A NEW NAVAL HISTORY.*
THE first volume of what is intended to be a standard history of the English Navy from the earliest times must have cost the author some of those misgivings to which Livy confessed when he determined to begin his history with the founding of Rome. Bat Mr. Laird Clowes brings judgment and industry, as well as a love of his subject, to the task. In the present volume he has produced an instalment covering a period from the Saxon era to the death of Queen Elizabeth, which will satisfy both the historian and the general reader, and will add to a reputation which already stands high. The greater part of the volume is written by himself. In one period—that dealing with the Wars of the Roses—the political tangle is elaborated at unnecessary length. In the rest the balance is held between general history and naval progress, and the latter illustrated by reference in most cases to original authorities. In the future volumes Mr. Laird Clowes has secured as collaborateurs Mr. Rooseveldt, who will write the story of the Anglo-American War of 1812-15; and Captain A. T. Mahan, who will deal with the great operations from 1763 to 1793. To the present volume Mr. H. W. Wilson contributes three chapters on early voyages, and Sir Clements Markham a valuable essay on the voyages and discoveries, made between 1485 and 1603. The illustrations, all from contemporary drawings, are spirited, and not "archaic," and the portraits well chosen and well reproduced.
If the promise of the first volume is fulfilled in those suc- ceeding it, the historical value of this book will not be limited to the multitude of facts of naval interest recorded in its pages. The presentation of the naval warfare of each period is often calculated to strike the right note of thought as to tendencies not observed by the actors or very well known to their descendants. We will take as an example, not the striking but familiar scenes of the Spanish Armada, with which the volume closes, but the careful history of the decline of the English naval power in the later days of Edward III. and during the reign of Richard II. Edward III., in whose earlier days the English Fleet first acquired prestige by two great victories, that over the French at Sluys, and over the Spanish corsairs commanded by De la Cerda, off Winchelsea, omitted to collect a fleet in 1360. This was the first indication, either of the exhaustion of the English Treasury, or of failing judgment in the Monarch. In either case, the tendency to neglect the Navy, or rather, to disregard the "shipping interest" which provided the Navy, grew annually stronger. Spasms of energy shook the Royal Councils from time to time, bat there was a total absence of what we know as a "continuous naval policy." The results are interesting, the more so because they are seldom set out as clearly as the previous naval victories. The French fleet, said to number one hundred and twenty warships, with twenty-nine thousand men (probably an exaggerated estimate), raided Rye and Hastings, landed at Winchelsea, burnt the town, and carried off the women. Winchelsea churchyard had to be enlarged to make room for the corpses needing burial after the French left. The Council was sitting at Reading when the news came, and in the panic which pre- vailed even Old Sarum and Malmesbary were put into a state of defence, and King John of France was sent, to prevent a rescue, to Berkhampstead Castle. This is one of the earliest • The Royal Nary a History from the Earliest Times to the Present. Vol. I. By William Laird Clowee. Assisted by Sir Clem.nts Markham, Captain A. T. Mahan, Jac. London: Sampson Low, Marston, and (Jo.
"invasion panics," but there were more to follow. In 1396 Portsmouth was burnt. Next year a fleet of thirty French ships burnt Gosport, and the shipping interest declared that they were ruined, partly by the " arrests " of their ships for war service before they were wanted, partly because the fleets were not used when collected. In 1371 the French raided the Norfolk and Suffolk coasts. In 1372 Lord Pembroke, with an inferior squadron, was totally defeated by the com- bined French and Spaniards off La Rochelle, to which he was taking a convoy. The Spanish ships were provided with cannon and built for naval service, the English ships were all "pressed" vessels. After this the full pressure of the Joss of the Channel was felt by this country. Evan the Welshman, commanding a French squadron, occasionally, and John de Vienne almost yearly, destroy commerce and raid the coasts. In 1375 Evan, with some Spaniards, took at one swoop vessels worth £130,000 of our money, and in the last year of the reign of the victor of Crecy and Poitiers London was trembling behind a pressed fleet gathered to defend the reaches of the Thames. In the next reign the pressure became more acute. In 1378 John de Vienne burnt Rye, marched inland, and burnt and sacked Lewes. He then sailed west, and destroyed Folkestone, what was left of Portsmouth, Dartmouth, and Plymouth. Next year he occupied the Isle of Wight, where the effect of this and subsequent invasions may be traced in the total disappearance or " removal " of what were even then ancient towns,—the disappearance, except in name, of Newtown being perhaps the most striking instance. Poole burnt, Hastings burnt again, all the coasts of Devon and Cornwall ravaged, Fowey burnt, "all the coasts from Yorkshire to Cornwall harried," Gravesend taken, Jersey and Guernsey occupied, and such a panic created that Oxford was fortified to serve as a central point of defence for the Kingdom," are among the significant facts of the period. We find instances of almost despairing individual patriotism. John Philpott, merchant, of London, equipped at his own cost a thousand men and a squadron of ships, recaptured a fleet taken by John Mercer, the Scotch pirate, and fifteen Spanish craft who aided him. He had to apologise for this to the Council, who took his vigilance as a reflection on their "knightly honour." This would throw a curious sidelight on the character of Froissart's heroes, if the withdrawal of twenty thousand men and two hundred ships from the distressed kingdom by John of Gaunt, for a purely personal adventure, did not paint it in more glaring colours. In 1336 Charles VI. collected six hundred ships and a great army at Sluys to invade England. The scheme was well considered. Jean de Vienne was sent with sixty ships to land in the Forth, and Richard II. was drawn northwards with his whole army of seventy thousand men. Had the French main body then crossed they might have succeeded. But Jean de Vienne was their "only Admiral," and the expedition hung fire. Yet it was more dangerous even than that later assemblage of thirteen hundred and eighty - seven vessels recorded by Froissart.
As this volume deals mainly with the period of growth, when the methods and instruments of navigation, geographical discovery, and naval construction were proceeding side by side, conducted by an " interchangeable " personnel. the chapters on the "Civil History of the Navy" from 1435 to 1603, and those on early voyages and discoveries, are alike interesting. In the latter, Mr. H. W. Wilson notes that as early as 1445 there was a large passenger traffic with Spain, ships carrying as many as two hundred pilgrims at a voyage to the shrine of Compostella. In an opposite direction our national piety led our seamen indirectly into much tempta- tion. Stockfish (dried cod) for Lenten fasts and Fridays was sought as far north as Iceland, and the spirit of com- mercial rivalry led the Bristol crews to steal stockfish ready made. In 1420 they stole nine lasts of the King's stockfish, and later they not only stole stockfish, but sheep, a boy, and the contents of "a cloister." To such lengths did the " corn- modioue stockfish of Iceland" lead the seamen of Henry VII. The course of the spirit of enterprise developed so early in these northern voyages is very fully dealt with by Sir Clements Markham, who gives it as his opinion that "voyages of discovery are the best training-grounds for British naval officers." This opinion would have been heartily subscribed by Queen Elizabeth's Council, but will scarcely please modern officers who have qualified to command fleets of vessels of ever-increasing complexity by incessant study of the techni- calities of modern service afloat. But Sir Clements Markham's personal experience lends a special value to the judgments he passes on the management, good or bad, of the early explorers, and his presentation of the work done in such varied fields of action in a short period of intense activity is clear, succinct, and given without sacrificing the personality of the actors. His estimate of Sir Walter Raleigh's expedition to Guiana is an instance of the first; while the account of Sir James Lancaster's first voyage to the East Indies, and his attempted return to England via St. Helena, the West Indies, and New- foundland, shows in short compass the metal of these early voyagers. The volume closes with the final and successful expedition of the same commander in charge of our first East India fleet, the glorious close of Elizabethan seamanship.
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