was still very much to be done in the formation of a permanent service. A certain lingering confusion between the Navy Royal and the general shipping of the country probably accounts for the king's decision to leave the management of Deptford Dockyard in the hands of the Trinity House. But the tendency was always towards the formation of special services to be employed for definite ends. Although no regular naval service was as yet formed, the foundations were laid. Even when there was no expedition to be carried out against the French or the Scotch, the king took care never to leave the seas without their winter or their summer guard—small squadrons of vessels appointed to patrol the Straits and the Channel. This force was very small—in quiet times hardly exceeding six or seven little vessels, and the crews were hired only for the summer or winter commission. The fact that a man had commanded a ship in one or other guard did not give him any right to continued employment, but from the very nature of the case a certain continuity of service would arise. Officers who proved satisfactory, or had good friends at court, were employed again and again, and the king's captains began to be a recognised body; while it is safe to presume that there were some soldiers and mariners who found his service more acceptable than that of private employers, and who volunteered into it with regularity. It was during these years, too, that the first efforts to improve the construction of ships were made by the introduction of skilled shipwrights from the Italian ports. Of these Henry must have had a respectable staff in constant employment. When the Mary Rose was sunk at St. Helens, the efforts made to raise her were mainly directed by Italian workmen.
After neglecting, or if not actually neglecting, then subordinating, the naval strength of his kingdom to his armies, and to much less worthy purposes, for thirty years, Francis I. was at last driven into making a desperate effort at sea by the capture of Boulogne in 1544. When the King of England had appeared in France at the head of an army of 30,000 men, and had added another defensible position to the fortress he already possessed at Calais, the unwisdom of leaving him the command of the Channel was borne in upon Francis with a force which aroused him to efforts really worthy of the occasion. In the spring of 1545 (the operations of the previous year had merely been the transport of the army, and a few plundering expeditions) preparations were made on both sides for something deserving to be called war. The King of France built ships in batches, and brought from the Mediterranean not only his own galleys, but large numbers of vessels hired from the Ragusans, whom our ancestors called the Aragoozes. The superiority of the fleet which he was soon able to command might have taught a French ruler how very possible it was for his great monarchy, then certainly more than twice as populous and rich as England, to excel her in the number of her fleets. The English were outnumbered from the first, and knew it. In the spring of 1545, Lord Lisle, then Henry's admiral, and the famous or infamous Duke of Northumberland of the next reign, made his appearance on the coast of France with a scheme for attacking the French in the Seine; but he did not carry it into effect, and the explanation that he found his enemy too strong is at least the most plausible. When the French put to sea, the English certainly acted in a manner to be expected of men who felt themselves overmatched. They retired into Portsmouth harbour, and allowed the French admiral, D'Annebault, to advance to the anchorage of St. Helens, and establish himself there unopposed. The real strength of the French fleet was by no means in proportion to its numbers. A large part of the ships were galleys, which were of little or no use except in a dead calm. It seems, too, that the spirits of the French fleet had been a good deal damped by a disaster which happened before they left Havre. A great vessel, the Philippe, the most beautiful in the world according to the French writers, caught fire in the harbour of Havre, and burned to the water's edge. Blaise de Montluc, who saw the disaster, immediately formed the conclusion that no good would come of the enterprise; and if he, who was the most intrepid of mankind, had come to this gloomy conclusion, we may be sure that there were plenty more in the fleet who were not in a more confident spirit.
A much more trustworthy indication of the little result to be expected from the enterprise would have been the want of spirit of the officers chosen to command by the French king. They had, in reality, an immense superiority of strength. One hundred and fifty "great ships," and at least a hundred smaller vessels, were collected under the command of D'Annebault, and the troops amounted to eight or ten thousand men under the command of Marshal Biez. The force was amply sufficient to strike such a blow to England as would have very rapidly compelled Henry to restore Boulogne, if it had been used with any degree of resolution, but the French leaders were from the beginning on the outlook for difficulties. They left Havre on the 16th of July, and two days later made their appearance on the coast of Sussex, where they spent some time in plundering insignificant fishing villages. No attempt to molest them was made by the English fleet, which lay quiet in Portsmouth harbour. After doing just enough on the coast of Sussex to arouse the whole countryside, the French fleet came on to the Isle of Wight, and anchored at St. Helens. Here they remained, apparently for about ten days, neither attacking with determination, nor being attacked to any purpose. The fine July weather and the prevailing calms were wholly in favour of the French, whose fleet consisted largely of galleys. On the English side, a number of the smaller vessels had been fitted with sweeps, in order that they might act against the rowing vessels of the enemy. But neither did they show any particular zeal to attack. The king himself had come down to Portsmouth to survey the fortifications, and if courtly historians did not praise him too much, it was at his suggestion that the English vessels were provided with oars. Henry did not stay to witness the fighting (if it deserves that name) which ensued, but returned to London, leaving the command of the fleet to Lisle, and of the garrison to Suffolk. The operations were of a very monotonous description, and leave us under the impression that each side was reluctant to fight till it had the other at a hopeless disadvantage.
On the first day the French admiral sent forward sixteen galleys under the command of the Baron de la Garde, for the purpose of drawing the English admiral out to St. Helens, where he might be overpowered by numbers. Lisle was resolute not to be tempted to put himself at a disadvantage. Indeed, the plan was rather a futile one, which it hardly needed any great display of skill on the part of the English admiral to defeat. The galleys were not able to face the king's ships when any wind was blowing. They were very lightly built, and carried only one gun in the bow. If the English ships were able to manœuvre, they could either overpower their enemy by the fire of their broadsides, or, better still, run into them and sink them. Such a vessel as the Great Harry running before a good breeze would probably have gone over a galley without suffering any material damage herself. Therefore the vessels sent by D'Annebault could not, without extreme rashness, come within striking distance of the English fleet, except in a dead calm. When, however, the weather was of this kind, the English ships were unable to move, and could not sail into the French fleet even if they had been disposed to do so. The fight, then, between the two resolved itself into something like this. During the calm hours of the morning, the Baron de la Garde and his colleague Strozzi, the Prior of Capua (the same who afterwards took the castle of St. Andrews from the Scotch Reformers, and had John Knox for his prisoner), came near enough to Lisle's ships to open an exasperating fire. So long as the wind did not get up, the English vessels lay helpless, and could only reply to the fire of their enemy with the few guns they could bring to bear. In such a case, the galleys at all times took care, as far as possible, to station themselves right ahead or else astern of their opponent, in order to avoid the fire of the broadside, though this, considering the rude gunnery of the early sixteenth century, was almost an excessive precaution, since the narrow, low-lying galley, when end on, must have presented a mark much more likely to be missed than to be hit. When the breeze got up, the English ships stood toward the enemy, who thereupon incontinently fled, and was not followed for any considerable distance. This moment was dangerous for him, for if he did not turn quick enough and get away before the English were quite close, he was likely to suffer very severely, for the galleys carried no guns astern. La Garde and the Prior of Capua were expert officers, and when, after some hours of long bowls, the wind got up and the English ships began to bear down, they extricated themselves very smartly from danger.
The first day having thus passed in a species of fighting which might have been prolonged for weeks with little material damage to either side, the French went on for a second, but not apparently for a third day. Yet, on this occasion, they were encouraged by the conviction that they had really inflicted a severe loss on the English fleet. There had been a loss, but it was due, unless all contemporary Englishmen were in a conspiracy