Studies in naval history. Biographies

Front matter

President White Library,

CORNELL UNIVERSITY.

hi°lU[.

Preface

These Studies, now collected from the different magazines in which they have first appeared, will not, I hope, be considered as merely reclaimed waifs ; for the idea of thus bringing them together in a more permanent form has always been present to me, even whilst originally writing them : and having carefully revised them by the light of the most recent published information and of our own Eecords, to which the Admiralty has been pleased to permit me free access, I offer them, not only as the relation of some stirring episodes in naval history, but as, each in its own way, a contribution to the earnest study of naval policy, strategy, or tactics.

I have only to add that the dates relating to Continental affairs are given throughout in New Style : those which belong to English correspondence, English records, or to purely English incidents are in Old Style ; though occasionally I have given the double date. It is always a troublesome point, and I can only hope that I have minimised the customary confusion.

J. K. LAUGHTON.

Cornell University Library

The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library.

There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text.

Contents

CHAPTER pAGB

I. Jean de Vienne : a Chapter from the Naval

History of the XIVth Century .... 1

Chapter I. Jean Be Vienne

A CHAPTEK FROM THE NAVAL HISTORY OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.1

Everyone knows that, according to the Act of Parliament, it is on the Navy that, ' under the good Providence of God, the wealth, safety, and strength of the kingdom chiefly depend ; ' but there are probably few who have realised the full meaning of that grave sentence. Our fathers and grandfathers asserted our supremacy at sea with such vigour, and bequeathed to us such a transcendent prestige, that we are now apt to think of these not only as our inheritance, but as our natural and absolute right ; to forget that the one, as the other, was of slow growth, has been often stoutly disputed, and at times even well-nigh blotted out. Such times are now of the distant past ; it is our duty to provide that they remain so. But, as inculcating that duty, as enforcing the necessity for that provision, it is well, from time to time, to examine into our old history, and to retrace —

1 United Service Magazine, October 1880.

however painfully — the sad lessons of disasters now very imperfectly remembered. That we have suffered such is matter of fact ; and even if we were disposed to forget them, others are not ; for to them the memory — like the glimmer of stars shining through the gloom — may serve to brighten the past, or possibly to indicate the future. It is the consciousness of this that leads me to recall the life and career of Jean de Vienne, Admiral of France during the latter quarter of the fourteenth century ; a man of whom, it may be said, little is known in England beyond the bare name. Even by contemporary chroniclers his personality has been lost sight of, and his deeds have been attributed to others, misunderstood, slurred over, or omitted altogether ; for, says Walsingham, with surely a very false notion of the duties of a historian — the record of all these untoward affairs is so shameful, that we cloak in silence the things which we ought to write about.

John of Vienne,1 or, in the official language of his time and country, Jehan de Vienne, Chevalier, Sire de Kolans et Amiral de France, was born, probably at Dole, in Burgundy, in 1341 ; the son of a family collaterally related, in no very distant degree, to the reigning House of Burgundy, and through it to that of France ; the nephew of that elder John of Vienne with whom he is often confused, who, in 1347, was Governor of Calais, and whose name, as associated with our success, occupies a more prominent place in our histories than that of his more distinguished nephew. Of his childhood we have no account, further than that he passed it at the castle

1 Jean de Vienne, Amiral de France, 1341-1396.' Par le Marquis Terrier de Loray. Paris, 8vo, 1877.

of Rolans, the ruins of which still stand, near Besancon, in a commanding position on the river Doubs. At the age of eighteen, on the death of his father, he succeeded to his small estate, and would seem to have made his first experience in arms against the free companies, English in name, often under English leaders, which drew together the armed scum of Western Europe, and infested France and Burgundy after the Treaty of Bretigny. In 1363 he is said to have had command of a small party that, near Chambornay, on the Ognon, crushed and well-nigh exterminated one of the most formidable of these companies, and to have overthrown in single combat, with knightly spear, their leader, Guichard Monnot, presumably a Gascon. As a reward for this service, he was invested by the King of France with the lordship of the village of Villey, by accepting which he became the liegeman of the king, to whom he continued faithful during the rest of his life. In the war which raged between the parties of France and Navarre, rival claimants of the Duchy of Burgundy, and virtually of the French crown, he served with distinction under the Constable du Guesclin, whom he followed to Normandy in 1364, though it is doubtful whether he was still with him at Auray, or was then serving with the Duke of Burgundy, as he assuredly was in the following month and through the winter.

It was after his release from the captivity which befell him at Auray, that Du Guesclin led an army of adventurers into Spain to support the cause of the bastard Henry against his legitimate brother, the King of Castile, a war in which — as is familiarly known — the Black Prince afterwards interfered ; in which he — as everywhere

E 2 else— achieved the most brilliant success, but in which also, it would seem, he contracted that mysterious disease which carried him off in the flower of his age. With this war, however, we are not now concerned. John of Vienne had no part in it, having embarked in a so-called crusade which the Count of Savoy led to the East in support of his cousin, the emperor John Palseologus, tben held prisoner by the Bulgarians.

This crusade, the history of which is little known, may perhaps more properly be called a chivalrous adventure. A number of knights of different nations — Gascon, Burgundian, French, German, Flemish — gathered together to support the cause of Christianity. Fourteen of them, including John of Vienne, with the Count of Savoy at their head, founded the Order of the Annunciation. They then took ship at Venice, and the force having rendezvoused at Coron, went on to Gallipoli, at that time in the hands of the Turks. This they carried by assault. They then passed into the Black Sea ; occupied Sizeboli and other places of less importance ; took Missirri by storm followed by general pillage and massacre, and invested Varna. The fortifications of Varna were strong, and the christians were but illprovided to carry on a lengthened siege ; the season too was late ; and the adventure might have ended badly,, had not the courage of the Bulgarians failed them. Negotiations were entered on, in which Jeanne de Vienne and Guillaume de Granson represented the crusaders, with such good effect, that their present claims were acceded to, and the emperor sent back safely to Constantinople. Thither the Western warriors went for the winter, which would seem to have been spent in the usual squabbles between Greek and Frank. In suing for assistance, the emperor had pledged himself to bring about the reunion of the Greek and Latin churches. This promise he now withdrew, and warned the crusaders to quit the town if they would avoid being massacred by the turbulent populace. They accordingly crossed over to Pera, waiting for the return of the good season. But the Turks, meanwhile, advanced and laid siege to Sizeboli. The emperor's tone altered; he undertook to repair to Eome ; to have the reunion of the churches solemnly proclaimed there ; he bound himself by hostages ; he would agree to anything, if only they would drive back the Turk. This was again happily done, and the expedition returned home in the course of the summer of 1367.

Two years later the emperor did, to some extent, carry out his promises. He came to Eome; acknowledged, ' in the presence of four cardinals, the supremacy of the Pope and the double procession of the Holy Ghost,' ' and paid public homage to Urban V in the church of St. Peter. But all this was probably due as much to future hopes as to past promises ; and the real business of his visit to Italy would seem to have been to enlist some of the free companies in his service, and especially their distinguished leader, John Hawkwood. In this, for whatever reason, he was unsuccessf ul ; but we are scarcely doing injustice to Hawkwood's memory if we suppose that he insisted on some more tangible recompense than promises; and the empty state of the imperial purse is proved by the fact that the emperor was detained at

1 Gibbon : chap. lxvi.

Venice, virtually a prisoner for debt incurred on account of the expenses of his journey.

With this adventure the earlier part of Jean de Vienne's career may be said to close. He was still only twenty-six years of age ; but since he was eighteen, he had been engaged in almost constant service of one sort or another ; and though we have no account of the successive steps by which he rose to distinction, it appears throughout that, by mere force of character, and independent of the claim his birth might have given him, he took at once a foremost position in the armies of France. To have held responsible command, in a time of such unceasing peril, under Philip the Bold and Bertrand du Guesclin, was a training equivalent, and more than equivalent, to the experience of a score of years.

It was in 1369 that the King of France, Charles V, had resolved no longer to endure the disgrace and the issue of the Treaty of Bretigny. He had prepared for the inevitable resumption of hostilities with England by an unscrupulous economy,1 by a wise administration of his finances, by secret negotiations with the gentry of Guyenne, themselves unwilling subjects of the English rule, and by a close alliance with Henry, the reigning King of Castile, whose personal inclinations were naturally adverse to the supporters of his brother and rival. The immediate cause of quarrel was the feeling that he was ready ; that his great enemy, Edward III, was old and incapable ; and that the terrible Black Prince was worn with sickness. The war that ensued was primarily, and of necessity, one on shore. To speak of it, as such, is no

1 Amongst other instances of this may be counted the refusal to pay his father's ransom.

part of my present plan ; in its general results the story of it is familiar to every child amongst us ; and in its military details, would be but the description of an empire disintegrating itself from the natural want of cohesion, rather than from the force of the enemy's blows. How much this was accelerated by the physical incapacity of the Black Prince, by the incompetence of his deputies and successors, and by the prudence of the French king, is all perfectly well known ; but there are probably many who have not realised the decisive character of the naval operations during the following ten years, and how curiously, how fatally, the supremacy of the sea was — for the time being — reversed.

From the beginning, Charles V would seem to have appreciated the advantage which the command of the narrow seas had given to England, ever since the battle of Sluys, in 1340, and of ' Les Espagnols sur mer,' in 1350. He had wished to contest it, and had assembled a large number of ships at Eouen and in the Lower Seine. But the naval resources of the country proved to be too weak, the war on shore too absorbing ; and the expedition to England, projected in 1369, fell through. But the alliance with Spain furnished means far beyond the power of France. The King of Castile had at his disposal ships of a size and strength unknown in other countries, formidable opponents to the petty trading vessels which constituted the greater part of the English navy ; and though, these, when arrayed under the great Edward and his greater son, had been able to defeat and destroy the Spaniards off Winchelsea, in 1350, they were at a vast disadvantage when barely equal in numbers and under unskilled guidance.

The first meeting was decisive. It was on June 23, 1372, that the young Earl of Pembroke came off Eochelle with some forty vessels, armed, indeed, for war, but laden also with stores and reinforcements for the army. They were there met by the Spanish fleet, which had been waiting for them, under the command of the Admiral of Castile, Don Ambrosio Bocanegra. Although the Spanish force was superior, both by the size of the ships and then purely naval equipment, the English advanced at once to the attack, confident of victory, mindful of their past glories, and persuaded that the Spaniards were quite unable to withstand them. It took them but a short time to find out their mistake, and the fight became one not so much for victory as for life. The English, though in disorder and without cohesion, fought desperately; but their ships — so far as we can interpret the details of the battle — were driven on shore before nightfall, and were the next day burnt or captured ; whilst of the men, those that were not killed were taken prisoners. The consequences of this defeat were most serious. The constable, taking advantage of the panic spread amongst the English, advanced in force into Poitou, and captured, almost on his march, Moncontour, Saint- Severe, Poitiers, Eochelle and Thouars ; whilst the Duke of Lancaster, hastily ordered to Guyenne with reinforcements, was unable to sail by reason of continued bad weather, or was perhaps unwilling to do so whilst the Spanish fleet commanded the Bay of Biscay.

It has been suggested by some modern French writers l

1 M. Guerin among others : but this is only one and not the most astounding of the many errors with which Guerin's Memoir (Les Marins illustres, pp. 37-68) is crowded.

that Jean de Vienne commanded a French division in the action off Eochelle ; but this is not warranted by any evidence : there is no reason to suppose that even one French ship was there present, and it is sufficiently well established that, in the month of July, Jean de Vienne was serving under Du Guesclin at the siege of Saint- Severe. So far as history goes, he held his first command at sea in the spring of 1373. It was then that the English fleet, under the Earl of Salisbury, had taken up a position at the mouth of the Seine, to the hindrance and stoppage of the coast and river navigation. To oppose this, the Count de Narbonne, then Admiral of France, having Jean de Vienne as his Vice-Admiral, assembled a force of one hundred ships, before which* Salisbury had to retire. He drew back to Saint-Malo, whither he was followed by Narbonne ; and considering himself unequal, passed on to Brest, where he remained for some months, virtually blockaded by the French, who kept possession of the Channel, and that with so firm a grip that the expedition under the Duke of Lancaster, instead of landing in Guyenne, as had been intended, was compelled to cross over at the Narrows, to land at Calais, and to undertake that disastrous march through France in the summer and autumn of 1373, ' the result of which, more, perhaps, than any single episode of the war, sealed the fate of the English provinces.

1 This account of Salisbury's expedition to Brest is very different from that generally given, and adopted by Longman (Life and Times of Edward III, ii. 221-5) and Nicolas (History of the Boyal Navy, ii. 150). I would submit that the tests of its truth are the two faots that Lancaster did land at Calais instead of Bordeaux, and that in July a general array of all fencible men in the maritime counties was ordered, to prevent invasion.

Almost as soon as it was known that Lancaster had landed, Jean de Vienne quitted the fleet, and had an important share in the military operations of that autumn ; but afloat, the conclusion of the campaign of 1373 was less favourable to the French than its beginning had been. They lost the command of the Channel, several of their ships were taken, and the rest were content to seek for safety in their own harbours. The Viscount de Narbonne was old and feeble, and as the departure from the fleet of his second in command seemed to mark the turning point in its success, Jean de Vienne was not unnaturally appointed Admiral of France in his stead. In this there was nothing exceptional : the office of admiral, as that of constable, was at that time an active, not a mere honorary or titular appointment ; and the greater number of former admirals had held it for only a few years. Jean de Vienne, appointed on December 27, 1373, held it till his death.

The rights of the Admiral of France were then relatively more extensive, and the power greater, than afterwards. He was the chief and ruler of the whole shipping of the country, not only from an administrative, but also from an executive, point of view ; at once the minister of the navy and the commander-in-chief ; and in each capacity nearly absolute and autocratic. Without his leave, no merchant ship could sail on a distant voyage, or on a cruise against the enemy : and it was his duty to see that every ship, so cruising, was suitably equipped, manned and armed. He could levy, for the king's service, all the ships of every French port. The jurisdiction of the admiralty courts included all nautical matters, civil or criminal ; the judges were appointed by the admiral, and their decisions given in his name. As direct emolument, he received two-thirds of all property found at sea, one-third of all thrown up on the shore, a tenth of all prizes from the enemy, a payment on the launch of every ship, and a yearly tax, bearing some relation to her size; besides large perquisites arising from his charge of provisions and stores : and as a personal honour, differing from and exceeding anything ever granted in England, every ship wore the admiral's banner.1

With the exception of a few ships belonging to the king, the naval force of France then consisted of merchant ships levied by the admiral. This was also the case in England, where, however, the special charters of the Cinque Ports had in some measure provided a substitute for a standing navy. Charles V was quick to see the disadvantage of the system, both to commerce, which it annihilated, and to warlike efficiency, which, in a fleet of small trading ships, hastily manned, without experience or discipline, could scarcely be said to exist. He had already endeavoured to increase the number of royal ships, but it does not seem that any real advance was made until after the appointment of John of Vienne as admiral. It is difficult to say that the energy then developed was all his ; but it is at least permitted us to believe that it was very directly due to

1 ' Droits et Prominences de 1'Amiral de France,' in The Black Book of the Admiralty, i. 443 et seq. The usage of wearing the admiral's banner continued far into the sixteenth century; in the French fleet of 1545 the ships wore the flag of Annebault, Gules, a cross vair. Jean de Vienne's arms, which were, presumably, worn by the French ships during the operations detailed in the following pages, were Gules, an eagle displayed or.

that man whose accession to office was the signal for victorious enterprise, and whose conduct on different occasions would show that he had himself a large share of mechanical and constructive genius. The comhat off Eochelle had established the superiority of ships built and equipped for war ; the progress almost daily made in the use of guns tended continually to make this superiority greater ; and the naval efforts of France took the direction of building ships distinctly as ships of war, bigger and stronger than any that England could oppose to them. A small dockyard and arsenal at Eouen,1 dating back in its origin to the early days of Norman rule, and now enlarged, was chosen as the cradle and nursery of this infant navy ; and ships on the Spanish model, of the then enormous size of 300 tons, were built and launched under the personal orders of Aubert Staucon, the master of the yard.

The construction of such a navy was, however, a work of time, and during the years immediately following his appointment as admiral, Jean de Vienne remained on shore, rendering good service to France, and notably in command of the siege of Saint- Sauveur,2 a fortress of great strength, from which the English, without too strict a regard to the distinction between times of war and peace, dominated the Cotentin and the whole of Western Normandy. In consideration of payments, something of the nature of black-mail, they refrained from plundering or destroying in their immediate neigh-

1 'LeClos des Galees de Eouen sous Charles V ' (1364-1380), par M. de Lafaye (Revue maritime et coloniale, 1877, vol. liv. p. 686).

2 The conduct of this siege is generally, but wrongfully, ascribed to Du Guesclin, who was not in Normandy at the time.

bourhood ; but their maurading parties spread far and ■wide; and, with or without their sanction, free companies carried their evil fame to a still greater distance. Complaint after complaint had been laid before the king ; but the siege of a first-class fortress with no sympathising inhabitants to render treacherous assistance, was a serious affair; and the course of the war, occupying the constable in Poitou, did not permit him to undertake it. It was thus left untried, till, in the summer of 1374, Jean de Vienne, being in Normandy, and with no active employment, received orders ' to take all necessary measures to reduce the place.' The means, however, were not put at his disposal ; it was left for him to devise or create them as he best could.

His first care was to isolate the garrison ; and by fortified works on the Ouve, as well as by a sufficient squadron at its mouth, he succeeded at once in closing the direct water communication with England. But the troops under his orders were raw levies, which were laughed at or chased away by the hardened veterans of the garrison, who scourged the country more severely than ever, gathering in an enormous quantity of stores and provisions. Little by little, however, the admiral succeeded in forming his army, and in establishing it in front of Saint-Sauveur. Then followed, with varying fortune, those daily encounters which Froissart has loved to describe. But the event of the siege was to turn on the employment of the new artillery. By the beginning of 1375 the French had several large guns in position, throwing stones or masses of lead, which knocked down the ramparts or crushed through the houses. The effect of the cannonade, kept up, however slowly, by

14 STUDIES IN NAVAL HISTOET.

night as well as by day, rendered the position of the garrison difficult, and when the admiral, determined to make it still more so, brought up two new cannons, of the enormous weight of 2,000 lbs. to throw a shot of 100 lbs., with the unheard of charge of 5 lbs. of powder, the result declared itself almost instantaneously. We may believe that these guns were specially designed by the admiral himself. The making of them was commenced on 21 March, and finished on 3 May ; they were in position before Saint Sauveur on the 10th, and the agreement to surrender, if not relieved within six weeks, was signed on the 21st.

In signing this, the garrison had hoped to be relieved by the Duke of Bretagne, who did, indeed, advance at the head of 10,000 men. The French army prepared to meet him, supported by thirty small guns which the admiral had had newly constructed. These were of copper, with strengthening rings of iron, and had a wooden handle ; they threw a leaden ball of small weight, and though actually swivels or wall-pieces, may be fairly considered as amongst the earliest types of the more modern musket. No engagement, however, took place ; for on learning that a truce had been concluded between the Kings of England and France, and being persuaded by Lord Latimer, King Edward's lieutenant in Bretagne, the duke drew back. But in spite of the truce it was maintained by the French that the convention was binding ; and as they held the eight hostages given by the English, and were backed up by the two 100- pounders, their reading of the convention was admitted, and Saint- Sauveur was delivered up on 3 July.

In the following year the conduct of Lord Latimer was the subject of a formal accusation ; he was impeached by parliament as ' unprofitable to the king and the realm,' and as having — amongst more than * threescore notable faults,' not now to our purpose — ' sold the castle of St. Saviour's.' Of these crimes he was found guilty, and by judicial sentence was deprived of his office of chamberlain ; His goods were confiscated, and he was ordered to be imprisoned during the king's pleasure, and ' thenceforth to be holden as infamous.' l The sentence was, however, revoked by the influence of the Duke of Lancaster after the death of the Black Prince.

Meantime, and whilst the ships were building at Eouen, the command afloat devolved on two foreigners, the one, Eenier Grimaldi, a son or nephew of that elder Grimaldi who honourably commanded the Genoese contingent at the battle of Sluys ; the other, Evan, or Owen — or, as he appears in the French chronicles, Yvain de Galles — who claimed to be, by right of birth, a Prince of Wales, robbed of his territory by the English. Evan may or may not have been an impostor ; the question is of little consequence, and there is no evidence to decide it ; but he was undoubtedly a brave man and an enterprising corsair ; whether with the main fleet, or in command of detached squadrons, he, as well as Grimaldi, proved himself an able partisan ; and the two, together with a Spanish squadron, during the years 1374-5, well nigh swept the English from the Channel, and wound up the campaign by the wholesale capture of a rich fleet of merchant ships returning from Bretagne on the faith of the truce.

The English owners and merchants petitioned for 1 ' Contemporary Chronicle,' in Archceologia, vol. xxii. p. 225.

vengeance, but in vain. The only answer they received was that the king had done, and would continue to do, his best to procure redress. He was, in point of fact, powerless. The navy of England, which, thirty-five years before, had sufficed to exterminate that of France ; which, twenty-five years before had crushed that of Spain, had now almost ceased to exist. The causes of this were numerous ; but — bearing in mind that an English fleet was composed mainly of merchant ships levied for the king's service — they may be stated briefly as, firstly: the frequency of these levies during the thirty or forty years that the war had lasted, and the custom of enforcing the levies, often, several months before the ships were wanted, during which time they were kept up at their owners' cost ; and secondly : the granting to foreigners, in return for heavy loans or payments, such privileges and monopolies as virtually put into their hands the whole export trade. By the action of these, it had come about that the merchants were impoverished, the seaport towns fallen into decay, their walls in ruins, the shipping not kept up ; and the sailors, unable to find employment, had taken to other means of earning a livelihood. The evils were repeatedly stated in detail, both in petition to parliament, and by parliament to the king ; but no remedy was applied, and for many years their effects continued.

In France, the interval of truce had been carefully utilised by the admiral. By the spring of 1377 he had, actually afloat and ready for sea, thirty-five large ships, built as men-of-war, armed with the newest guns, and well equipped; besides smaller vessels, merchantmen, which raised the total of his fleet to 120. These were manned by about 15,000 men — sailors, men-at-arms, and archers. The force in itself was sufficiently formidable, and was still further increased by a Spanish contingent, which, by the terms of the treaty, numbered at least thirteen large ships.