The Admiralty, or as it was more usually known,‘the king's council for his marine causes’, came into existence gradually as the navy grew in size and permanence. In 1509 the Clerk or Keeper of the king's ships was, as he had been for a quarter of a century, a comparatively minor royal servant who looked after the maintenance of the king's ships when they were not actually in use. He was paid by royal warrant very specifically for jobs which he had actually done, and reimbursed for money which he had really spent. There are some indications that Robert Brygandine, the Clerk at that time, had occasionally been consulted by Henry VII on matters which could be described as ‘naval policy’, but no sign that Henry VIII did the same. He had his own ideas about ships and the sea. Nor does Brygandine seem to have been involved in the building of new Great Ships. It is not even known exactly where the Mary Rose and the Peter Pomegranate were built, let alone who was responsible, but the Henry Grace de Dieu was built at Woolwich, and William Crane, later the Master of the Boys of the Chapel Royal, was the overseer of the work, while William Bond, Clerk of the Poultry, was the paymaster. The king did not consider it to be inappropriate to make ad hoc use of his household servants, whose skills may have had little to do with their ostensible appointments, and whereas Brygandine was certainly involved with ship building at Woolwich, he may not have been on the king's business at the time. When new storehouses were built at Deptford and Erith during the first French war, a special Keeper was appointed. John Hopton operated quite independently of the Clerk. The warrants which the king signed for naval expenditure did not necessarily go to either of these officers, but were sometimes paid directly to the shipmaster, shipwright or purveyor concerned. By 1520 there were docks and storehouses at Erith, Deptford, Portsmouth and Woolwich, but no sort of overall control, either financial or of any other kind – except at the highest level of the Lord Chancellor. When the ships were actually at sea, they were accounted for either by the Lord Admiral (if he was in actual command) or by the Treasurer of the War.