The British Navy Book Part 2

There they confidently expected that the brave fighter would spend a happy eternity of fighting and feasting. It is said that their remote forefathers had brought this weird form of belief from the depths of Central Asia--but that must be a very old story. But fighting was the breath of their life. They revelled in it, though they did not despise the plunder which was generally the reward of victory. Many of these fierce warriors were subject to and even cultivated a species of madness, almost amounting to demoniacal possession, which induced them to tear off their clothes and hurl themselves almost naked into the fray, feeling endued with the strength of seven men.

These "Berserkers", as they were called from this custom, were doubtless most dangerous opponents in their "Berserk" fury. Nowadays it is generally accepted that the braver the man the more modest he is about his deeds of valour; the boaster is considered likely to be but a broken reed in the day of battle. But it was quite otherwise with the Viking warriors. They gloried in boasting aloud of their prowess, of the deeds they had done, and of those that they were ready to perform.

The tactics of the Vikings, if they failed to ram their opponents, was to lash the bows of as many friendly and hostile vessels together as possible, so as to form a floating battle-field. The fighting-platforms were not, apparently, raised above the bows, as later on in mediaeval times. They were somewhere about the level of the gunwale, and when several ships were lashed together, all these platforms provided a battle-ground upon which the Berserker and his emulators could indulge in the furious hand-to-hand combats which were their delight. If they could do this they were probably more than pleased that they had failed to ram their enemy. I doubt if every ship was built with a ram, but, on the other hand, it is certain that some ships were specially built for use as rams, and even strengthened by iron plating. So that we see that the armour-clad is no new invention.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Showing his Teeth"

Figure of a Berserker from a set of ancient chessmen found in the island of Lewis. The Berserkers always bit their "shield-rims" on going into battle.]

In the larger "long-ships" a fighting-gangway ran along behind the shield-row, connecting the fore and after platforms. Beneath the latter, which was somewhat elevated so that the steersman could look ahead, was the sleeping-place for the commander of the ship. Other sleeping accommodation was provided under the foremost platform, while, if at anchor, those of the crew who were not on watch slept under awnings or tents, set up on framework which could be erected for the purpose in the centre of the vessel. The men slept in leather bags, which were equally useful either ash.o.r.e or afloat. In short, these ancient war-vessels were so well and scientifically built, so well arranged and equipped, and so well manned that we cease to wonder at the long voyages they were able to perform by taking advantage of the summer months.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A WAR-GALLEY IN THE DAYS OF KING ALFRED

The Dragon or other figure-head has been unshipped, possibly because the galley is going into port.]

There is not the slightest doubt that the Vikings discovered the continent of America long before Columbus did. They went by way of Iceland, and so were able to touch land more than once on their journey, but they got there all the same. They established a colony in Greenland about A.D. 985. From there they made several expeditions to the southward, and discovered a densely wooded country which is supposed to have been some portion of Nova Scotia. The climate of Greenland must have been very different from what it is at present, for the Viking colony lasted for 400 years, till, in the fifteenth century, an enormous ma.s.s of ice was swept down by the Arctic current, piled itself up along the coast, and entirely cut off the settlement--which at that time consisted of thirty villages with their churches and monasteries--from the rest of the world, so that before long every trace of it disappeared.

It seems possible that some of you may say: "This is all very interesting, but I thought we were going to read about the British Navy, and it seems to me that the Saxons and their ships represented the British navy of those days". That is a fair argument, but for my part I do _not_ think that we can accept the Saxon Navy as the ancestor of the British Navy of to-day.

The Saxons were no seamen, and apparently but poor soldiers. When King Alfred built a navy of ships, which are stated to have been superior in every way to those of the Frisians, Scandinavians, and Danes, and by means of which he succeeded in securing more than one victory, he could not provide them with seamen. The Saxons were no good, and he had to hire Frisian pirates to man them. The Saxons fought well at Hastings, but, though there was a strong infusion of the Danish element by this time, they lost the battle through lack of discipline and military experience. It is difficult, therefore, to recognize in these Saxons the progenitors of men like Lieutenant Holbrook, who navigated his submarine through and under rows and rows of deadly mines, knowing that the least touch would bring annihilation, or of Private Pym of the Berkshires, who, _alone_ and "on his own", rushed into a house held by a detachment of German soldiers and succeeded in killing the whole of them but three, who "made their escape".

No. For the ancestors of the British seamen and sailors of Elizabethan and modern times I think we should rather look to the Danes, who, it must be remembered, between 870 and the Norman Conquest, were not only continually invading England, but established themselves in a great part of it, especially in the east and north, and to those of the Conqueror's followers who traced their descent directly from the Northmen or Vikings. It is their spirit which has brought us victory both by land and by sea, but more especially by sea, and not the spirit of Alfred's Saxon subjects, who had to pay others to fight for them. Again, take such pre-eminent commanders as Drake and Nelson. Is not the former name one which takes us directly back to the "Draakers", the "Dragon-ships"

of the Vikings, and has not Nelson a distinctly Danish sound about it?

The ships of King Alfred "were full-nigh twice as long as the others; some had sixty oars, and some had more; they were both swifter and steadier, and also higher, than the others. They were shapen neither like the Frisian nor the Danish; but so it seemed to him that they would be most efficient."

FOOTNOTE:

[3] I am indebted to the Rev. S. Baring-Gould for the following very interesting note, which indicates that there was some affinity between the ancient Grecian and the Viking ideas with regard to figure-heads: "The Greeks never allowed an image of an entering ship to arrive un-removed, and then it was conveyed to the sh.o.r.e to salute the G.o.ddess of the port. The altar 'to the Unknown G.o.d' St. Paul saw _was actually to any unknown Deity of an approaching vessel_."

CHAPTER III

Fighting-ships of the Middle Ages

"With grisly sound off go the great guns And heartily they crash in all at once, And from the top down come the great stones; In goes the grapnel so full of crooks, Among the ropes run the shearing hooks; And with the pole-axe presses one the other; Behind the mast begins one to take cover And out again, and overboard he driveth His foe, whose side his spear-head riveth.

He rends the sail with hooks just like a scythe; He brings the cup, and bids his mate be blithe; He showers hard peas to make the hatches slippery.

With pots full of lime they rush together; And thus the live-long day in fight they spend."

Description of a mediaeval sea fight, _Legend of Good Women_ (modernized), fifteenth century.

WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR, like Cortez, the discoverer of Mexico at a later date, dispelled any thoughts of retreat that might have been lurking in the minds of his followers by destroying the ships which had brought them over. He had come to stay. Now the Normans, though of the same blood as the seafaring Vikings, who had sailed and fought their Dragon-ships to the very ends of the known earth, had been so long settled in France that they had adopted not only the French language, but French ideas, which were not, generally speaking, of a nautical nature.

Among these was the system of feudalism and knight-service. The very word for knight--_chevalier_ in French--signified a horseman; and the Norman and other feudal knights of the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries looked at war and politics from the point of view of a cavalier armed cap-a-pie seated in his war-saddle. As for ships and sailors, they were merely unpleasant means to necessary ends.[4] But if one wanted to go to fight and plunder and raid across Channel he had to submit himself and his followers to the cramped accommodation of a vessel of some kind, and to the care of the rough shipmaster and his crew--low but necessary persons, in the eyes of the mediaeval knight, just as were the experienced "tarpawlins" in the estimate of the scented "gentleman-captains" in the days of the Restoration. So it came about that for some centuries England had no Royal Navy.

The king and his princ.i.p.al n.o.bles had at times a few galleys or sailing-vessels of their own--almost, if not entirely, their personal property--and these they made use of for purposes of transportation or fighting when required; but during this period the maritime defence of the realm was carried out--on the whole inefficiently--on the hire system. The money for this purpose was forthcoming, since William revived a tax for defence purposes, called the "Heregeld", which had been not long before abolished by Edward the Confessor, on the pretext that by it "the people were manifoldly distressed". Had he not listened to the "little navyites" of his day, perhaps the Norman Invasion would not have succeeded. In addition to this, William placed the five princ.i.p.al ports commanding the narrowest part of the Channel on a special footing, under which, in return for certain privileges, they were to supply him or his successors with a fleet of fifty-two ships in cases of emergency. They could only be retained for fifteen days, however. These ports--Hastings, Romney, Hythe, Dover, and Sandwich--were then, and for ever afterwards known as the "Cinque Ports", though Dover is the only one which can still be regarded as a port at all. Rye, Winchelsea, and Pevensey also became "Cinque Ports" later on.

William's idea with regard to the Cinque Ports was probably not so much the general defence of the kingdom as the defence of his communications with Normandy. With their a.s.sistance he could be sure of always being able to move troops either way across Channel as his exigencies required. Thus, when in 1083 William, who was then in Normandy, heard rumours of the intention of the Kings of Denmark and Norway and the Count of Flanders to invade England with a great fleet, he hurried over-Channel with so great an army that "men wondered how this land could feed all that force". Without the a.s.sistance of the Cinque Ports he might have had some difficulty in doing this.

Although we really know a great deal about the ships of the Saxon and Danish periods of our history, we know comparatively little about those which were built between the Conquest and the accession of Henry VII.

For, while we have had specimens of the actual Viking ships to work upon, we have for this long period, of over 400 years, little information beyond that afforded by the seals of maritime towns, the ships depicted by monkish chroniclers and romancists in their illuminated ma.n.u.scripts, and in a few cases old stained-gla.s.s windows and decorative carvings.

Now, to begin with, it is obvious that in each of these cases the artist was cramped for s.p.a.ce. He had to decide between the calls of accuracy and of decorative effect, and almost invariably he gave way to the latter.

In seals, especially, he was tempted to make the curves of the ship's hull run parallel to the circ.u.mference of the seal. In that which belonged to the master of the _Sainte Catherine de Cayeux_, which fought at Sluys in 1340, the exterior curve of the hull of the ship represented upon it is really concentric with the seal itself. In almost every other case--up to the fifteenth century at any rate--the hulls of the ships shown on seals of this description approximate to this shape, and, generally speaking, are of crescent form, with fighting-stages or "castles" at the bow and stern. There are a few exceptions, which are more likely to be correct, as their designers evidently made up their minds not to be led away from the truth.

In the rather fascinating pictures that appear in mediaeval ma.n.u.scripts, too, the monkish artists had to work in a small s.p.a.ce, in which they wanted to put a great deal of ornamental and other detail. They probably knew little or nothing about nautical affairs into the bargain. In the result their ships present the same crescent-shaped hulls as those in the seals of the period, and give the impression of being very small affairs indeed, thanks to the large-sized n.o.bles and men-at-arms with which they are densely packed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Seal of Demizel, master of the barque _Sainte Catherine de Cayeux_, 1340

(From _Histoire de la Marine Francaise_, by kind permission of the author, Monsieur C. de la Roniere.)

An example of the impossible ship. Note how the engraver has made the keel exactly parallel to the circ.u.mference of the seal. It makes a handsome and effective seal, but can hardly be accepted as a picture of a ship of 1340.]

The reason of this quaint method of representing ships and their crews or pa.s.sengers is not far to seek. Who has not seen a child's first attempts to draw the human face in profile? He outlines the forehead, the nose, and chin, and puts in the back of the head easily and to his own satisfaction. Then he pauses and deliberates. The eyes are what he is puzzling over. He knows that, though everybody has one nose, one forehead, and one chin, he has _two_ eyes. What about them? He may think that one eye looks most suitable, but still he doesn't like to leave the other one out. So, as often as not, he puts in a couple, one about the right place and the other somewhere towards the back of the head.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Wreck of the White Ship, 1120

Another example of the impossible-ship picture. There were said to be 300 souls on board! Observe the rudder, which proves the date of the original drawing to be much later than 1120--probably 100 or 150 years.]

The tonsured artist argued very much on the same lines. If he painted a ship it was not a picture of a special ship. What he wanted to portray was the saint or hero of his ma.n.u.script--very often Alexander the Great--on a voyage or crossing a river. If he drew him on the same scale as his vessel he would be a mere dot or blob of paint. He wanted to show his face, his armour, robes, crown, halo, or what-not. So, though he could not help knowing that it was inaccurate, he drew him--and, generally speaking, his companions--on a scale about 500 per cent larger than that of the ship in which he was depicted as performing a most cramped and uncomfortable voyage.

We must not therefore accept these brilliantly coloured works of art as corroborative of the accuracy of the figures of ships appearing on the seals of Dover, Yarmouth, Poole, and other English and foreign ports, and in the fifteenth century of various n.o.blemen who held the appointment of Admiral of England or France. But there are, nevertheless, a great many useful details to be learned from these sources of information. From seals we can trace the gradual evolution of the p.o.o.p and forecastle from the early platforms or fighting-stages, the supersession of the steering-oar or "steer-board" by the rudder, the beginning of cabins, the progress of fighting-tops and action aloft. We see, too, the mode of wearing banners, streamers, and flags, and gain some idea of the gradual growth of sail-power, which culminated, we may say, in the sailing battleship of Trafalgar days.

If we consider the question of mediaeval shipbuilding as a whole, we shall find it difficult to believe that the scientific methods of construction which distinguished the Viking ships, and the improvements on them which were made by Alfred the Great, had all been forgotten and thrown on one side, and that these fine specimens of the shipbuilder's art had been replaced by anything like the ridiculous little "c.o.c.ked hats" that are supposed to represent the shipping of the British and other Northern nations between 1066 and 1450.

The sea-going ships of these peoples, intended especially for sailing, would naturally be considerably shorter and broader in the beam than the Viking cla.s.s of ship, which relied princ.i.p.ally on oars for propulsion, and was rather too long and narrow to sail well under ordinary conditions of weather. Moreover, though they carried a single sail, they were not intended to contend with heavy winter weather.

We have a description of the _Mont-Joie_, in which Louis IX of France sailed on his last crusade. She was built at Genoa, which then and for long after shared with Venice the distinction of being the birthplace of the largest and finest ships in the world. She is worth describing, for she was one of the precursors of the big Spanish and Genoese carracks that our fleets encountered off the coasts of France and Flanders from time to time during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and which stimulated us to buy or build big ships of our own.

The _Mont-Joie_ was 80 feet long on the keel, but over all, measuring from the extremity of the forecastle to the highest point of the stern, she had a length of 120 feet. She is said to have been 26 feet deep amidships. Twelve feet above the keel was a deck running from right forward to right aft. Below this was the hold, where lay the ballast, and in which were stowed water, provisions, and various war materials.

Six feet above the lower deck was another similar deck, which we may call the upper deck, while above this again a gallery or gangway, six or seven feet wide, ran along each side of the ship, between the fore and after castles. The ship's side rose 3-1/2 feet above these fore and aft bridges and was pierced with loopholes for archery. In action the bulwarks would be heightened and further protected by shields or _pavises_.[5] Below the upper deck, aft, was situated the "paradis"

(chambre de parade), or state cabin, which in this case was, of course, occupied by St. Louis himself.

There was other accommodation provided forward for the rest of the _Mont-Joie's_ pa.s.sengers, with the exception of the Queen, who occupied another "paradis" on the upper deck, immediately over the King's. These cabins were lighted by ports or scuttles cut in the sides of the ship.

Forward there was further shelter provided under the forecastle, and both it and the after part of the ship were surmounted by a _bellatorium_, or fighting-platform, with bulwarks 4 feet in height. The ship was equipped with two tall masts raking forward and carrying large lateen sails. At the summit of each was a _gabie_ or fighting-top.

Altogether it will be seen at once that here was a real sea-going ship, very different from the open boats, manned by giants, of the seals and ma.n.u.scripts ill.u.s.trations.

It is not always easy to convey the impression of size by mere figures, but if we bear in mind that the famous old _Victory_, now lying in Portsmouth Harbour, and which many of us have seen at least once, is only about twice the length of those thirteenth-century ships, we shall be able to form some idea of their not unimportant dimensions.

Many of the mediaeval ships were most gorgeously painted and decorated.

When the French king Charles VI fitted out a great naval armament at Sluys, in 1386, for the invasion of England--which did not come off, by the way--Froissart tells us that "gold and silver were no more spared than though it had rained out of the clouds or been scooped out of the sea". One young n.o.ble covered his mast with gold-leaf. "They made banners, pennons, and standards of silk, so goodly that it was marvel to behold them; also they painted the masts of their ships from the one end to the other, glittering with gold and devices and arms: and specially it was shewed me", says old Froissart, "that the Lord Guy de la Tremouille garnished his ship richly; the paintings that were made cost more than ten thousand francs. Whatsoever any lord could devise for their pleasure was made on the ships: and the poor people of the realm paid for all; for the taxes were so great, to furnish this voyage, that they which were most rich sorrowed for it, and the poor fled for it."

Our own Henry V had rather "loud" tastes in his ship decoration. In the year 1400 he had a ship painted red, decorated with collars and garters of gold surrounding fleur-de-lis and leopards, as well as gilded leashes looped round white greyhounds with golden collars. All these were selections from the royal badges. Her mast was red also. The _Good Pace of the Tower_[6] was red too, but her upper works and stern were of a different colour, and she carried a gilded eagle with a crown in its mouth on her bowsprit.

The _Trinity of the Tower_ was another red ship, elaborately adorned with coats of arms, while the _Nicholas of the Tower_ was black, "powdered" with "Prince of Wales's Feathers", with quills and scrolls in gold. The King's own particular ship, the "cog" _John_, carried the royal crest, "the Lion standing on the Crown", at her masthead, besides other decorations. The Genoese in 1242 painted their war-ships white, spotted all over with red crosses, so Henry perhaps only followed the fashion after all; but, generally speaking, red was the favourite colour, though black at times ran it pretty close in favour as groundwork for various patterns of ornamentation.