_, which she was attacking. Both ships
were utterly destroyed.

The _Marie la Cordeliere_ was probably the largest warship of her time.
She is said to have carried 1,200 men, and to have lost 900 killed in
the action. She was built at Morlaix at the sole cost of Anne of
Brittany, then Queen of France.

[Illustration: FIG. 41.--The _Henry Grace a Dieu_. _Pepysian Library,
Cambridge._]

The _Regent_ was replaced by a very famous ship called the _Henry Grace
a Dieu_, otherwise known as the _Great Harry_. As a consequence, most
probably, of the size and force of some of the French ships, as revealed
in the action off Brest, the _Henry Grace a Dieu_ was a great advance on
any previous British warship. She was built at Erith, and was probably
launched in June, 1514. Her tonnage is given in a manuscript in Pepys'
"Miscellanies" as 1,500; but it is generally believed that she did not
in reality exceed 1,000 tons.

[Illustration: FIG. 42.--The _Henry Grace a Dieu_. _After Allen._]

There are more drawings than one in existence, supposed to represent
this famous warship. One of them, shown in Fig. 41, is from a drawing in
the Pepysian Library, in Magdalene College, Cambridge. Another, shown in
Fig. 42, is from an engraving by Allen of a picture ascribed to Holbein.
The two illustrations differ in many important respects and cannot both
represent the same ship. There is very little doubt that Fig. 41 is the
more correct representation of the two, because it is confirmed in all
essential respects by Volpe's picture of the embarkation of Henry VIII.
at Dover in 1520 on this very ship. Volpe's picture is now at Hampton
Court Palace, and shows four other ships of the Royal Navy, which were
all built in the same style as the Pepysian drawing of Fig. 41, with
enormous forecastles and poops. The vessel represented in the picture
ascribed to Holbein appears to belong to a later date than 1520, and is,
in fact, transitional between the ships of this period and those of the
reign of Elizabeth. One of the warships of the latter period is shown in
Fig. 45.

According to a manuscript, in the Pepysian Collection, the _Henry Grace
a Dieu_ was armed with twenty-one guns and a multitude of smaller
pieces. The numbers of the various guns and the weights of their shot
are given in the following table:--

+---------------+---------+-----------+
| | | Weight of |
| Name of gun. | Number. | shot. |
+--------