as it was carried out at all, was carried out by contractors. In 1440, the seamen employed by one of these, Sir John Speke, received 1s. 6d. a week as pity, and a similar amount for victuals.[1] A few years later, and until 1450 or afterwards, the Nicholas, which up to 1423 had belonged to the Royal Navy, was doing duty on behalf of the contractors. In 1445 the contractors’ seamen received 1s. 9d. a week, and a weekly reward of 6d.; boys were paid 1s. 1½d.; and masters obtained 6d. a day. At times, the contractors seem to have done their work fairly well; though one has no means of saying how far they were assisted, seeing that, for example, in 1444–45, a Cinque Ports fleet of twenty-six vessels was in commission. But the contract system was identified with the Lancastrian dynasty; and as soon as the Yorkists gained sufficient power, they vigorously set about ending it. As early as 1454, measures with this obiect were adopted.
It may be said that, upon the whole, the promises foreshadowed by the advent of the Yorkists were fairly performed. Edward IV. did much to encourage trade, and under him it grew greatly; he devoted steady attention to the recovery and maintenance of the dominion of the sea; and he was essentially an English king, though a profligate, and sometimes a cruel one. Nor did he greatly oppress his subjects. He drew from them, it is true, benevolences to meet his most pressing needs, and so raised money without the assistance of Parliament; but these aids came chiefly from the rich, and they were, at least nominally, of a voluntary nature. The poor were not taxed beyond the bounds of reason, and it is not recorded that the rich were ruined. Edward V. reigned only for a few months. Richard III. called but one parliament, and levied but one regular tax—a tenth upon the clergy; and, no matter what may have been his private character and motives, he was neither incapable nor unpatriotic as a king. In 1484, he formally abolished benevolences as “new and unlawful inventions,” though it is more than suspected that he continued to raise them until the close of his short reign. On the other hand, he was not particularly extortionate, and he was an undoubted friend to commercial development.
Under the Yorkists there were even fewer changes in the material and management of the navy than under the Lancastrians. But the period is remarkable as having witnessed the first publication, apparently in manuscript, of a little anonymous verse treatise, the
- ↑ Roll of For. Accts. xi.
