Great Michael, length, 240 feet; beam, 56 feet. Duke of Wellington, length, 240 feet, 7 inches; beam, 60 feet, 1 inch.
Now if Pitscottie's figures are correct, either the Michael must have been almost incredibly bigger than any ship of her day, or, as I have before suggested, the old war-ships of that and earlier centuries were in reality a good deal larger than contemporary representations and records of "tunnage" would lead us to expect.
The old Scots writer, however, offers to prove his figures; for he says: "If any man believe that this ship was not as we have shewn, let him pass to the place of Tullibardine, where he will find the length and breadth of her set with hawthorne: as for my author he was Captain Andrew Wood, principal Captain of hir, and Robert Bartone, who was made her Skipper".
The sizes of these ships can only be shown approximately, as in some cases only the length of the keel is known; in others a mean has to be taken between length of keel and length over-all; while in others the authority does not say where the length was measured. H.M.S. Queen Elizabeth—650 feet long, with a beam of 94 feet—is bigger than all the rest put together.Rough Diagram, showing Comparative Sizes of Famous Ships at Different Periods
The sizes of these ships can only be shown approximately, as in some cases only the length of the keel is known; in others a mean has to be taken between length of keel and length over-all; while in others the authority does not say where the length was measured. H.M.S. Queen Elizabeth—650 feet long, with a beam of 94 feet—is bigger than all the rest put together.
With regard to the plan of the vessel in hawthorns, I am indebted to Lady Strathallan for the following interesting items: Tullibardine Castle has quite disappeared. What little was left of it was used in the construction of farm buildings from 1830-40. The spot where the hawthorns were planted to show the dimensions of the Great Michael is still known, but there is nothing to mark it. When the great ship was built, the carpenter or "wright" of the castle went down to superintend the shipwrights. When he got home, as the people at the castle were very anxious to form some idea of the size of this "Dreadnought" of that period, he was given orders to have an excavation made of the exact size of the ship. The hawthorns were, it would appear, planted round the excavation, which was tilled with water and aquatic plants, and remained as an ornamental pond till about the time of the battle of Waterloo. In 1837 the shape of the vessel was distinctly perceptible, but three only remained of the hawthorn-trees that formerly surrounded it. Some time ago Lady Strathallan, anxious that this curious monument of antiquity should not disappear altogether, directed the forester to renew the hawthorn outline of the Great Michael. The trees were procured for the purpose, but the tenant of the farm on which it was situated objected that it would take up too much room in his field, so that the project was abandoned. It seems a thousand pities that something cannot, even now, be done to perpetuate this relic of the famous Scots man-of-war, which, year by year, is being rendered more and more indistinguishable by the plough. The field in which traces of the hollow may be looked for is situated 400 yards from the old parish chapel, which was restored a good many years ago and used as a burial vault.
The Great Michael did not long remain a Scots ship. The fleet of Scotland went to France in 1513, and in the following year she was bought by Louis XII for 40,000 francs, to replace the Cordelière, which, as you will remember, was blown up with the Regent. This brings us back to the Henri Grace à Dieu, which was built to replace the latter ship. But before we turn our attention to her we cannot but note the difference between the alleged cost of the Great Michael and that for which she was sold. The bargain does not seem worthy of the Scots reputation for "canniness". But we must bear in mind that a "pound Scots" was not at all the same thing as an English pound at that date. Ever since 1355 its value had been falling, till by 1603 it was only worth twenty pence instead of twenty shillings. It was, in fact, at the time of the sale, the kind of "silver pound" that the "chieftain to the Highlands bound" paid or promised the boatman if he would row Lord Ullin's daughter and himself "o'er the ferry". But even if we put it at about a tenth of a pound sterling in 1513, the bargain seems a poor one. Probably it was more of a political deal than anything else, comparable to the German sale of the Goeben to Turkey.
The Henri Grace à Dieu—I think we may as well call her the Henri for short, and save time and paper—is a ship about which we have the most extended information in some respects—those dealing with her decoration and equipment, for instance; but we are left entirely in the dark as to her size and measurements. The only dimensions I have been able to find are those indicated on a plan which, on very insufficient grounds, is claimed to be a copy of the official one on which she was built, and which is stated to be—or at any rate to have been within the last century—at Plymouth dockyard. So far this original has not been traced, and I may remark that anyone who knows anything about the Navy would not dream of referring to the dockyard in the western port except as "Devonport Dockyard". However, I give the dimensions for what they may be worth—not much, I think:
Length, 145 feet; beam, 35 feet 9 inches; tonnage, 839.
Now if this, by any chance, is anything like correct she must have been a very much smaller ship than the Great Michael, which is not very likely, since Henry VIII would naturally have wanted "to go one better". Moreover, she is generally credited as having been of at least a thousand tons displacement, and carried a battery little, if any, inferior in weight and numbers to that of the Michael.
She was heavily equipped with ordnance, very little of which is apparent in her pictures. According to her inventories she carried something like 185 guns of all sorts and sizes, but many of these must have been kept on shore as reserve stores. She is generally credited with carrying 14 heavy guns on the lower and 12 on the main deck, and 46 light cannon on her upper works. Some of the large and all the smaller ones were breech-loaders, and as most were provided with at least two "chambers" or breech-pieces, which contained the powder-charge and could be quickly substituted one for the other, we may almost call them "quick-firers". She was gorgeously decorated in the first place, and poop, waist, forecastle, and tops were hung with shields showing alternately the St. George's Cross, the Golden Fleur-de-Lis on a blue ground, and the Tudor Rose on a green and white ground. Her sails were woven with a decorative design in gold damask, and she carried a lion figure-head, but the lion was badly executed and a very tame one. Like all Tudor ships she flew a profusion of flags, standards, and immense streamers bearing the St. George's Cross, the fly or long-pointed end being half green and half white. These were the Tudor livery colours. The plain red-cross flag or "Jack" was well in evidence and generally carried on the fore masthead as well as among the smaller flags placed on poles at equal distances along the bulwarks. The royal standard was also carried, but not in every ship, and sometimes it appears "impaled" with the national red-cross flag—that is to say, the two were placed side by side on the same flag.
The national status of the Royal Navy was becoming recognized. Before this time, though the English "Jack" generally found a place somewhere on board an English ship, the banners and pennons of the nobles and knights on board were most in evidence. Now we see nothing but royal and national emblems. In the war with France in 1455 the ships of the squadron forming the "van" or leading portion of the fleet carried the St. George's Cross at the fore, those of the centre at the main, and the rear squadron at the mizzen.
In describing the Henri we have practically described all the "great shippes" of her class, of which there were a considerable number, though none were quite so large, or probably quite so elaborately decorated. Of course she was what we may call "a show ship", like the Royal