style of fighting at
sea was completely changed. We hear of them as early as the thirteenth
century, employed in a naval engagement between the King of Tunis and
the Moorish King of Seville. They were first used on shore by the
English at the battle of Crescy, fought in 1346, and at sea by the
Venetians about the year 1380. In the reigns of Richard the Third and
Henry the Seventh they were first employed by the English at sea. They
were not then, however, as now, pointed through port-holes, but were
mounted so as to fire over the bulwarks of the vessel. In those days,
therefore, ships of war could have had but one armed deck, and were
probably urged by oars as well as by sails. Port-holes were invented by
Descharves, a French builder at Brest, and the first English ship in
which they were formed was the _Henry Grace de Dieu_, built at Erith in
1515. She was said to have been of no less than 1000 tons burden, but
as we are ignorant of the mode in which ships were measured for tonnage
in those days, we cannot tell her actual burden. She must, however,
have been a large vessel, for she had two whole decks, besides what we
now call a forecastle and poop. She mounted altogether eighty pieces,
composed of every calibre in use; but of these not more than fifty-four,
according to the print before us, were pointed through broadside ports.
The rest were either mounted as bow or stern chasers, or as "murdering
pieces," as they were called, which pointed down on the deck; their
object apparently being, should a ship be boarded, to fire on the enemy.
The calibre of great guns was not in those days designated by the
weight of the shot they discharged. This was probably from the reason
that the balls were not all made of the same materials. At first they
were of stone; then those of iron were introduced; and sometimes they
were formed of lead; and, at an early period, hollow iron shot, filled
with combustible matter, were brought into use. Thus the weight of shot
fluctuated too much to serve for the classification of the gun from
which it was fired. Ships' guns in those days were known as cannon,
cannon royal, cannon serpentine, bastard cannon, demi-cannon, and cannon
petro.

The _Sovereign of the Seas_ was built at Woolwich Dockyard, in 1637, by
Mr Phineas Pett, and Mr Thomas Haywood was the designer of her
decorations. She measured, probably, about 1500 tons. He describes her
as having three flush-decks and a forecast