The main sets of Declared Accounts are in E 351 (Exchequer, Declared Accounts in Rolls); they are handsomely written and on parchment. This list shows how accounts printed in this volume stand in the series and in relation to the one appearing in ENA. A fuller listing there extends the range to the end of Elizabeth's reign, and includes other sets of accounts.

In the immediate aftermath of Edward's death on 6 July, the navy found itself in what could have been the front line. This was because the King had attempted to decree that his successor should not be his Catholic half-sister Mary, who was the heir both by statute and by their father's will, but rather his Protestant cousin the former Lady Jane Grey, now married to Northumberland's youngest son. Jane apparently had the support of the Council, and was duly proclaimed. Mary made her way to Kenninghall in Norfolk, which was in the heart of her own estates, and in turn proclaimed her right. By 13 July the Council believed that she was in flight for the Low Countries and sent a squadron of half a dozen ships to intercept her [II.1]. Mary, however, had no such intention. Not only was she the lawful heir, she was also the popular choice. First at Kenninghall and then at Framlingham in Suffolk her supporters rallied to her and she soon had a formidable force, led by her committed servants. Meanwhile the naval operation had been frustrated by bad weather; five of the ships sheltered in the Orwell, while the sixth, Greyhound, ended up at Lowestoft [II.2]. There the captain, Gilbert Grice, was arrested, but Mary's Council duly accepted his submission on the 17th, and he was continued in command of his ship [II.3]. Perhaps inspired by Grice's example, or perhaps solicited by Sir Henry Jerningham on Mary's behalf, the other ships followed suit, and some of their guns were transported to the Queen's camp at Framlingham. As a temporary measure, the six ships under the Queen's control were, on 19 July, put under the charge of an experienced shipman, Sir Richard Cavendish. On the 25th he was superseded by William Tirrell, appointed as Vice-Admiral [II.4]. The Lord Admiral, Lord Clinton, made his peace with the new regime, though his actual submission is not recorded. The rapprochement was brief because in November he was dismissed in favour of Lord William Howard [II.5–7]. Then William Winter, the Surveyor, was suspected of involvement in Sir Thomas Wyatt's rebellion of January 1554, which was provoked by the Queen's intended marriage.

Direct evidence of a struggle between two Tudor politicians for the same office is rare in itself; the more so over the Admiralty, because it seems only to have been in Mary's reign that appointment to this office was politically contentious. The replacement of Lord Clinton is documented from the State Papers Foreign simply because his chosen successor Lord William Howard was then serving as Deputy of Calais [II.5–7].

The Queen's marriage to Philip of Spain created an unprecedented constitutional uncertainty, never fully resolved. Unlike the consorts of later Queens Regnant, Philip had the title of King, and all official documents were issued jointly by the King and Queen. Philip's kingship was also expressed in regnal years running in complicated canon with those of his wife. Yet it was never clear just what power Philip had in his own right. While he was in England he acted jointly with the Queen; when he was in Brussels (which was most of the time) she sought his advice on all important issues. Philip also maintained direct contact with English ministers, including the Lord Admiral. For some while after his first departure in September 1555 he communicated (in Latin) with a select group of Privy Councillors, returning their regular reports with his minuted decisions and comments. One such exchange [II.8] shows the King acknowledging the Royal Navy's fundamental value to the nation's defence. Though there is a certain irony in this observation from the future sender of the Invincible Armada, the second half of Philip's reply reveals his real interest. The English fleet now under his control was a valuable accession in protecting the passage between Spain and her territories in the Low Countries. There was, however, a failure in providing a suitable escort for Philip's own crossing to Calais, prompting a frosty rebuke to the Lord Admiral [II.9]. Soon afterwards the Privy Council ordered a thorough review and overhaul of the navy, though the only direct evidence of this is an entry in the Council Register [II.10]. A year later this was followed by a radical reform of naval financing, replacing piecemeal supply with a fixed budget. For this we have only the registered decision [II.11], with no indication of the debate which prompted it.

New evidence about the coup which brought Mary to the throne has shed more light on its naval aspect. It has always been known that the Duke of Northumberland sent ships to the East Anglian coast to prevent Mary from making her escape that way. This is explicit in one of the contemporary chronicles, as extracted here [II.1]. We now know in some detail what happened to these ships, and in particular about dissension aboard one of them, from the record of a case heard before the Admiralty Court two years later. Greyhound's captain, Gilbert Grice, had been hand-picked by Northumberland for his expertise, but his crew had a keener sense of the way the tide was running, and when Grice went ashore at Yarmouth the master, John Hurlocke, took command and declared for Mary. He then broke open the captain's chest, on the grounds that he was a manifest traitor, and shared the contents with his shipmates. In the event Grice soon made his peace with Mary [II.3] and was retained in service. He subsequently sued Hurlocke before the Admiralty Court for the recovery of his goods, and it is the depositions in these proceedings which are presented in full here [II.2]. The testimonies are not entirely consistent, and there is no judgement. Grice was not on trial (indeed he had already been pardoned), and the only issue was whether he would see his clothes or his money again. What makes these papers important is their incidental detail about the operation and the men involved in it. This chapter is supplemented by some extracts from the Privy Council Register which show how the new regime took control of the navy [II.3–4].

II.1 The naval squadron sent to East Anglia in the attempt to prevent Mary's accession: extract from the account of anonymous Tower of London chronicler

[Chron. Jane, pp. 8–9]

13–15 July 1553

The 13th day [of July] there came divers gentlemen with their powers to Queen Mary's succour.

About this time or thereabouts the six ships that were sent to lie before Yarmouth, that if she had fled to have taken her, was by force of weather driven into the haven, whereabout that quarters one Master Jerningham was raising power on Queen Mary's behalf, and hearing thereof came thither.

It is not always safe to date an administrative process, let alone an institution, from its earliest documentation. Records go missing, or their archival sequence can be lost through subsequent rearrangement. The Navy Treasurer's Declared Accounts to the Exchequer begin at Christmas 1546, seemingly in direct consequence of the restructuring of the naval administration earlier that year. Naval accounts do, of course, survive in profusion before this date, but the almost unbroken series running from Robert Legge's account for the year ending Christmas 1547 [I.80] might be taken as a new beginning. In fact, as the foot of this account shows, Legge had submitted an account for the previous year, but that is now lost. The 1546/7 roll has also become detached from its successors and so now has a random piece number, while the first item in the sequence is not really part of it.

All the accounts printed here, though expressed with some prolixity, are mathematically simple. However, they cannot be read as straightforward statements of receipt and expenditure; in common with the practice of the time, their purpose was rather for the accountant (here the Treasurer or Victualler) to demonstrate that he had discharged his own financial liability to his superior (here the Crown). Therefore any arrears from the previous account are added in on the charge side or recepta along with the actual sums received [as II.89]. Against this is set the discharge or expense, and if that exceeded the charge the account was said to be in surplus (superplus) [as I.81]. If on the other hand the discharge fell below the charge, he was said to be in debt [as I.87], because the difference represented the Crown's money still standing on his books. Making and copying the accounts was a lengthy process, so this was set in hand well before the terminal date, with the result that a ‘postscript’ or super had to be added, which might include additional charges. More often it deducted administrative expenses (such as the costs of writing the account itself and the audit) which whittled away the charge. Items might also be written off at this point. Sometimes the accountant achieved a perfect balance of charge and discharge, in which case he declared himself equalis or ‘quit’ [as I.80].

This Appendix also serves Elizabethan Naval Administration (ENA), and so includes many ships not featured in this volume

The list is restricted to royal ships, including prizes which were not formally absorbed into the fleet, but excluding most hired merchantmen. The names of all these vessels have been standardised in the text; the MS variants are set out in the index. The details derive principally from the sources listed below, which are more briefly cited than in the main annotation; the full titles are given in the complete list of abbreviations on pp. xv–xxiv. Anderson's reference is given first in the end-notes because, though his details have often been corrected, his remains the most comprehensive list in which each ship has an identifying number. Glasgow's list, which gives a separately numbered sequence for each reign (but concluding at 1588), is cited next. Other sources are in order of publication. Oppenheim has annotated tables for the ships of Henry VIII and Elizabeth, but not for additions under Edward VI and Mary. Rodger's list includes only ships of 100 tuns or above. Colledge, covering the entire history of the Royal Navy, frequently features many ships of the same name on the same page, making citation less precise. The comment ‘Not in other lists’ refers only to these works. No comprehensive check has been attempted on the sources from which they were compiled; only Oppenheim gives references, and these are not always reliable. This new version will inevitably transmit errors and widen specifications which had been correctly narrowed in the preceding works. Only the most significant variant details among these are noted.

Builders

If known, the names of the boilders or builders are given in brackets after the date and place of building. Likewise, in two cases, the individuals in charge of destruction. Only occasionally before the 1580s can a ship be confidently assigned to a particular builder. It has been argued that all the new shipbuilding of the 1570s was at Deptford, and that the newly appointed master shipwright Matthew Baker was chiefly responsible rather than his senior colleague Peter Pett. This interpretation calls into question the previous assumption that the new work was shared ship by ship between Pett and Baker.

Tonnage

This should be understood as burthen (bn) unless ton and tonnage (tt) is indicated. Both measurements derive from commercial practice.

The armament of Queen Mary's ships is fully described in a previously unpublished Ordnance Office survey of 1555, now at Longleat [II.78]. This must be the work of Anthony Anthony, and is the only such establishment to survive between his great illuminated inventory of 1546, and a list of 1585. For some of the smaller vessels it is the only source of ordnance data. However, it pre-dates the building of Philip and Mary and the second Mary Rose so does not reveal the full firepower the Marian navy eventually acquired. Two brief lists from Pepys's collections, one of ships [II.79] and the other of designated captains [II.80] are placed here because they cannot be fitted precisely into the chronological sequence of Chapter 6. That also applies to a version of the general orders for the navy [II.81]. This comes from James Humphrey's compendium of 1569, but its occasional use of the plural royal style assigns it to the years of Philip and Mary. There has been some doubt as to whether its more bizarre provisions were ever enforced.

II.78 Extract from Ordnance Office Establishment

[Longleat House, Misc. MS V, ff. 1, 53–73v]

20 August 1555

The Office of the Ordnance. A declaration containing the quantity and number of all such ordnance of brass and iron, with all other sorts and kinds of artillery, munitions and other habiliments of [word repeated] war remaining in sundry places within the realm of England and the dominions of the same, that is to say, as well within the Tower of London, the North parts, the forts standing upon the sea coasts, Calais and the Marches, and Ireland, as also within the King and Queen's Majesties’ ships; together with the yearly wages, stipends, fees and allowances due to the sundry officers and ministers serving within the said office, as well in the 10th year of the reign of our late sovereign lord King Henry the eight of famous memory [1518–19], as also at this present day, being the 20th day of August anno Domini 1555 and the second and third years of Philip and Mary, by the grace of God, King and Queen of England, France, Naples, Jerusalem and Ireland, Defenders of the Faith, Princes of Spain and Sicily, Archdukes of Austria, Dukes of Milan, Burgundy and Brabant,

These papers are supplementary to those published in association with the Mary Rose Trust a decade ago. They are not strictly new discoveries, having come from catalogued collections. It was rather that the cataloguing was inadequate or positively misleading, so that the relevance of the materials to Mary Rose had not been recognised.

Sinking [by Professor Loades]

Mary Rose sank in the context of the so-called ‘Battle of the Solent’ between 18 and 21 July 1545. Claude d’Annebault, the Admiral of France, had assembled a great fleet of over 150 ships and 25 galleys with the objective of taking Portsmouth and immobilising the English fleet. The purpose of this exercise was not so much to take an English port as to secure a bargaining counter for the return of Boulogne, which had been in English hands since the previous year. Taking out the English fleet was likewise designed to cut the lines of supply by which the garrison of Boulogne had been maintained, and thus facilitate its recapture. Having failed to check d’Annebault's preparations by a raid on the Seine a few days earlier, Lord Admiral Lisle with the English fleet was at Spithead or within the harbour of Portsmouth, prepared to withstand the French assault. Meanwhile King Henry with a large army was encamped beside the town, with the same object in view. On 18 July the King dined on the flagship Henry Grace à Dieu (Great Harry) as the guest of the Lord Admiral. However he did not remain on board overnight, so his departure cannot have precipitated the dramatic events the following day.

On Sunday 19 July, the wind then being light and fitful, d’Annebault began the assault by sending in his galleys, with their formidable forwardfiring guns, to attack the becalmed English warships. Lisle had only a few galleasses and rowbarges to withstand this attack, and would probably have been overwhelmed if the wind had not freshened sufficiently to enable the full English fleet to move out against the galleys, which thereupon retreated. But it was in the course of this action that Mary Rose was lost. Having discharged a broadside, an attempted manoeuvre resulted in the open gunports being forced below the waterline on the lee side and the sea rapidly entered.

When Pepys was at the Navy Board in the 1660s, he was indignant that the only accurate fleet list in the Office was the one which by his ‘particular curiosity’ he had compiled for himself. It is by no means certain that his predecessors in the first generation of that department were any better served, because no complete and definitive establishment of ships or men survives. Nor is it really clear what ships constituted the Royal Navy. Vessels owned by the King included small craft used around the dockyards and in support roles such as would nowadays be assigned to the RFA, not flying the White Ensign. On another hand, a number of merchantmen on long-term loan formed part of the fighting force. This might also include ships owned personally by the Lord Admiral and other senior commanders.

Most modern lists of Edward's VI's fleet derive from one first printed in the eighteenth century, showing where each ship was stationed at the end of Edward's first year [I.66]. Although some detail has been corrupted in transmission, the ordnance data corresponds almost exactly to that of the great inventory of Henry VIII's goods compiled at that time. Rather more vessels appear in a list for the same year [I.67]; but this survives as a copy made and amended twenty years later, with manifestly anachronistic elements. The paper nevertheless provides valuable detail previously unnoticed, including some identification of shipbuilders. It comes from a compendium made by an Elizabethan Admiralty official, James Humphrey, which provides most of the items in this section. A listing of dockyard officials and their wages [I.65] appears to be taken from two sections of a Navy Treasurer's Quarter Book, the first extant example of which will be printed in ENA. Humphrey's collection also preserves the detailed rigging inventories and surveys of three great ships taken in July 1552 [I.73–6]. Similar documents exist from the early years of the reign of Henry VIII, but there are no others for the mid-Tudor period.

Another major source for the Tudor Navy is the MS collection of Sir Robert Cotton, now part of the British Library.

This list is meant for quick reference, and includes technical terms and some obsolete words of general application. More extensive comment on certain words and expressions is made at their first occurrence within the text (as noted here), and terms appearing once only are mostly dealt with at that point. This is not a general dictionary, but has application only to the present volume. Since its purpose is to help the reader rather than highlight the editors’ ignorance, uncertain terms are not included. This applies both to words which could not be interpreted (and therefore printed within inverted commas in the text), and to items described in commonplace words but the precise application of which cannot be stated. The definitions derive chiefly from OED and Capt. John Smith's Sea Grammar in the edition by K. Goell, assisted by previous NRS volumes and the glossary in Professor Rodger's Safeguard of the Sea. D. King, J. B. Hattendorf and J. Worth Estes, A Sea of Words: A Lexicon and Companion for Patrick O’Brian's Seafaring Tales (New York, 1995) is also useful, though its definitions reflect eighteenth-century usages which were sometimes different from those of the sixteenth.

This Appendix, which provides details on Admiralty officials, sea officers, shipwrights and military officers commanding troops aboard HM ships, also serves Elizabethan Naval Administration [ENA], and so includes some individuals not featured in this volume

Entry is restricted to those who appear twice or more in the texts. Any comment on such persons featuring once only is made in the footnotes. The footnotes briefly identify other known persons at the first occurrence.

Inset references are given for naval appointments, and any other details which augment or correct the general authorities listed in the several endnotes. Only the more significant naval commands are included; where not otherwise specified the sources are as for Appendix 1 (see pp. 461–4).

Note on Appointments

Where offices are conferred by letters patent, the date of passing the great seal marks the formal start of tenure, but the day from which the fruits are paid (where shown) is a surer guide to the actual period of employment.

Grants for life in survivorship were a common practice in an age which had no pensioned retirement; by agreement between the parties the younger man would take over most or all of the duties, leaving his senior colleague some part of the income.

A reversion gave right of succession to the incumbent office holder; it

The allowances for travel and boat-hire were flat rates payable for any day on which journeys were made. Because these moneys did not pass through the Navy Treasurer's books, the totals actually paid could only be discovered by an extensive examination of the Exchequer records beyond the scope of the present work.

Alexander, Stephen Admiralty clerk d. 1577

Listed as employee and shipkeeper at Deptford in 1548 [I.65]. By 1562 the clerk keeping the ‘book of report’ which recorded the purchase of provisions and other commodities [ENA, 4 (f. 10 and passim)]. Paid for ‘making perfect’ the Quarter Book entries for the whole of 1563 [f. 335v], so the scribe responsible for ff. 159–361. Buried at Deptford 31 July 1577 [Drake, Hasted's Kent, p. 40].

Anthony, Robert naval commander

Occ. in list of captains 1553/5 [II.80]. Served with Sussex in raid on Western Isles 1558 [II.77].

Baeshe, Edward Surveyor-General of naval victualling 1550–87

Born c. 1507, son of Richard Bashe, shoehorn maker of Worcester.

Although Henry VIII had created a department of state to run the navy, the records of that body do not survive cohesively before the following century. For the sixteenth century there is no distinct archive of naval records, save that of the High Court of Admiralty. The general workings of the naval administration are spread among various classes of the Public Records, principally the State Papers (the files of the Principal Secretaries, through whom all government correspondence was channelled) and the accounts of the Exchequer. These official records are supplemented from other public collections and material in private hands.

For the first two years of Edward VI's reign the predominant naval concern was the war in Scotland. For this the evidence of the State Papers is plentiful and varied, though somewhat disjointed; we have formal instructions drafted in London [I.2, 3, 8, 50–51], but otherwise the communication is all inbound. At this date the Secretaries did not regularly keep copies of out-letters, and none of relevance survives here. The other half of the correspondence is known only from details rehearsed in reply [e.g., I.20]. Most of the papers printed in this chapter are in the artificially created class of State Papers Scotland. Ample calendared summaries have long been available, but by going back to the original documents and selecting those passages which particularly concern the navy, that aspect of the war can be seen in sharper focus. The manuscript evidence is interwoven with brief extracts from the contemporary printed account of the Pinkie campaign written by William Patten [I.11–16].

Somerset aimed to maintain English control over Scotland from a string of garrisons across the Lowlands. This proved over ambitious and a severe drain on resources, not least because it required a continuing deployment of warships. The acquisition of Broughty Craig, on the Tay estuary some way north of the main theatre, caused special problems which are well illustrated below. In the most difficult conditions a new fort had to be constructed, with sailors seconded to the effort [I.40]. The high command wanted more great ships, not only because of their ability to ride out the winter gales, but because their boats made better landing craft [I.17, 28, 36]. Damaged ships had to be sent back to Newcastle for repair, if not to Hull or London [I.39–41]. There is insight into the performance of galleys.

The origins of Edward's Scottish war date back to 1542, when Henry VIII had signed a new agreement with the Emperor, committing him to an attack on France. Remembering what had happened in 1513, and realising that James V bore him no particular good will, the King decided that on this occasion he would take the Scots out first. By magnifying border grievances in the autumn of 1542, and by sending the Duke of Norfolk on a large-scale and provocative raid into the Lowlands, Henry succeeded in inducing James to send a large, but not very well equipped army into the Debatable Land north of Carlisle. There, on 23 November, it was caught and defeated at Solway Moss by a smaller but much more professional English force. This battle was no bloodbath, but it did result in the capture of a sizeable number of Scottish peers and lairds, and put Henry into a very strong position both militarily and politically. Three weeks later James V died (allegedly from a broken heart but more probably from venereal disease) and was succeeded by his daughter Mary, who was barely a week old. Seizing the opportunity created by this situation, Henry began to press the regency government of Scotland for a marriage between their infant queen and his own son Edward, then aged about five. The advantages of this from the English point of view were obvious, and the Scots were not happy. However, the regent, the Earl of Arran, was in no position to resist, and Henry hammered home his advantage by making his prisoners swear to support his campaign as a condition of their release. The result was the signing of treaties at Greenwich in July 1543, one of which agreed to the proposed marriage. The outcome was predictable. Resistance to the treaty built up in Scotland, led by the Cardinal Archbishop of St Andrews, David Beaton, and in December of the same year the Scots Parliament repudiated it, leaving Henry very much where he had been before Solway Moss, except that he now faced a settled hostility from the north.

He was understandably angry, particularly as his preoccupation with Scotland had caused him to miss his cue in attacking France, which should have happened in the summer of 1543.