In the sixteenth century the word ‘navy’ was used to describe the whole merchant marine of the country. The king's (or queen’s) ships were the ‘Navy Royal’. This was legitimate in the sense that the monarch was by custom entitled to require the service of any ship or ships which he (or she) might choose, just as he could in theory call for as many men as he might require for military service. Lists were compiled every so often of the ships that might be so called on. An incomplete note of 1560 shows seventy-nine, while much more comprehensive surveys were carried out in 1577 and 1582. The former shows 136 vessels of over 100 tons, and no fewer than 656 of between 40 and 100 tons. This last group was relevant because it was from that class that victuallers and other supply ships were recruited, but they do not feature in the other surveys. The survey of 1582 is in many ways the most interesting, because it shows 176 vessels of over 100 tons, of which sixty are attributed to London. Suffolk is listed as holding twenty-seven and Newcastle upon Tyne seventeen. Devon, by contrast, accounts for only seven, and the port of Bristol for nine. Whether these lists were comprehensive, or some principle of selection was used, is not known, but what does emerge very clearly is the overwhelming dominance of the capital in the maritime community. Not all the ships registered in London would normally have worked out of the Thames, but London was the great clearing house, not only for merchandise, but also for shipmasters, seamen and gunners. Those who were commissioned to recruit mariners for the navy in times of emergency always looked first to the great city. In places like Deptford and Rotherhithe almost the whole adult male population would have been connected in one way or another with the sea.

Elsewhere the maritime community is hard to define. Waterways penetrated far inland, and in a sense all those who worked them had a connection with the sea. Boats of up to 15 tons burthen, quite big enough to act as coastal traders, could go up-river as far as Bedford, and King's Lynn was described as the ‘gateway to a fifth of England’, via the various tributaries of the Ouse.