fore then, England had been principally
dependent upon Dutchmen and Venetians, both for ships of war and
merchantmen. The sovereign had neither naval arsenals nor dockyards,
nor any regular establishment of civil or naval affairs to provide
ships of war. Sir Edward Howard, Lord High Admiral of England, at the
accession of Henry VIII., actually entered into a "contract" with that
monarch to fight his enemies.

This singular document is still preserved in the State Paper office.
Even after the establishment of royal dockyards, the sovereign--as late
as the reign of Elizabeth--entered into formal contracts with
shipwrights for the repair and maintenance of ships, as well as for
additions to the fleet.

The King, having made his first effort at establishing a royal navy,
sent the fleet to sea against the ships of France. The Regent was the
ship royal, with Sir Thomas Knivet, Master of the Horse, and Sir John
Crew of Devonshire, as Captains. The fleet amounted to twenty-five
well furnished ships. The French fleet were thirty-nine in number.
They met in Brittany Bay, and had a fierce fight. The Regent grappled
with a great carack of Brest; the French, on the English boarding their
ship, set fire to the gunpowder, and both ships were blown up, with all
their men. The French fleet fled, and the English kept the seas. The
King, hearing of the loss of the Regent, caused a great ship to be
built, the like of which had never before been seen in England, and
called it Harry Grace de Dieu.

This ship was constructed by foreign artizans, principally by Italians,
and was launched in 1515. She was said to be of a thousand tons
portage--the largest ship in England. The vessel was four-masted, with
two round tops on each mast, except the shortest mizen. She had a high
forecastle and poop, from which the crew could shoot down upon the deck
or waist of another vessel. The object was to have a sort of castle at
each end of the ship. This style of shipbuilding was doubtless
borrowed from the Venetians, then the greatest naval power in Europe.
The length of the masts, the height of the ship above the water's edge,
and the ornaments and decorations, were better adapted for the
stillness of the Adriatic and Mediterranean Seas, than for the
boisterous ocean of the northern parts of Europe.[7] The story long
prevailed that "the Great Harry swept a dozen flocks of sheep off the
Isle of Man with her bob-stay." An American gentleman