It is matter of great astonishment, that all these writers should have overlooked that most important feature of the coin, which marks a great epoch in the history of naval architecture; but such is the fact, as the following representation of the vessel on the coin* will demonstrate. Here is the earliest notice, yet discovered, of a rudder affixed to the stern of a vessel. In a well preserved impression of this noble, not only the rudder is shown, but the gudgeons and pintles by which it is secured to the stern, are very distinct. The date of this curious and inestimable coin is generally assigned to the period of the great achievement at Sluys; and the display of the royal arms upon the shield justifies this conclusion. Edward adopted the style of King of France in the year 1337,† a few months after his navy had signally avenged, at Cadsant, the outrages committed by the enemy on the coast of England. He did not also assume the arms of France at that time, and he soon laid the title aside; but in the year 1340, he assumed both the style and the arms, in pursuance of a treaty with the Lords of Flanders and the burgesses of the chief cities, which was ratified at Ghent on the 23rd of January, 1340. Hence, nobles are presumed to have been struck in honour of the great naval victory under the command of the King in person, at Sluys, in the same year. This places the invention of the rudder before the middle of the fourteenth century. The proof produced, in support of the opinion referred to in a preceding page, that the rudder was introduced in the fourteenth * From a very fine specimen of this coin, in the author's possession. + Barnes, p. 118. Ibid, page 154. century, is contained in an illustrated manuscript copy of the chronicles of Froissart; but it is generally believed that there is no such copy, of an earlier period than the close of the fourteenth, or the beginning of the fifteenth century; and as the chronicles extend to the year 1399, this opinion rests on a safe foundation, and is confirmed by the intrinsic testimony of the manuscripts themselves. The following are copies of the illustrations referred to. FROM ILLUSTRATED MANUSCRIPT COPIES OF FROISSART'S CHRONICLES, BRITISH MUSEUM, HARL MSS. 4378, 4380. In another highly embellished manuscript of the same period, two vessels are separately represented, as they are here given together one having the ancient clavus, and the other a rudder H at the stern, which seems to mark the time when the latter had been introduced, and the former had not been entirely laid aside. FROM L'HISTOIRE D'ALEXANDRE LE GRAND, ROYAL MS. 20, B. XX., IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM. The illustrious Wicliff had the clavus in his mind, when he produced his translation of the Holy Scriptures about the year 1381.* The rudder is recognised in an elegy upon the death of Edward III., on the 21st of June, 1377, written at the time, from which the following passages are extracted, as both curious and pertinent to the subject that has been discussed. Sum tyme an Englisch schip we had, Into that schip ther longed a Roothur, That steered the schip and governed hit : In al this world nis such a nothur As me thinketh in my wit. * Vide p. 17, ante. * Whyl schip and Rother togeder was knit, Thei dredde nouther tempest driyge nor wete; That selden seyge is sone forgete. Hit was Edward the thridde, the noble Kniht : That never 'sconfited was in fiht.* This affords no decisive proof of the time when the rudder was first in use; but such a metaphorical flourish, in that age, may be supposed to have been elicited by the importance and novelty of the invention of that machine. Reginald de Cobham, a branch of the ancient family seated at Cobham and Rundall, near Gravesend, who has been mentioned, was appointed to the high office of Admiral of the fleet from the Thames to the west, in the year 1344; and again in 1348, and 1349. But he was not the only distinguished personage, engaged in these events, who was also connected with this neighbourhood. Robert de Ufford, Earl of Suffolk, held the Manor of Gravesend,† which had been conferred upon him by the King in the fourth year of his reign; and he was Admiral of the fleet from the Thames to the north, in the years 1344 and 1345. He appears to have had a domestic establishment at Gravesend, as Lord of the Manor; and to have made the manor house his occasional residence, when his public duties drew him to the spot, for a robbery was committed on his premises at Gravesend, according to the following judicial record.§ "Thomas Stamarard of Northfleet, on Thursday next after the feast of St. Hilary, in the eighteenth year of the present King, (A.D. 1345), broke into the granary of Robert, Earl of Suffolk, at Gravesend, and stole two bushels of corn of the value of 15d., and four bushels of barley of the value of 15d." In the protracted struggles with France in the reign of Edward * Vernon MS., Bodleian Library, Oxford. Archæologia, vol. xviii. p. 22. + Pocock, History of Gravesend, p. 27. Bree, Sketch of the state of the Naval Establishment during the fourteenth century, p. 25. § Placita Coronæ, 18Edward III. III., during which the battle of Cressy, the siege and capture of Calais, and the battle of Poictiers occurred, the Thames was from time to time the bustling scene of naval and military preparations. In the year 1380, the English lost, by great reverses, all they had gained in that kingdom, except Calais; the possession of which produced an intercourse between England and France, that could not fail to be permanently beneficial to Gravesend. The account of ships of war on the Thames in the fourteenth century, may be closed with the following few particulars, relating to vessels, some of which were furnished from Gravesend and other places on the Thames and Medway, for the conveyance of men for the army in France, under Sir Robert Knolles.* Monday, the 15th day of September, (A.D. 1370.) Seamen's wages for In money paid by the hands of Thomas Durant, one the passage of of the Tellers of the Receipt of the Exchequer, as Robert Knolles to well in the port of London, as from thence through France. all the Water of Thames, and by the rivers Meddeweye and the Swale, and by the sea coast to the port of Romeneye, to divers masters and mariners, for the passage of Sir Robert Knolles and his retinue to the parts of France, as appears by the particulars of the same payments remaining in the Hanaper of this term, by general writ of Privy Seal, amongst the mandates of Michaelmas term in the 44th year. £74 16 4 * To John Stacy, master of a certain ship of To William Nocolt, master of the ship called To Henry Cogger, master of the ship called * To Robert, called Goderoberd, master of a 5 seamen 1 4 6 1 1 0 110 1 4 6 * From The Issue Roll of the Exchequer, Easter Term, 44 Edw. III. in the Public Record Office, Rolls House. |