THE TUDORS 



sional soldiery of the Continent, and their behaviour was the cause of 

 many of our disasters abroad. 



Henry VII and the Navy. 



Because he established Portsmouth Dockyard and performed other 

 good works, historians are very fond of regarding Henry VII as the 

 founder of the modern Navy, but research suggests that he has no 

 exclusive right to the title. Admittedly, he had a very pretty apprecia- 

 tion of the value of the Navy for the protection of his beloved commerce, 

 and this alone would give him the right to a very kindly regard ; but 

 even in this aim he always kept one eye on his accounts, and being 

 inordinately mean his efforts in this direction were constantly checked. 

 From an oflFensive point of view his only naval action was the invasion 

 of France in 1492, when he raised a large fleet and transported a big 

 army from Dover to Calais to besiege Boulogne. It was little more than 

 a gesture to obtain for Henry his political aims, but it did that, and in a 

 very few weeks the King was back in London very well pleased with the 

 results of his action. 



Raveristein. 



The only other real action in Henry VII's reign was his attack on 

 Philip von Kleve Ravenstein, a mutinous German baron who was in 

 revolt against his sovereign, the Archduke Maximilian, and in true 

 German fashion had dug himself in at Sluys, which he attempted to 

 transform into a pirate stronghold. The English merchants suffered 

 severely from his depredations, and in addition he was known to be 

 favoured by France, so that when Henry routed him out of his strong- 

 hold he was both pleasing the merchants and offering an affront to his 

 enemy. Sir Edward Poynings was sent against him with a dozen ships, 

 but attack after attack was repulsed by the towers and bridge of boats 

 that had been constructed across the fairway. Finally, the English con- 

 trived to burn this bridge, and after that the rest was easy. 



A ndrew Barton. 



In his early days Henry VIII was far more inclined towards jousting 

 and amusements than he was for naval expeditions, spending a very large 

 part of the surplus that had been left to him by his father in reinforcing 

 the land defences of the South Coast. Before he had been very long on 

 the throne, however, a Scotsman named Andrew Barton proved to him 

 that passive defence was not enough, for, sailing from Scotland with 

 Scottish letters of marque against the Portuguese, he looted British ships 

 wherever he came across them. His squadron consisted of the 36-gun 

 Lion and the 30-gun Jennet Piirwyn. The Earl of Surrey was commis- 

 sioned by Henry VIII to put an end to the pest, and accordingly his 

 two sons sailed with two ships. Whether they were actuallv regular 

 warships, or whether they were fitted out at the expense of the young 

 lords is not quite certain from the records, but they fell in with Barton 

 off the Goodwin Sands and contrived to kill him in the action in which 

 they captured his two ships. Both these young lords were destined to 

 supply honourable chapters to the history of the Royal Navy, although 



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