ment to neglect these works altogether. At one crisis during his reign, Henry was threatened with a combination between France and the Empire; and, had such an alliance attacked him with all its resources, and seized the most favourable occasion for doing so, it is possible that the coast castles might have proved very useful. Upnor Castle on the Medway, and works at Portland, Hurst, Southsea, Calshot, and elsewhere were built under Elizabeth, who also founded Chatham Dockyard,[1] on the site of the modern gun-wharf. The yard was transferred to its present situation about 1622. Elizabeth, too, improved the defences of Plymouth.[2] Scilly was first garrisoned, and St. Mary's Guernsey, and Jersey were fortified in 1593, when the Treaty of Melun was concluded with France against Spain.
The first real dry dock in England was built at Portsmouth under Henry VII., the superintendent of the work being Robert Brygandine, Clerk of the Ships, and the business being completed in 1496. This dock was of wood and stone, but was not closed by a caisson, or a dock gate on hinges. What were called the "dock gates" were two walls of wood or stone, one within the other, which overlapped and partially blocked the entrance. When a ship, after passing between these walls, had been berthed, the space between the two walls was filled with earth, etc., and the dock then pumped out. Such, at least, are the only conclusions to be plausibly drawn from contemporary accounts of the manner in which this dock was utilised.[3]
Although, as has been said, dockyards were established or improved, the number of dry docks in the country remained very
- ↑ Camden describes Chatham Dockyard as "stored for the finest fleet the sun ever beheld, and ready at a minute's warning, built lately by our most gracious sovereign Elizabeth, at great expense, for the security of her subjects and the terror of her enemies, with a fort on the shore for its defence." The original dockyard became the gun wharf in the reign of James I., who began the existing yard on a site farther to the north. This was enlarged and much improved under Charles I.
- ↑ The most ancient fort for the defence of Plymouth was built in the reign of Edward III. by Edmund Stafford, Bishop of Exeter, and is described by Leland as "a strong castle quadrate, having at each corner a great round tower." This fortress stood on the south of the town, near the Barbican. In the reign of Elizabeth, numerous blockhouses and platforms were erected on different points of the shore of the harbour; and several of then were, about the year 1592, combined into a fort, called the Fort on the Hoe Cliffs. This was demolished upon the building of the citadel in 1670-71.
- ↑ Chapter House, bk. vii. passim, printed in Oppenheim's 'Nav. Accts. and Inventories of Hen. VII.'
