THE TUDORii; 



one cannot help thinking how much better they would have done had 

 they been bred as seamen. Although King Henry very sensibly main- 

 tained that the punishment of pirates was the duty of every Christian 

 country, the Scots refused to regard Barton in this light, and the ill- 

 feeling that was engendered by the action really lasted until Flodden. 

 The Scottish Navy. 



Few people realise that the Scottish Navy was once a very important 

 force, especially when it was under the leadership of the semi-piratical 

 but very efficient Sir Andrew Wood and Sir Andrew Barton. King 

 James IV put in a lot of good work on it. Among his achievements was 

 the Great Michael, which was constructed by one M. Jacques Tarret, 

 who records that she took all the oak of Fife, besides much imported 

 from Norway. She was supposed to be 240 feet long and 36 feet beam 

 within the sides, but as these sides were 10 feet thick it gave her an 

 external beam of 56 feet, which must have rendered her quite immune 

 from damage by the cannon of the day. The King of Scotland is reported 

 to have paid about £40,000 for her in all. She carried 300 seamen, 120 

 gunners, and 1,000 men-at-arms. Her armament ranged from serpen- 

 tines and other " murdering pieces " to three great Basilisks firing a 200 

 lb. shot. Small wonder that such a ship was an embarrassment to the 

 Scottish Navy rather than an asset in 1511, so that two years later she 

 was transferred to King Louis of France for forty thousand francs to 

 replace the destroyed Cordeliere, the famous Henri Grace a Dieii replac- 

 ing the Regent which was destroyed with her. All the details of the 

 Great Michael are given for what they are worth, but it must be remem- 

 bered that they are most of them purely legendary. 



The Invasion of France. 



By his policy of assisting the Holy League, Henry VIII was forced 

 in 1512 to fit out a fleet for the invasion of France, the army being trans- 

 ported in ships chartered from the Spanish. Lord Edward Howard 

 was Lord High Admiral, and when the troops were safely landed he was 

 ordered to cruise along the Atlantic coast. Considering the French fleets, 

 both in being in the Atlantic and coming up from the Mediterranean, 

 Howard's fleet was grossly inadequate, and accordingly twenty-five ships 

 were despatched to his assistance, including the famous Regent and 

 Sovereign. The former was the finest ship in the British Fleet, while a 

 similar position in the French Force was held by the Marie la Cordeliere, 

 which Queen Anne of France had built from her own private purse and 

 had presented to the King's Navy. Howard and his force met the 

 superior French Fleet in Camaret Bay on August 10th, 1512, and an 

 action was soon in progress. In attempting to lay alongside the Marie 

 la Cordeliere the Sovereign appears to have been very clumsily handled, 

 with the result that the Frenchmen had a great advantage for a time. 

 Very heavy casualties were inflicted on both sides, until finallv while the 

 ships were tight-locked together the Cordeliere was seen to be on fire. 

 Just how this outbreak commenced has been a subject of much specula- 

 tion, but the result was that both ships were soon in flames and blew up 



52 



