-assigns the invention of the port-hole to about the year 1500 only.

No doubt the original frail one-storied erections were first filled to overflowing; the ships were lengthened fore and aft, till they jutted out over both bow and stern, and approached each other towards midships.

The demand continued for ever more of these guns, fresh stories of decks appeared in both bow and stern, often a third layer of decks appeared, until the superstructures fore and aft towered up in veritable battlements, with endless little pieces peering through their enbrasures, not only on the port and starboard sides but also facing forward over the bows and aft over the stern. They were guarding from invasion the portions of the ship most easily entered, especially where the bulwark of the "waist" is nearest the waterline.

By the end of the fifteenth century this process had gone on so far that Henry VII's, great ship the "Regent" housed no less than 225 pieces of these little man-killers. It had certainly produced, too, a ship of most majestic mien with the semblance at least of considerable power.

When a converted merchant ship is ready for the King's business; then off she goes and performs it to the best of her ability. When it is over, she returns, not straight home, but to the Tower's port, and at once the reverse process begins. The fighters march off, the weapons-usually the King's property-are taken back to the Tower, and-in earlier days-the castles, were temporarily taken down.

The returning of a Merchant Ship

Then, and only then, she returns the way she came, and takes up once more, her ordinary trading activities. So long as this "buttoning and unbuttoning" process lasts, it is clear that Warship and Merchant Ship will remain, structurally at any rate, the same thing. The temporary addition of castles is, in fact, the first-and, for a time, the only-step in war specialization.

Lofty and elaborate battlements as the "Regent" possessed will not come off and on, so easily as all that. The victory of the Gun, had caused considerable revolution in the ship. The castles have become a permanent feature in certain ships-those which are likely to be called upon for a good deal of fighting.

This is an important advance; it is the second stage in warship specialization. but it is only a stage; we have yet a very long way to go before there is anything like a complete differentiation between Warship and Merchantman.

The Merchantman tended to borrow the Warship's innovations, and acquired castles too, though not, quite such elaborate ones. The old days are over for ever when it was possible thus easily to interchange warship and trader.

The "Regent" type may have been a more formidable fighter, but it was not a better ship. In fact, she was worse. The unwieldy castles must have been something of a seaman's nightmare; they resembled monstrous fixed sails that he could not unfurl, and the difficulty of handling the vessel must have increased considerably.

The improved Round Ship

The "Regent" was still a Round Ship in build, of the old dimentions, though of very considerable size. Nor should this greatly surprise us; for the "Regent," though fitted out upon the supposition that she would have fighting to do, was also designed as a merchant ship, and probably spent a greater part of her working life in that compacity, either directly under the King or hired to one of his subjects.

But in one respect she was improved; she carried much more canvas, and had four masts-fore, main, mizen and bonaventure-as well as two top-masts and one top-gallant mast. Nor was she quite so top heavy as illustrations of the period would make one think.

She was stoutly built, with massive main timbers, and thick planking of oak-a very solid affair; other ships by comparison were of mere matchboarding. This had the effect of keeping the ship's centre of gravity much lower than at first sight would appear, and so making her a good deal more seaworthy than she looked. Still sea-worthiness was not, probably, one of her strongest points.

The continuation of this Naval History is called: "Sail of the Line"

The New Navy Sail of the Line

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