THE NAVY AND THE STUARTS 



Charles I and the Navy. 



Many people wonder how it was that Charles I could place so little 

 trust in his fleet when it was essentially the Royal Navy and he had 

 taken so much personal interest in it. The truth is that all through his 

 reign he had been interested enough in material but had neglected 

 personnel most shamefully, with the result that it is small wonder that 

 the men turned against him. The condition of the seamen was 

 wretched enough in Elizabeth's time but nothing to what it was in 

 Charles's, when moreover there was practically no excuse for it. 

 Absolutely no provisions were made for the comfort of the men, who 

 were forced to sleep on the wet decks after having been pressed in the 

 street and having had little chance of getting more than the clothes in 

 which they stood, were fed on the vilest food imaginable and little 

 enough of that, and seldom got their pay. To compare it with Eliza- 

 beth's time it may be mentioned that the Gentlemen Adventurers took 

 great pride in sharing the hardships of the men, but Buckingham, when 

 he prepared for the La Rochelle Expedition, put aside a transport 

 entirely to act as a kitchen and shore ship for the luxuries that he was 

 taking with him, while the men were starving. The Roundheads on 

 the other hand promised them great things and in the beginning fulfilled 

 some of their promises. 



The Civil War. 



The first move of the Navy in the Civil War was to vote a com- 

 bined allegiance to King and Parliament, an attitude which became 

 impossible as time went on. Married to a French Queen the King 

 naturally had every hope of help from across the Channel, but to get 

 this the allegiance of the Navy was imperative and the attitude of the 

 Navy was becoming more and more uncertain. The Earl of Warwick 

 was the Parliamentarian Commander-in-Chief with Sir William Batten 

 under him. By this time Queen Henrietta Maria had gone across to 

 France for help, both financial and otherwise, and one of the first 

 duties of the Parliamentary fleet was to prevent her return without 

 precipitating an outbreak of hostilities. It will be remembered that in 

 Plantagenet days the Fleet was regarded as the personal property of 

 the King, and this attitude towards Charles's enemies was the direct 

 result of its having become a national service. 



The Navy in the Struggle. 



The first trouble with the Navy was when the Queen contrived to 

 land at Bridlington with stores and treasure for the King. Batten 

 arrived almost immediately afterwards and at once opened fire on the 

 ships, but unfortunately among his shots were a number of overs which 

 struck and partially wrecked the house in which the Queen was lodged. 

 Nothing could have been better calculated to arouse the chivalry of 

 the Cavaliers, and Batten's action, although it appears to have been 

 entirelv accidental, aroused tremendous enthusiasm. During the Civil 

 War there was little enough genuine naval activity, but the Fleet, being 



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