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To assist in the executive business of the Lord High Admiral, the Admiralty Office or Admiralty Board was formed. Full regulations for the conduct of all these officials do not seem to have existed until the time of Edward VI.; and, indeed, it may be assumed that no department of such great importance could, at the mere fiat of an individual, leap at once into full activity and usefulness. The Commissioners of the Navy Office met, apparently from the time of their first appointment, on Tower Hill, in a building which, under Elizabeth, was known as the Queen's Consultation Room. The Board of Admiralty, in the earlier days of its existence, had no fixed home, and met sometimes at the Lord High Admiral's residence and sometimes even afloat.^[1]

At the instance of Sir Thomas Spert,^[2] Henry VIII. also, in 1513, established what is usually known as Trinity House, but is properly entitled "The Guild of the Holy and Undividable Trinity and St. Clement, at Deptford Strond." It was at first associated to some extent with the navy, part of its duty being to examine into the professional qualifications of officers and petty officers, and to supply seamen as they were needed. In 1566, the master, wardens, and assistants of the Guild were empowered to set up beacons and sea-marks; and, gradually, lighting, buoying, and pilotage fell more and more under their control, until their original connection with the navy became obscured.

Naval punishnments, "according to the custom of the sea," which was extremely barbarous, were much the same in the

 

Clerk of the Ships:
⁠April 24, 1546, Richard Howlett.
⁠Oct. 10, 1560, George Wynter.
⁠March 24, 1580, William Borough.
⁠Nov. 6, 1588, Benjamin Gonson, junr.
⁠1600, Peter Buck.
Master of the Ordnance of the Navy:
⁠April 24, 1546, Sir William Woodhouse.
⁠Dec. 16, 1552, Thomas Windham.
⁠Nov. 2, 1557, William Wynter (who held it, with the Surveyorship, until his death in 1589, when the office ceased to exist).
Surveyor of Victuals:
⁠June 28, 1550, Edward Baeshe.
⁠June 30, 1587, James Quarles.
⁠Nov. 8, 1595, Marmaduke Darell.
Extra Officers:
⁠April 24, 1546, William Holstock.
⁠April 24, 1546, Thomas Morley.[A continuation of these lists will be found in Chapter XVII.]
1. It may still meet wherever convenience dictates.
2. He died in 1541. On his monument in St. Dunstan's, Stepney, he is called "Comptroller of the Navy," but there was no such office in 1541. The error arises from the monument being of a much later period. He was Clerk of the Ships in 1538.