During the WARS OF
THE ROSES, England had no standing fleet, and naval needs were met
by indenting (contracting) with merchants and nobles to supply
ships and crews to perform a specified service for a specified
time. Not meant for voyaging in the open sea, civil war naval
forces operated mainly in the Narrow Seas (i.e., the English
Channel), where they undertook to intercept invaders, ward off
coastal raiders, transport English armies, protect English traders,
and maintain communication and supply lines with CALAIS.
After Henry V's
death in 1422, the powerful but expensive fleet that he had built
to support military operations in FRANCE was disbanded. Because
Henry's conquest of the Norman coast denied the French access to
Channel ports, the need for a large English navy seemed to
disappear, and the minority government of HENRY VI sold off ships
and discharged experienced ship's masters. By the late 1450s, with
Normandy lost and civil war looming, Henry VI had no fleet and no
money to build one. As a result, control of the Channel fell to the
house of YORK after 1456, thanks mainly to the piratical activities
of Richard NEVILLE, earl of Warwick. As captain of Calais, Warwick
appropriated wool revenues to build a fleet that plundered merchant
vessels of various nationalities.
While Warwick's piracy embroiled
the Lancastrian government with outraged foreign powers, it won the
earl and the Yorkist cause much popularity, especially in LONDON,
where Warwick was seen as a bold commander striking a much needed
blow for English national pride. Warwick's naval success was also a
PROPAGANDA windfall for the Yorkists, because it could be
profitably contrasted with Lancastrian ineffectiveness, especially
in August 1457 when the government failed to prevent a French
squadron under Pierre de BRÉZÉ from sacking Sandwich. In 1460,
Warwick defeated the royal fleet under Henry HOLLAND, duke of
Exeter, and also attacked Sandwich, where he destroyed a squadron
then under construction and captured the Lancastrian commander,
Richard WOODVILLE, Lord Rivers, in his bed. Unopposed in the
Channel, Warwick crossed to England in June; his popularity as a
naval commander convinced London authorities to admit the Yorkists
and allowed Warwick to gather the army with which he defeated and
captured the king at the Battle of NORTHAMPTON in July.
In the spring of
1470, after the failure of his second coup attempt against EDWARD
IV, Warwick put to sea in the naval squadron he had maintained
during the 1460s. Denied entry to Calais, Warwick resumed
indiscriminate piracy in the Channel before landing in France,
where he concluded the ANGERS AGREEMENT with Queen MARGARET OF
ANJOU. Now acting in the Lancastrian interest, Warwick eluded the
small royal fleet and landed in England, where in October he
restored the house of LANCASTER and forced Edward IV to flee to
BURGUNDY. However, Edward, thanks in part to anger generated by
Warwick's piracy, was by March 1471 able to obtain shipping to
England from the HANSEATIC LEAGUE, a German merchant alliance with
which his government had previously been at war.
After defeating
Warwick and regaining the throne, Edward began rebuilding the royal
fleet by constructing ships and gathering a new cadre of
experienced ship's masters. In the 1460s, he had built the first
English royal caravel, the Edward, and, after 1471, he constructed
fleets to support his invasions of France (1475) and SCOTLAND
(early 1480s). Although still meant to carry land troops to fight
battles at sea, caravels were smaller, faster vessels than Henry
V's high, bulky carracks, and they foreshadowed the quick, agile
vessels with which Elizabethan England later defied the might of
Spain. Despite these achievements, Edward still desired a small,
inexpensive navy, and he maintained his fleet largely to protect
trade and intercept invaders, a task that RICHARD III's flotilla of
watching vessels failed to accomplish in August 1485 when Henry
Tudor, earl of Richmond, set sail for WALES. After defeating and
killing Richard at the Battle of BOSWORTH FIELD, Richmond, now
HENRY VII, continued the naval policy of Edward IV, building new
ships and establishing a naval base at Southampton. However, he
still indented for vessels when he took an army to defend BRITTANY
in 1492, and he, like his predecessor, lacked the naval strength to
intercept the invasion forces of such Yorkist pretenders as Lambert
SIMNEL and Perkin WARBECK, who both had to be defeated in land
battles after their arrival in England.
Further Reading: Rodger,
N.A. M., The Safeguard of the Sea:A Naval History of Britain (New
York: W.W. Norton, 1998).
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