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Authors: Susan Ronald
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today) were still owed to Flanders merchants. 13 Over the next year, Elizabeth would borrow a further £30,000 ($11.14 million or £6.02 million today) from her powerful traders with Antwerp, the Merchants Adventurers, through Gresham’s auspices to pay soldiers’ wages, buy arms, and refit ships. It was Gresham alone who took charge of the queen’s finances with Antwerp, which was still the northern powerhouse of trade and finance. It was also Gresham who advised the queen on how best to consolidate her debt and rebuild confidence in the pound sterling by removing base coins from circulation.
Undoubtedly, not all of what he did was aboveboard. Customs agents were bribed to allow bullion to be exported from the Low Countries, and not all shipments of armaments were openly declared. Gresham rightly feared that, if the Netherlands regent for Philip II, Margaret of Parma, understood that he was arming England for the conflict ahead, a full embargo on exports to England would be put into force. What Gresham also recognized, as a seasoned Channel traveler, was that the queen’s navy needed urgent refitting if the country had any hope of staving off the powers of France, Spain, and the papacy. Stealth and rapid deployment of money and materiel were essential.
It was Gresham’s echo of other advice already received from Cecil and his fellow privy councillors that helped spring the queen into early action. The first step toward rebuilding her navy was for the princely sum of £14,000 a year ($4.98 million or £2.69 million today) to be advanced half yearly to Sir Benjamin Gonson, treasurer of theAdmiralty, “to be by him defrayed in such sort as shall be prescribed by him the said lord treasurer with the advice of the lord admiral.”
The lord treasurer was to
cause such of her Majesty’s ships as may be made serviceable with caulking and new trimming to be sufficiently renewed and repaired; item to cause such of her Highness’s said ships as a must of necessity be made of new to be gone in hand withal and new made with convenient speed; item he to see also her Highness’s said ships furnished with sails anchors cables and other tackle and apparel sufficiently; item he to cause a mass of victual to be always in readiness to serve for 1,000 men for a month to be set to the sea upon any sudden; item he to cause the said ships from time to time to be repaired and renewed as occasion shall require; item when the said ships that are to be renewed shall be new made and sufficiently repaired and the whole navy furnished of sails, anchors, cables and other tackle then is the said lord treasurer content to continue this service in form aforesaid for the sum of £10,000 yearly to be advanced as is aforesaid; item the said Benjamin Gonson and Edward Baeshe, surveyor of the victuals of the ships, shall make their several accounts of the defrayment of the said money and of their whole doings herein once in the year at the least and as often besides as shall be thought fit by my lords of the council. 14
The Book of Sea Causes detailed the naval preparedness of the realm. Elizabeth’s thirty-four ships consisted of eleven great ships (200 tons and upward), ten barks and pinnaces, and one brigantine, which were “meet to be kept,” or in satisfactory condition, while the remaining twelve, among which were two galleys, were to be discarded as “of no continuance and not worth repair.” 15 Of all the ships surveyed, twenty-four were between 200 and 800 tons, four barks were between 60 and 80 tons, and there were two pinnaces of 40 tons.
But The Book of Sea Causes did not stop at its assessment of the Royal Navy. It noted with considerable interest that there were some forty-five “merchant ships which may be put in fashion for war” and another twenty vessels that could serve as victuallers. Thecommissioners estimated that the enlarged fleet of merchant ships and royal ships could be mobilized within two months, providing there was
Undoubtedly, not all of what he did was aboveboard. Customs agents were bribed to allow bullion to be exported from the Low Countries, and not all shipments of armaments were openly declared. Gresham rightly feared that, if the Netherlands regent for Philip II, Margaret of Parma, understood that he was arming England for the conflict ahead, a full embargo on exports to England would be put into force. What Gresham also recognized, as a seasoned Channel traveler, was that the queen’s navy needed urgent refitting if the country had any hope of staving off the powers of France, Spain, and the papacy. Stealth and rapid deployment of money and materiel were essential.
It was Gresham’s echo of other advice already received from Cecil and his fellow privy councillors that helped spring the queen into early action. The first step toward rebuilding her navy was for the princely sum of £14,000 a year ($4.98 million or £2.69 million today) to be advanced half yearly to Sir Benjamin Gonson, treasurer of theAdmiralty, “to be by him defrayed in such sort as shall be prescribed by him the said lord treasurer with the advice of the lord admiral.”
The lord treasurer was to
cause such of her Majesty’s ships as may be made serviceable with caulking and new trimming to be sufficiently renewed and repaired; item to cause such of her Highness’s said ships as a must of necessity be made of new to be gone in hand withal and new made with convenient speed; item he to see also her Highness’s said ships furnished with sails anchors cables and other tackle and apparel sufficiently; item he to cause a mass of victual to be always in readiness to serve for 1,000 men for a month to be set to the sea upon any sudden; item he to cause the said ships from time to time to be repaired and renewed as occasion shall require; item when the said ships that are to be renewed shall be new made and sufficiently repaired and the whole navy furnished of sails, anchors, cables and other tackle then is the said lord treasurer content to continue this service in form aforesaid for the sum of £10,000 yearly to be advanced as is aforesaid; item the said Benjamin Gonson and Edward Baeshe, surveyor of the victuals of the ships, shall make their several accounts of the defrayment of the said money and of their whole doings herein once in the year at the least and as often besides as shall be thought fit by my lords of the council. 14
The Book of Sea Causes detailed the naval preparedness of the realm. Elizabeth’s thirty-four ships consisted of eleven great ships (200 tons and upward), ten barks and pinnaces, and one brigantine, which were “meet to be kept,” or in satisfactory condition, while the remaining twelve, among which were two galleys, were to be discarded as “of no continuance and not worth repair.” 15 Of all the ships surveyed, twenty-four were between 200 and 800 tons, four barks were between 60 and 80 tons, and there were two pinnaces of 40 tons.
But The Book of Sea Causes did not stop at its assessment of the Royal Navy. It noted with considerable interest that there were some forty-five “merchant ships which may be put in fashion for war” and another twenty vessels that could serve as victuallers. Thecommissioners estimated that the enlarged fleet of merchant ships and royal ships could be mobilized within two months, providing there was
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