Royal Scots Navy - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Royal Scots Navy was the navy

Navy

A navy is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake- or ocean-borne combat operations and related functions...

of the Kingdom of Scotland

Kingdom of Scotland

The Kingdom of Scotland was a Sovereign state in North-West Europe that existed from 843 until 1707. It occupied the northern third of the island of Great Britain and shared a land border to the south with the Kingdom of England...

from its foundation in the 11th century until its merger with the Kingdom of England

Kingdom of England

The Kingdom of England was, from 927 to 1707, a sovereign state to the northwest of continental Europe. At its height, the Kingdom of England spanned the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain and several smaller outlying islands; what today comprises the legal jurisdiction of England...

's Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

per the Acts of Union 1707

Acts of Union 1707

The Acts of Union were two Parliamentary Acts - the Union with Scotland Act passed in 1706 by the Parliament of England, and the Union with England Act passed in 1707 by the Parliament of Scotland - which put into effect the terms of the Treaty of Union that had been agreed on 22 July 1706,...

Origins

The Scots Navy was created in about 1000 to combat the Viking invasions. Initially it consisted of longship

Longship

Longships were sea vessels made and used by the Vikings from the Nordic countries for trade, commerce, exploration, and warfare during the Viking Age. The longship’s design evolved over many years, beginning in the Stone Age with the invention of the umiak and continuing up to the 9th century with...

s, some captured from the Vikings. After Magnus VI of Norway

Magnus VI of Norway

Magnus VI Lagabøte or Magnus Håkonsson , was king of Norway from 1263 until 1280.-Early life:...

ceded Scandinavia

Scandinavia

Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...

n control over northern Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

and the Western Isles to Alexander III

Alexander III of Scotland

Alexander III was King of Scots from 1249 to his death.-Life:...

, the navy was neglected.

The long course of intermittent war, from the days of Robert the Bruce to the Union of the Crowns in 1603, against England with her rapidly rising and comparatively powerful fleet, further made naval defence important for Scotland. During the period of the disputed succession to the Scottish throne, and the Wars of Scottish Independence

Wars of Scottish Independence

The Wars of Scottish Independence were a series of military campaigns fought between the independent Kingdom of Scotland and the Kingdom of England in the late 13th and early 14th centuries....

, there appears little or no trace of a Scots navy. With Scottish independence established, Robert the Bruce turned his attention to the upbuilding of Scots shipping and of a Scots navy. In his later days he visited the Western Isles, which was part of the domain of the powerful Lords of the Isles who owed only a loose allegiance to him, and established a royal castle at East Loch Tarbert in Argyll to overawe the semi-independent Islemen.

The Exchequer Rolls of 1326 record the feudal services of certain of his vassals on the western coast in aiding him with their vessels and crews. Near his palace at Cardross on the River Clyde

River Clyde

The River Clyde is a major river in Scotland. It is the ninth longest river in the United Kingdom, and the third longest in Scotland. Flowing through the major city of Glasgow, it was an important river for shipbuilding and trade in the British Empire....

he spent his last days in shipbuilding; and one royal man-of-war of the Viking type at least was equipped by him before he died in 1329.

On his return to Scotland in 1424 James I

James I of Scotland

James I, King of Scots , was the son of Robert III and Annabella Drummond. He was probably born in late July 1394 in Dunfermline as youngest of three sons...

gave close attention to the shipping interests of his country. At Leith

Leith

-South Leith v. North Leith:Up until the late 16th century Leith , comprised two separate towns on either side of the river....

he established a shipbuilding yard, a house for marine stores, and a workshop; and king's ships were built and equipped there, which were used for trade as well as war. In 1429 James went to the Western Isles with one of his ships to curb his vassals there. In the same year Parliament enacted a law that each four merk land on the north and west coasts of Scotland within six miles of the sea was, in feudal service to the king, to furnish one oar. This was the nearest approach ever made in Scotland to the ship money

Ship money

Ship money refers to a tax that Charles I of England tried to levy without the consent of Parliament. This tax, which was only applied to coastal towns during a time of war, was intended to offset the cost of defending that part of the coast, and could be paid in actual ships or the equivalent value...

of England.

His successor, James II

James II of Scotland

James II reigned as King of Scots from 1437 to his death.He was the son of James I, King of Scots, and Joan Beaufort...

, developed the use of gunpowder and artillery in Scotland. The use of bombards or cannon as naval armament had a great effect in modifying the construction of the old trireme and Viking type of war vessel. Vessels were thereafter built with hulls thick enough to resist artillery, and with high forecastles to carry guns.

The pioneer in Scotland's newer type of warship was a churchman. In 1461 Bishop Kennedy of St. Andrews built the St Salvator, a great ship for trade and for war purposes which cost £10,000. This vessel, the "navis immanis et fortissima", was ultimately lost on the coast of Northumberland

Northumberland

Northumberland is the northernmost ceremonial county and a unitary district in North East England. For Eurostat purposes Northumberland is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three boroughs or unitary districts that comprise the "Northumberland and Tyne and Wear" NUTS 2 region...

. The chief coadjutors, however, of James III

James III of Scotland

James III was King of Scots from 1460 to 1488. James was an unpopular and ineffective monarch owing to an unwillingness to administer justice fairly, a policy of pursuing alliance with the Kingdom of England, and a disastrous relationship with nearly all his extended family.His reputation as the...

and James IV

James IV of Scotland

James IV was King of Scots from 11 June 1488 to his death. He is generally regarded as the most successful of the Stewart monarchs of Scotland, but his reign ended with the disastrous defeat at the Battle of Flodden Field, where he became the last monarch from not only Scotland, but also from all...

in building up the Scots navy were not dignitaries of the Church, but the merchant skippers of Leith; Sir Andrew Wood of Largo, John Barton and his sons Andrew

Andrew Barton

Sir Andrew Barton served as High Admiral of the Kingdom of Scotland. Notorious in England and Portugal as a 'pirate', Barton was a seaman who operated under the aegis of a letter of marque on behalf of the Scottish crown, and is therefore more widely described as a privateer...

, Robert

Robert Barton of Over Barnton

Robert Barton of Over Barnton was a Scottish sailor and Lord High Treasurer to James V of Scotland.-Sailor and shipowner:Robert Barton was a son of John Barton the sailor. He took Perkin Warbeck away from Scotland in the Cuckoo in July 1497...

and John, and William Brounhill. In 1473 the King's Carvel, better known as the Yellow Carvel, was under the command of John Barton. In his struggle with his rebellious nobles, in 1488 James III received assistance from his two warships the Flower and Yellow Carvel, then under the command of Sir Andrew Wood.

Expansion under James IV

James IV

James IV of Scotland

continued his father's policy of building up the navy. He loved ships and saw the importance to Scotland of having a strong navy. He built 38 ships for his fleet and founded two new dockyards. In 1489 Sir Andrew Wood

Andrew Wood of Largo

Sir Andrew Wood of Largo was a Scottish sea captain. Beginning as a merchant in Leith, he was involved in national naval actions and rose to become Lord High Admiral of Scotland. He was knighted c. 1495...

with his 2 ships cleared the Scottish seas of English privateer

Privateer

A privateer is a private person or ship authorized by a government by letters of marque to attack foreign shipping during wartime. Privateering was a way of mobilizing armed ships and sailors without having to spend public money or commit naval officers...

s, capturing 5 and bringing them as prizes into Leith. That same year Lutkyn Mere, a Danish pirate who had long infested the North Sea

North Sea

In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...

, was captured and hanged with his crew. In 1490 Henry VII of England

Henry VII of England

Henry VII was King of England and Lord of Ireland from his seizing the crown on 22 August 1485 until his death on 21 April 1509, as the first monarch of the House of Tudor....

, by way of reprisal against Wood, fitted out three privateers under Stephen Bull; but after a running fight from the Forth

River Forth

The River Forth , long, is the major river draining the eastern part of the central belt of Scotland.The Forth rises in Loch Ard in the Trossachs, a mountainous area some west of Stirling...

to the Tay

River Tay

The River Tay is the longest river in Scotland and the seventh-longest in the United Kingdom. The Tay originates in western Scotland on the slopes of Ben Lui , then flows easterly across the Highlands, through Loch Dochhart, Loch Lubhair and Loch Tay, then continues east through Strathtay , in...

, Bull and his three ships were captured by Wood.

In 1491 Wood, who had obtained a royal licence to erect a fortalice (a fortified tower house

Tower house

A tower house is a particular type of stone structure, built for defensive purposes as well as habitation.-History:Tower houses began to appear in the Middle Ages, especially in mountain or limited access areas, in order to command and defend strategic points with reduced forces...

) at Largo in Fife

Fife

Fife is a council area and former county of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries to Perth and Kinross and Clackmannanshire...

, employed English captives on the work. Besides making naval reprisals Henry VII of England

Henry VII of England

Henry VII was King of England and Lord of Ireland from his seizing the crown on 22 August 1485 until his death on 21 April 1509, as the first monarch of the House of Tudor....

played the diplomatic game of fomenting the semi-independent Lord of the Isles and the Islesmen to throw off the sovereignty of Scotland, with such success that from 1493–1495 (following the official forfeiture of the Lordship

Lord of the Isles

The designation Lord of the Isles is today a title of Scottish nobility with historical roots that go back beyond the Kingdom of Scotland. It emerged from a series of hybrid Viking/Gaelic rulers of the west coast and islands of Scotland in the Middle Ages, who wielded sea-power with fleets of...

in 1493) and in 1498 James made at least four expeditions to the western seas to secure the doubtful allegiance of the Island chiefs and was largely successful - as a fluent Gaelic speaker, the last Scottish king to be so, James was able to deal with the Islanders in their own language.

In 1494 he was convoyed by the man-of-war Christopher and other ships, and accounts are given of a large row barge and two smaller vessels built at Dumbarton to curb the Islesmen. In the expedition of 1495 the king was accompanied by Sir Andrew Wood in Flower. In the legislation of the Scots Parliaments of 1493 and 1503 requiring all seaboard burghs to keep "busches" of 20 tons to be manned by idle able-bodied men, James and the Estates had not only the improvement of the fisheries in view, but the manning of the mercantile marine and the navy.

The Barton family also remained prominent in the annals of the Scottish navy, in the form of John's son Andrew

Andrew Barton

. In reprisal for the seizure of his father's ship in 1476 by the Flemish, he received a royal commission on 6 November 1506 from King James against the Portuguese, and was said to have preyed on their commerce in the English Channel. In 1508 he was sent by James IV to assist his uncle, King John of Denmark, against Lübeck

Lübeck

The Hanseatic City of Lübeck is the second-largest city in Schleswig-Holstein, in northern Germany, and one of the major ports of Germany. It was for several centuries the "capital" of the Hanseatic League and, because of its Brick Gothic architectural heritage, is listed by UNESCO as a World...

. In 1511 he was sent to Copenhagen

Copenhagen

Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...

with his two ships Lion and Jenny Pirwin and in August that year, in a fight in the English Downs, Barton was slain, and his two ships captured by Lord Thomas Howard and Sir Edward Howard

Edward Howard (admiral)

Sir Edward Howard, KG , son of Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Surrey and his first wife, Elizabeth Tilney, and a younger brother of Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk. He was the first of the Howards to win fame as an admiral, participating in his first naval battle while in his teens...

and transferred to the English navy.

Barton's commission against the Portugese is often called a letter of marque

Letter of marque

In the days of fighting sail, a Letter of Marque and Reprisal was a government licence authorizing a person to attack and capture enemy vessels, and bring them before admiralty courts for condemnation and sale...

, but it was in fact a "letter of reprisal", a different sort of document, which remained in use in Scotland long after other countries had abandoned it. Whereas a letter of marque authorized action against the king's enemies during wartime, a letter of reprisal was issued to a man who had been individually wronged by foreign governments - typically when they failed to bring their own pirates to justice for an attack.

The offended skipper was authorized to forcibly seize ships and goods from the offending country as compensation, even in peacetime, until such time as their court system did him justice. In this way, the Barton family were at war with Portugal for almost a century (c. 1470-1563), eventually subcontracting an entire fleet of privateers under their letter of reprisal. This ancient practice continued until the start of the eighteenth century. There was with a quasi-national conflict against Hamburg in the 1630s, and Jacobite privateers continued to fight under letters of reprisal issued by James VII

James II of England

James II & VII was King of England and King of Ireland as James II and King of Scotland as James VII, from 6 February 1685. He was the last Catholic monarch to reign over the Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland...

against the Prince of Orange

William III of England

William III & II was a sovereign Prince of Orange of the House of Orange-Nassau by birth. From 1672 he governed as Stadtholder William III of Orange over Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel of the Dutch Republic. From 1689 he reigned as William III over England and Ireland...

during the years of peace in 1697-1702.

Another unusual feature of the Scottish navy was that the office of Lord High Admiral

Lord High Admiral of Scotland

The Lord High Admiral of Scotland was one of the Great Offices of State of the Kingdom of Scotland before the Union with England in 1707.The office was one of considerable power, also known as Royal Scottish Admiralty, including command of the King's ships and sailors and inspection of all sea...

was hereditary, being occupied by the Earl of Bothwell

Earl of Bothwell

The title Earl of Bothwell has been created twice in the Peerage of Scotland. It was first created for Patrick Hepburn in 1488, and was forfeited in 1567. It was then created for Francis Stewart in 1587...

from 1488 to 1567 and again in 1581-95, and then by the Duke of Lennox

Duke of Lennox

The title Duke of Lennox has been created several times in the Peerage of Scotland, for Clan Stewart of Darnley. The Dukedom, named for the district of Lennox in Stirling, was first created in 1581, and had formerly been the Earldom of Lennox. The second Duke was made Duke of Richmond; at his...

for much of the seventeenth century. The result was that Scotland's Admiralty court

Admiralty court

Admiralty courts, also known as maritime courts, are courts exercising jurisdiction over all maritime contracts, torts, injuries and offences.- Admiralty Courts in England and Wales :...

was controlled by a nobleman rather than the crown, the government did not develop a naval administration like the English Navy Board

Navy Board

The Navy Board is today the body responsible for the day-to-day running of the British Royal Navy. Its composition is identical to that of the Admiralty Board of the Defence Council of the United Kingdom, except that it does not include any of Her Majesty's Ministers.From 1546 to 1831, the Navy...

, and the Lord High Admiral retained the power to issue letters of marque in his own name.

In spite of the survival of these medieval-style private jurisdictions, James IV succeeded in building up a navy that was truly royal. Dissatisfied with sandbanks at Leith

Leith

-South Leith v. North Leith:Up until the late 16th century Leith , comprised two separate towns on either side of the river....

, James himself sited a new harbour at Newhaven

Newhaven, Edinburgh

Newhaven is a district in the City of Edinburgh, Scotland, between Leith and Granton. Formerly a village and harbour on the Firth of Forth, it currently has approximately 5,000 inhabitants....

in May 1504, and two years later ordered the construction of a dockyard at the Pools of Airth

Airth

Airth is a Royal Burgh, village, former trading port and civil parish in Falkirk, Scotland. It is north of Falkirk town and sits on the banks of the River Forth. Airth lies on the A905 road between Grangemouth and Stirling and is overlooked by Airth Castle, the village retains two market crosses...

. The upper reaches of the Forth were protected by new fortifications on Inchgarvie

Inchgarvie

Inchgarvie is a small, uninhabited island in the Firth of Forth. Its name comes from Innis Garbhach which is Scottish Gaelic for "rough island"...

. His greatest achievement was the construction of Great Michael, the largest ship up to that time launched in Scotland, the building of which cost £30,000. Work on the ship commenced in 1506, first launched on 11 October 1511 at Newhaven, she sailed up the Forth to Airth for further fitting. The Michael weighed 1,000 ton

Long ton

Long ton is the name for the unit called the "ton" in the avoirdupois or Imperial system of measurements, as used in the United Kingdom and several other Commonwealth countries. It has been mostly replaced by the tonne, and in the United States by the short ton...

s, was 240 feet (73 m) in length, was manned by 1,000 seamen and 120 gunners and was then the largest ship in Europe (according to the chronicler Lindsay of Pitscottie). She had Sir Andrew Wood as quartermaster and Robert Barton as skipper. James IV had three other large ships, the Margaret
Scottish warship Margaret
The Margaret was a Scottish warship of the 16th century.She was built at Leith around 1505 by order of King James IV of Scotland, as part of his policy of building a strong Scottish navy. He named it after his new wife, Margaret Tudor...

built in 1505, Treasurer
Treasurer (warship)
The Treasurer was a Scottish warship in the Royal Scots Navy in the 16th century.The Treasurer was purchased by James IV of Scotland from a merchant of Le Conquet near Brest, and appears to have been commissioned by Robert Barton of Over Barnton. The Treasurer sailed with the Margaret to Flanders...

, and the James. Timber for the Margaret came from Strathearn

Strathearn

Strathearn or Strath Earn is the strath of the River Earn, in Scotland. It extends from Loch Earn in Perth and Kinross to the River Tay....

, Kincardine

Kincardine

Kincardine or Kincardine-on-Forth is a small town located on the north shore of the Firth of Forth, in Fife, Scotland. The town was given the status of a Burgh of barony in 1663. It was at one time a reasonably prosperous minor port...

, Alloa

Alloa

Alloa is a town and former burgh in Clackmannanshire, set in the Central Lowlands of Scotland. It lies on on the north bank of the Firth of Forth close to the foot of the Ochil Hills, east of Stirling and north of Falkirk....

, France and Norway, and perhaps Caithness

Caithness

Caithness is a registration county, lieutenancy area and historic local government area of Scotland. The name was used also for the earldom of Caithness and the Caithness constituency of the Parliament of the United Kingdom . Boundaries are not identical in all contexts, but the Caithness area is...

. With these ships, the focus of the Scottish navy shifted decisively, from hiring the ships of patriotic sea captains, to being a force of purpose-built warships owned by the king. James often visited while his ships were building and the ships were hung with tapestry

Scottish Royal tapestry collection

The Scottish royal tapestry collection was a group of tapestry hangings assembled to decorate the palaces of sixteenth century kings and queens of Scotland....

when he dined aboard.

In the campaign against England, the Scots fleet consisted of sixteen ships with tops and ten smaller craft, partly King's ships, partly hired ships and partly privateers. Commanded by the James Hamilton, 1st Earl of Arran

James Hamilton, 1st Earl of Arran

James Hamilton, 1st Earl of Arran and 2nd Lord Hamilton was a Scottish nobleman and first cousin of James IV of Scotland.-Biography:...

and Gordon of Letterfourie, feudal magnates with no naval experience, it did nothing effective. Arran was later superseded by Sir Andrew Wood, but refusing to give up command he sailed for France to form a junction with the allied French fleet, but failed to do anything effective against the fleet of England. The English ambassador, Nicholas West

Nicholas West

Nicholas West , English bishop and diplomatist, was born at Putney, and educated at Eton and at King's College, Cambridge, of which he became a fellow in 1486....

described the preparation of the fleet on 13 April 1513;

"On Monday because I had no business, for a pastime I went down to Leith to th'entent to see what shyps were prepared ther, and when I came thidre I found none but 9 or 10 small topmen, amongst whom the ship of Lynne was the biggest, and other small balyngiers and crayers, and never one of all these was rigged to the war, but one little topman of the burden of three-score tonne. And from thence I went to the New Haven, and ther lyeth the Margaret, a ship nighe of the burden of the Cryst of Lynn, and many men workying upon her, som setting on her mayn top, and som caulking her above water, for under water she was new tallowed. Ther was also upon the stocks a litell galley in makyng, aboute 50 fote longe as I suppose, which they said the kyng made to rowe up and down upon the water to and from Strivelynge: ther is never a boorde yet upon her nor never a man wrought upon her when I was ther."

The Scottish fleet sailed to France via Carrickfergus to aid Louis XII

Louis XII of France

Louis proved to be a popular king. At the end of his reign the crown deficit was no greater than it had been when he succeeded Charles VIII in 1498, despite several expensive military campaigns in Italy. His fiscal reforms of 1504 and 1508 tightened and improved procedures for the collection of taxes...

on 15 July 1513. John Barton died at Kirkcudbright

Kirkcudbright

Kirkcudbright, is a town in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland.The town lies south of Castle Douglas and Dalbeattie, in the part of Dumfries and Galloway known as the Stewartry, at the mouth of the River Dee, some six miles from the sea...

on his return to Scotland. In 1514 the Great Michael was sold to France for 40,000 francs tournais, but some of the other men of war, and in particular James and Margaret, returned to Scotland with Antoine d'Arces, sieur de la Bastie

Antoine d'Arces

Antoine d'Arcy, sieur de la Bastie-sur-Meylan and of Lissieu, was a French nobleman involved in the government of Scotland.-The White Knight:...

. The poet Gavin Douglas

Gavin Douglas

Gavin Douglas was a Scottish bishop, makar and translator. Although he had an important political career, it is for his poetry that he is now chiefly remembered. His principal pioneering achievement was the Eneados, a full and faithful vernacular translation of the Aeneid of Virgil and the first...

accused Regent Albany

John Stewart, 2nd Duke of Albany

John Stewart, Duke of Albany was Regent of the Kingdom of Scotland, Duke of Albany in peerage of Scotland and Count of Auvergne and Lauraguais in France.-Early life:...

of selling three great ships and other small barques. Entries in the Exchequer Rolls of 1515 and 1516 show the victualling of King's ships at Dumbarton and Dunbar

Dunbar

Dunbar is a town in East Lothian on the southeast coast of Scotland, approximately 28 miles east of Edinburgh and 28 miles from the English Border at Berwick-upon-Tweed....

, which with Leith

Leith

-South Leith v. North Leith:Up until the late 16th century Leith , comprised two separate towns on either side of the river....

were the principal naval harbours of Scotland, but the fleet of James IV seems to have disappeared soon after Arran's expedition to France and before the reprisals of the English and other privateers and the storms of the northern seas. The importance of the private shipping was emphasised in 1524, when an English diplomat Thomas Magnus

Thomas Magnus

Thomas Magnus, , English administrator and diplomat; Archdeacon of the East Riding of Yorkshire 1504, employed on diplomatic missions 1509-19 and 1524-7; present at the Field of the Cloth of Gold 1520; Privy councillor c.1520; awarded a doctorate by the University of Oxford 1520; canon of Windsor...

noted that Robert Barton

Robert Barton of Over Barnton

was an especial friend of Margaret Tudor

Margaret Tudor

Margaret Tudor was the elder of the two surviving daughters of Henry VII of England and Elizabeth of York, and the elder sister of Henry VIII. In 1503, she married James IV, King of Scots. James died in 1513, and their son became King James V. She married secondly Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of...

, Magnus had been given a copy of a letter from the John Stewart, Duke of Albany, Margaret's rival for power, giving Barton instructions on provisions for Dunbar Castle

Dunbar Castle

Dunbar Castle is the remnants of one of the most mighty fortresses in Scotland, situated over the harbour of the town of Dunbar, in East Lothian.-Early history:...

which he believed to be a forgery.

Voyages of James V

James V

James V of Scotland

James V was King of Scots from 9 September 1513 until his death, which followed the Scottish defeat at the Battle of Solway Moss...

twice sailed to the Isles of Scotland, and once to France for his marriage to Princess Madeleine.
James made much use of an English ship, the Mary Willoughby

HMS Mary Willoughby

Mary Willoughby was a ship of the Royal Navy. She was appears in the navy lists from 1535, during the reign of Henry VIII. She was named after Maria Willoughby, a lady-in-waiting and close friend of Catherine of Aragon. The ship was taken by the Scots in 1536 and joined the Royal Scots Navy, The...

, captured by Hector Maclean of Duart

Duart Castle

Duart Castle or Caisteal Dhubhairt in Scottish Gaelic is a castle on the Isle of Mull, off the west coast of Scotland, within the council area of Argyll and Bute...

off the Isle of Man

Isle of Man

The Isle of Man , otherwise known simply as Mann , is a self-governing British Crown Dependency, located in the Irish Sea between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, within the British Isles. The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, who holds the title of Lord of Mann. The Lord of Mann is...

and delivered to the king at Inveraray

Inveraray

Inveraray is a royal burgh in Argyll and Bute, Scotland. It is on the western shore of Loch Fyne, near its head, and on the A83 road. It is the traditional county town of Argyll and ancestral home to the Duke of Argyll.-Coat of arms:...

by the Earl of Argyll

Archibald Campbell, 4th Earl of Argyll

Gillespie Roy Archibald Campbell, 4th Earl of Argyll was a Scottish nobleman and politician.-Biography:He was the eldest son of Colin Campbell, 3rd Earl of Argyll and Jean Gordon, daughter of Alexander Gordon, 3rd Earl of Huntly...

in September 1533. Another English ship captured around this time and passed into the king's hands was the Lion.

The Isles and France

James sailed from Pittenween in Fife

Fife

Fife is a council area and former county of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries to Perth and Kinross and Clackmannanshire...

on 23 July 1536, circumnavigated the Isles and landed at Whithorn

Whithorn

Whithorn is a former royal burgh in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, about ten miles south of Wigtown. The town was the location of the first recorded Christian church in Scotland, Candida Casa : the 'White [or 'Shining'] House', built by Saint Ninian about 397.-Eighth and twelfth centuries:A...

in Galloway

Galloway

Galloway is an area in southwestern Scotland. It usually refers to the former counties of Wigtownshire and Kirkcudbrightshire...

on 4 August. Within Scotland, the purpose of this voyage was unknown and led to speculation that a trip to France was intended. It was even suggested that the king was brought back to Scotland unawares. Adam Abell

Adam Abell

Adam Abell was a Scottish Friar at Jedburgh Abbey. He wrote a chronicle in the 1530s that gives an insight into contemporary thought and contains anecdotes that appear in later writings.-Life:...

, a Friar

Friar

A friar is a member of one of the mendicant orders.-Friars and monks:...

at Jedburgh Abbey

Jedburgh Abbey

Jedburgh Abbey, a ruined Augustinian abbey which was founded in the 12th century is situated in the town of Jedburgh, in the Scottish Borders just north of the border with England at Carter Bar...

wrote;

oure King without consent of the lordis with ane gret thesaur salit to France. There wes principall with him then Schir Iames Hammiltoune
James Hamilton of Finnart
Sir James Hamilton of Finnart was a Scottish nobleman and architect, the illegitimate son of James Hamilton, 1st Earl of Arran, and Mary Boyd of Bonshaw....

bot tempest rais on the west see quhen thai wer neire France and sa be induction of his fallowis, he mysknawand, the marinaris returnit in Scotland."

On 1 September 1536 he sailed from Kirkcaldy

Kirkcaldy

Kirkcaldy is a town and former royal burgh in Fife, on the east coast of Scotland. The town lies on a shallow bay on the northern shore of the Firth of Forth; SSE of Glenrothes, ENE of Dunfermline, WSW of Dundee and NNE of Edinburgh...

with six ships including the 600 ton Mary Willoughby and 500 men, and arrived at Dieppe

Dieppe, Seine-Maritime

Dieppe is a commune in the Seine-Maritime department in France. In 1999, the population of the whole Dieppe urban area was 81,419.A port on the English Channel, famous for its scallops, and with a regular ferry service from the Gare Maritime to Newhaven in England, Dieppe also has a popular pebbled...

on 9 September. First he visited Mary of Bourbon

Mary of Bourbon

Mary of Bourbon or Marie de Bourbon was a daughter of Charles, Duke of Vendôme and Françoise d'Alençon, daughter of René, Duke of Alençon. Mary was the subject of marriage negotiations of James V of Scotland. He visited her in France, but subsequently married the Princess Madeleine...

. The mission was kept secret from the English, and this secrecy may have led to the Scottish story that he visited that lady in disguise. After his marriage to Madeleine of Valois, he sailed from Le Havre

Le Havre

Le Havre is a city in the Seine-Maritime department of the Haute-Normandie region in France. It is situated in north-western France, on the right bank of the mouth of the river Seine on the English Channel. Le Havre is the most populous commune in the Haute-Normandie region, although the total...

in the Mary Willoughby and in nine days reached Leith at 10 o'clock at night on 19 May 1537. During the return voyage, the Scottish and French fleet was sighted from Scarborough with three four-masted ships, and others with three masts, in total seventeen. They lay off Bamburgh

Bamburgh

Bamburgh is a large village and civil parish on the coast of Northumberland, England. It has a population of 454.It is notable for two reasons: the imposing Bamburgh Castle, overlooking the beach, seat of the former Kings of Northumbria, and at present owned by the Armstrong family ; and its...

on the 15 May, sending out a landing party, and bought fish from Englishmen who came aboard. Henry Ray saw the fleet arrive at Leith, noting four great Scottish ships and ten French. Two of these French ships were the Perforce and Monsieur de Roy. Two French ships remained in Scotland, the Salamander

Salamander of Leith

Salamander of Leith was a warship of the 16th-century Royal Scots Navy. She was a wedding present from Francis I of France to James V of Scotland....

and the Morischer, Moriset or Great Unicorn, as gifts to James from Francis I

Francis I of France

Francis I was King of France from 1515 until his death. During his reign, huge cultural changes took place in France and he has been called France's original Renaissance monarch...

. A list of French wedding gifts includes these two as 'great ships for the wars', with two further 'gallant ships of war.'
After a major re-fit by John Barton, the Salamander returned to France in May 1538 to pick up the new queen, Mary of Guise

Mary of Guise

Mary of Guise was a queen consort of Scotland as the second spouse of King James V. She was the mother of Mary, Queen of Scots, and served as regent of Scotland in her daughter's name from 1554 to 1560...

, with the Moriset, Mary Willoughby. James had a small boat called a barque built in 1539 to carry him and the queen between Edinburgh and Stirling on the Forth. Andrew Mansioun

Andrew Mansioun

Andrew Mansioun, or Mentioun or Manschone, was a French artist who worked at the court of James V of Scotland. He was the master carpenter of the Scottish artillery for Mary, Queen of Scots and James VI of Scotland.-Works:...

and other wood-carvers fitted out separate rooms for the couple, four painters worked decorating the boat with gold and blue, and the Unicorn conveyed her maiden voyage. The Little Unicorn was commissioned for her maiden voyage to the Isle of May and Dundee on 24 August 1539, accompanied by the Unicorn and the Mary Willoughby. After the trip her guns including one medium culverin, two small falcons, and 24 hagbuts, were returned to the King's Wark in Leith. On more serious business, the Unicorn and the Mary Willoughby were armed from the stores of Edinburgh Castle

Edinburgh Castle

Edinburgh Castle is a fortress which dominates the skyline of the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, from its position atop the volcanic Castle Rock. Human habitation of the site is dated back as far as the 9th century BC, although the nature of early settlement is unclear...

and cruised for pirates in the Summer of 1539.

The second voyage to the Isles

A compass and four clocks were bought for his new flagship, the Salamander, in 1538. The Great Lion and the Salamander were fitted with 15 large wheeled guns and 10 smaller wheeled guns in May 1540. The 22 crossbows of the Salamander and 9 small hagbut guns used on the tops were inspected and repaired, and two and half fothers of lead bought for ballast. Next month, James V embarked on the newly equipped Salamander at Leith, after first making his will on 12 June, and accompanied by the Mary Willoughby, the Great Unicorn, the Little Unicorn, the Lion and twelve other ships sailed to Kirkwall

Kirkwall

Kirkwall is the biggest town and capital of Orkney, off the coast of northern mainland Scotland. The town is first mentioned in Orkneyinga saga in the year 1046 when it is recorded as the residence of Rögnvald Brusason the Earl of Orkney, who was killed by his uncle Thorfinn the Mighty...

on Orkney. Then he went to Lewis

Lewis

Lewis is the northern part of Lewis and Harris, the largest island of the Western Isles or Outer Hebrides of Scotland. The total area of Lewis is ....

on the West, perhaps using the newly compiled charts from his first voyage. The Rutter, (French: Routier), navigates from Humber

Humber

The Humber is a large tidal estuary on the east coast of Northern England. It is formed at Trent Falls, Faxfleet, by the confluence of the tidal River Ouse and the tidal River Trent. From here to the North Sea, it forms part of the boundary between the East Riding of Yorkshire on the north bank...

to Solway

Solway Firth

The Solway Firth is a firth that forms part of the border between England and Scotland, between Cumbria and Dumfries and Galloway. It stretches from St Bees Head, just south of Whitehaven in Cumbria, to the Mull of Galloway, on the western end of Dumfries and Galloway. The Isle of Man is also very...

on the West. James's fleet in the West was provisioned from Dumbarton

Dumbarton Castle

Dumbarton Castle has the longest recorded history of any stronghold in Great Britain. It overlooks the Scottish town of Dumbarton, and sits on a plug of volcanic basalt known as Dumbarton Rock which is high.-Iron Age:...

, Ayr

Ayr

Ayr is a town and port situated on the Firth of Clyde in south-west Scotland. With a population of around 46,000, Ayr is the largest settlement in Ayrshire, of which it is the county town, and has held royal burgh status since 1205...

and Irvine

Irvine, North Ayrshire

Irvine is a new town on the coast of the Firth of Clyde in North Ayrshire, Scotland. According to 2007 population estimates, the town is home to 39,527 inhabitants, making it the biggest settlement in North Ayrshire....

and returned to Edinburgh by 6 July. John Barton sailed to Dieppe with the Great Lion and Salamander in June 1541, and had their 27 guns cleaned and the latter ship re-rigged.

James V built a new harbour at Burntisland

Burntisland

Burntisland is a town and former royal burgh in Fife, Scotland on the Firth of Forth. According to an estimate taken in 2008, the town has a population of 5,940....

in 1542, called 'Our Lady Port' or 'New Haven,' described in 1544 as having three blockhouses with guns and a pier for great ships to lie in a dock. During 1542, the Mary Willoughby, the Lion, and the Salamander attacked merchants and fishermen off Whitby

Whitby

Whitby is a seaside town, port and civil parish in the Scarborough borough of North Yorkshire, England. Situated on the east coast of Yorkshire at the mouth of the River Esk, Whitby has a combined maritime, mineral and tourist heritage, and is home to the ruins of Whitby Abbey where Caedmon, the...

under the command of John Barton, son of Robert Barton, the 'Skipper from Leith'. In December 1542, these three ships blockaded a London merchant ship called the Antony of Bruges in a creek on the coast of Brittany. The Willoughby fired on the Anthony, and the crew abandoned ship. Although the English captain complained to the French authorities at "Pouldavid Haven", they accepted a warrant shown to them by the Willoughby's Captain, named Kerr.

The sea war during the Rough Wooing

After the death of James V, a note by Lord Methven

Henry Stewart, 1st Lord Methven

Henry Stewart, 1st Lord Methven was Master of the Scottish Artillery and third husband of Margaret Tudor, eldest daughter of Henry VII of England and Elizabeth of York.-Ancient lineage:...

apparently from March 1543 describes the tense situation. The Scots were waiting for the arrival of the Earl of Lennox

Matthew Stewart, 4th Earl of Lennox

Matthew Stewart, 4th Earl of Lennox was the 4th Earl of Lennox, and leader of the Catholic nobility in Scotland. He was the son of John Stewart, 3rd Earl of Lennox. His grandson was James VI of Scotland....

, and he was told to come by the west sea to avoid the English watch. He should round the Isles and sail up the Forth to the Pows of Airth for Stirling. Lennox landed at Dumbarton in April. In October 1543, Ralph Sadler

Ralph Sadler

Sir Ralph Sadler, PC, Knight banneret was an English statesman of the 16th century, and served as a Secretary of State for King Henry VIII.-Background:...

the English Commissioner for the Treaty of Greenwich

Treaty of Greenwich

The Treaty of Greenwich contained two agreements both signed on July 1, 1543 in Greenwich between representatives of England and Scotland. The accord, overall, entailed a plan developed by Henry VIII of England to unite both kingdoms...

in Scotland, heard that John Barton planned to sail to Bordeaux in the Mary Willoughby with nine other ships, half merchant vessels and half men of war, Sadler advised an English blockade that would beggar Edinburgh.

As the first major action of the war of the Rough Wooings

The Rough Wooing

The War of the Rough Wooing was fought between Scotland and England. War was declared by Henry VIII of England, in an attempt to force the Scots to agree to a marriage between his son Edward and Mary, Queen of Scots. Scotland benefited from French military aid. Edward VI continued the war until...

, Edinburgh was attacked by an English marine force and burnt

Burning of Edinburgh (1544)

The Burning of Edinburgh in 1544 by an English sea-borne army was the first major action of the war of the Rough Wooing. A Scottish army observed the landing on 3 May 1544 but did not engage with the English force. The Provost of Edinburgh was compelled to allow the English to sack Leith and...

. The Salamander and the Scottish-built Unicorn were captured at Leith and used as transport for the return journey of a part of Lord Hertford's

Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset

Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, 1st Earl of Hertford, 1st Viscount Beauchamp of Hache, KG, Earl Marshal was Lord Protector of England in the period between the death of Henry VIII in 1547 and his own indictment in 1549....

army on 14 May 1544, with ballast of 80,000 Scottish iron cannon-shot.
A large ship with 80 men captained by Robert Sandes was deployed to blockade St Andrews Castle

St Andrews Castle

St Andrew's Castle is a picturesque ruin located in the coastal Royal Burgh of St Andrews in Fife, Scotland. The castle sits on a rocky promontory overlooking a small beach called Castle Sands and the adjoining North Sea. There has been a castle standing at the site since the times of Bishop Roger...

in December 1546, held by the Fife lairds who had killed David Beaton

David Beaton

The Most Rev. Dr. David Cardinal Beaton was Archbishop of St Andrews and the last Scottish Cardinal prior to the Reformation.-Career:...

. Lead for bullets was obtained by stripping the roof of the hall of Holyroodhouse. After the death of Henry VIII, the Emperor's agent in Paris heard in March 1547 that the Scots were determined on doing their worst at sea against the English, so giving them no cause to show them favour.

The Great Lion was captured off Dover on 14 March 1547 by Sir Andrew Dudley

Andrew Dudley

Sir Andrew Dudley, KG was an English soldier, courtier, and diplomat. A younger brother of John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland, he served in Henry VIII's navy and obtained court offices under Edward VI...

, brother of the Duke of Northumberland

John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland

John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland, KG was an English general, admiral, and politician, who led the government of the young King Edward VI from 1550 until 1553, and unsuccessfully tried to install Lady Jane Grey on the English throne after the King's death...

who gave her a broadside from the Pauncey. The Mary Willoughby and the Great Spaniard were blockading Dieppe and Le Havre in April 1547 when the Mary Willoughby was recaptured by Lord Hertford

Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset

.

In March 1547 the French painter Nicholas, Nicholas de Nicolay, seigneur d'Arfeville, passed plans of English harbours to the French, and obtained a copy of Rutter in England, which helped the French fleet's missions at St Andrews Castle

St Andrews Castle

and to circumnavigate Scotland to Dumbarton to collect Mary, Queen of Scots. Nicholas reported the taking by force-of-arms of the Great Lion, the Lionesse, and the Marie Galante on 7 March 1547 to Odet de Selve

Odet de Selve

Odet de Selve was a French diplomat.He was the son of Jean de Selve, first president at the parlements of Rouen and Bordeaux, vice-chancellor of Milan, and ambassador of the king of France. In 1540 Odet was appointed councillor at the parlement of Paris and in 1542 at the grand council...

. In May 1547, a Scottish ship with 80 men captained by a Lord, with all kinds of munition arrived at Holy-Haven near Lübeck

Lübeck

.

The Salamander listed as 300 tons with 220 men, and the Lion at 160 tons with 100 men, returned to Scotland in Edward Clinton's

Edward Clinton, 1st Earl of Lincoln

Edward Fiennes, 1st Earl of Lincoln, KG, also known as Edward Clinton was an English nobleman and Lord High Admiral.-Background:...

invasion fleet of August 1547. William Patten

William Patten (historian)

William Patten was an author, scholar and government official during the reigns of King Edward VI and Queen Elizabeth I.-Early career:...

believed that the Mary Willoughby, the Bosse and another captured English tall-ship, the Anthony of Newcastle, were captured on the Forth near Blackness Castle

Blackness Castle

Blackness Castle is a 15th century fortress, near the village of Blackness, Scotland, on the south shore of the Firth of Forth. It was built, probably on the site of an earlier fort, by Sir George Crichton in the 1440s. At this time, Blackness was the main port serving the Royal Burgh of...

by Edward Clinton on 15 September 1547. Patten said that Clinton burnt seven other ships at Blackness and six more old vessels at Leith. Early in October 1547, the Earl of Angus

Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of Angus

Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of Angus was a Scottish nobleman active during the reigns of James V and Mary, Queen of Scots...

tried to recapture the island of Inchcolm

Inchcolm

Inchcolm is an island in the Firth of Forth in Scotland. Repeatedly attacked by English raiders during the Wars of Scottish Independence, it was fortified during both World Wars to defend nearby Edinburgh...

from the English with five ships. With Mary, Queen of Scots in France, the Emperor

Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor

Charles V was ruler of the Holy Roman Empire from 1519 and, as Charles I, of the Spanish Empire from 1516 until his voluntary retirement and abdication in favor of his younger brother Ferdinand I and his son Philip II in 1556.As...

was concerned to hear of French ships acting against the English in the North Sea and flying Scottish colours. He feared these French ships would pretend to be Scottish pirates and attack his subjects, increasing international tension.

At the height of this Anglo-Scottish war in 1549, a Scottish book was published, The Complaynt of Scotland, which described the preparation of a Scottish warship for battle. The author gives the master's orders, the chants made by the sailors to keep time, and the names of the guns with onomatopoeic attempts to render the different sounds they made. In the book, this passage is quickly followed by an explanation of celestial navigation

Celestial navigation

Celestial navigation, also known as astronavigation, is a position fixing technique that has evolved over several thousand years to help sailors cross oceans without having to rely on estimated calculations, or dead reckoning, to know their position...

and astrology

Astrology

Astrology consists of a number of belief systems which hold that there is a relationship between astronomical phenomena and events in the human world...

supplied by a shepherd.

When Mary of Guise sent Sir Hew Kennedy of Girvanmains to support his stepson the Earl of Sutherland against the Mackays

Clan MacKay

Clan Mackay is an ancient and once powerful Scottish clan from the far north of the Scottish Highlands, but with roots in the old kingdom of Moray. They were a powerful force in politics beginning in the 14th century, supporting Robert the Bruce. In the centuries that followed they were...

she hired a private ship. George Hume's Lion of 85 tons was hired in August 1554 to attack the House of Burro

Borve Castle, Sutherland

Borve Castle in Sutherland, Scottish Highlands is now a ruin. Formerly called the House of Burro. It was built in Kirtomy Bay near the hamlet of Farr....

in Strathnaver

Strathnaver

Strathnaver or Strath Naver is the fertile strath of the River Naver, a famous salmon river that flows from Loch Naver to the north coast of Scotland...

. It cost £63 Scots per month, with £60 for its crew of 20. Fifty French troops and the royal gunner Hans Cochrane embarked. After a brief siege, the captain of the Castle was hung and the chief of the Mackays brought into captivity.

When Anglo-Scottish relations deteriorated again in 1557, small ships called 'shallops' were noted between Leith and France, passing as fishermen, but bringing munitions and money. Private merchants ships were rigged at Leith, Aberdeen and Dundee as men-of-war, and Mary of Guise claimed English prizes, one over 200 tons, for her fleet. Once again, the re-fitted Mary Willoughby sailed with 11 other ships against Scotland in August 1557, landing troops and six field guns on Orkney to attack the castle of Kirkwall, the church of St. Magnus, and the Bishop's Palace

Bishop's Palace, Kirkwall

The Bishop's Palace, Kirkwall was built at the same time as the adjacent St Magnus Cathedral in the centre of Kirkwall, Orkney, Scotland, was being constructed, and housed the cathedral's first bishop, William the Old of the Norwegian Catholic church who took his authority from the Archbishop of...

. The English were repulsed by a Scottish force numbering 3000, and the vice-admiral Sir John Clere of Ormesby (a cousin of Ann Boleyn) was drowned, but none of the English ships were lost. Veteran ships of the Kirkwall raid came to the aid of the Scottish Protestants at the Siege of Leith

Siege of Leith

The Siege of Leith ended a twelve year encampment of French troops at Leith, the port near Edinburgh, Scotland. The French troops arrived by invitation in 1548 and left in 1560 after the English arrived to assist in removing them from Scotland...

in January 1560, including the Greyhound, Tiger, the Bull, New Bark, and inevitably the Willoughby, all under the command of Willam Winter.

The English ships seem to have been unopposed. Scotland's royal fleet, built up over two generations, had been largely destroyed. Already in the 1540s, Salamander, Little Unicorn, Mary Willoughby, Marie Galante and Lyonesse were all in English hands, while the Great Lion had been sunk off Yarmouth. Of the major royal ships, only the Great Unicorn is not known for certain to have been destroyed, and the royal government depended once again on small hired ships like the Lion.

England's ally, 1560–1689

The Scottish Reformation

Scottish Reformation

The Scottish Reformation was Scotland's formal break with the Papacy in 1560, and the events surrounding this. It was part of the wider European Protestant Reformation; and in Scotland's case culminated ecclesiastically in the re-establishment of the church along Reformed lines, and politically in...

in 1560 established a government that was friendly to England, but which struggled to take firm control of Scotland. As a result, they lacked the military motives and economic resources that had enabled James IV and James V to maintain a fleet of great ships. Political stability returned towards the end of the century, but after the Union of the Crowns

Union of the Crowns

The Union of the Crowns was the accession of James VI, King of Scots, to the throne of England, and the consequential unification of Scotland and England under one monarch. The Union of Crowns followed the death of James' unmarried and childless first cousin twice removed, Queen Elizabeth I of...

in 1603, the incentive to rebuild a royal fleet diminished further. James VI now controlled the powerful English Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

, which could send ships north to defend Scottish interests, and which now opened its ranks to Scottish officers.

When the supporters of Mary, Queen of Scots had held Edinburgh Castle

Edinburgh Castle

in April 1573, prolonging civil war in Scotland, the guns from Stirling Castle were brought to Leith in four boats. Regent Morton hired two ships in Leith with their masters John Cockburn and William Downy and 80 men for eight days. These masters of Leith sailed to Berwick upon Tweed to meet and convoy the English ships carrying the guns to bombard Edinburgh Castle.

Scotland seems to have had no royal ships of her own until 1616, when a small ex-Royal Navy pinnace

Pinnace (ship's boat)

As a ship's boat the pinnace is a light boat, propelled by sails or oars, formerly used as a "tender" for guiding merchant and war vessels. In modern parlance, pinnace has come to mean a boat associated with some kind of larger vessel, that doesn't fit under the launch or lifeboat definitions...

was acquired to chase foreign fishing boats in the Northern Isles. The Charles was armed with sixteen light guns and a crew of twenty, but at times, the Scottish Privy Council seem to have felt that even this one little ship was an unnecessary expenditure.
However, it is wrong to think that Scotland had no naval forces of her own during these years. The responsibility was simply devolved from the royal government to other groups within the kingdom, and their role shifted from national prestige to protection against piracy. The alliance of the Scottish and English governments had not stopped English pirates from preying on Scottish cargoes, so merchants and sea captains thus had an obvious motive to maintain a naval force to protect themselves. Using the political apparatus of the burgh

Burgh

A burgh was an autonomous corporate entity in Scotland and Northern England, usually a town. This type of administrative division existed from the 12th century, when King David I created the first royal burghs. Burgh status was broadly analogous to borough status, found in the rest of the United...

s, they armed ships to fight piracy, funded largely out of their own pockets, while some Scottish noblemen also maintained individual warships and even small squadrons.

In the 1620s, Scotland found herself fighting a naval war as England's ally, first against Spain and then also against France, while simultaneously embroiled in undeclared North Sea commitments in the Kejserkrigen. The Scots refused to send levies of conscripts to the Royal Navy, claiming that they had no deep-water sailors, but this seems to have been somewhat disingenuous, as several squadrons of Scottish warships put to sea, known as the "marque fleets" - one group financed by the burghs, others by noblemen like Robert Gordon of Lochinvar - supported by individual privateers licensed with letters of marque. Alongside these, the Privy Council commissioned three sizeable ships into the Royal Scots Navy, with Captain Murray of the little Charles now moving to the larger Unicorn, but ŀtheir intended role was still defensive protection of the east coast trade, and much of the financing came from private sources.

Scotland's naval priorities were the protection of national trade, and the pursuit of profitable raiding cruises against enemy cargos. They lacked the large, purpose-built warships of the Royal Navy, and did not share the English policy of building a heavily-armed royal fleet to project military power against foreign enemies. Nonetheless, the Scots quickly found themselves drawn into the wider war, and proved surprisingly capable allies. In 1627, the Royal Scots Navy and accompanying contingents of burgh privateers participated in the major expedition to Biscay

Siege of Saint-Martin-de-Ré (1627)

The Siege of Saint-Martin-de-Ré, also Siege of St. Martin's , occurred in the French isle of Ile de Ré around the fortress of the city of Saint-Martin-de-Ré, when Duke of Buckingham tried to occupy the island in 1627...

, and then moved to Scandinavian waters. Meanwhile, Lochinvar's "marque fleet" replaced the Royal Navy as the patrol squadron in the Irish Sea, and subsequently joined the private navy of the Lord Lieutenant of Nova Scotia

William Alexander, 1st Earl of Stirling

William Alexander, Earl of Stirling was a Scotsman who was an early developer of Scottish colonisation of Port Royal, Nova Scotia and Long Island, New York...

in an invasion fleet that briefly made Scotland the dominant imperial power in Canada. One ship even set out for the southern hemisphere to establish a colonial outpost there.

In the wars of the 1620s, the Royal Navy consisted of a dozen "great ships" built by the Stuart Kings, and a similar number of veterans of Elizabeth I's navy, rebuilt on similar lines. These ships were designed to fight in major battles, carrying a heavy weight of artillery, but many of them were neither fast nor maneuverable. The Scottish privateers, in contrast, were better suited to long voyages, rough seas and patrol work, and could give meaningful support to their English allies. After the war, however, King Charles

Charles I of England

Charles I was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles...

used the Ship Money

Ship money

to enlarge the English fleet, adding seven more great ships and a sizeable force of small cruisers. Scotland, meanwhile, seems to have maintained no peacetime navy. The balance of power had shifted.

The transport of Scottish armies had been an important part of the naval war in the 1620s, and this remained true in the early stages of the Civil War, which began in 1639. Now, though, much of the burden was carried by ships owned by foreign governments, with the royalist supporters of King Charles relying on Royal Navy warships and English colliers converted into troopships, while their opponents, the Presbyterian Covenanters, used Swedish military transports. Nonetheless, Captain Murray's Unicorn was one of the eight warships in the Royal Navy blockading squadron, while the merchant Thomas Cunningham, based at Veere

Veere

Veere is a municipality and a city in the southwestern Netherlands, on Walcheren island in the province of Zeeland.-Population centres :Aagtekerke , Biggekerke , Domburg , Gapinge , Grijpskerke , Koudekerke , Meliskerke , Oostkapelle , Serooskerke , Veere , Vrouwenpolder , Westkapelle...

in the Netherlands, seems to have made the frigate Lorne available to the Covenanters. By 1642, the Lorne had been joined by two more Covenanting privateers to attack the Irish Confederates

Confederate Ireland

Confederate Ireland refers to the period of Irish self-government between the Rebellion of 1641 and the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland in 1649. During this time, two-thirds of Ireland was governed by the Irish Catholic Confederation, also known as the "Confederation of Kilkenny"...

, and in 1643, when the Covenanters allied with the English Parliament in the First Civil War

First English Civil War

The First English Civil War began the series of three wars known as the English Civil War . "The English Civil War" was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations that took place between Parliamentarians and Royalists from 1642 until 1651, and includes the Second English Civil War and...

, these ships entered the Channel and joined the Parliamentarian navy, securing the Isle of Wight against the royalists.

In Scottish waters, the Covenanter-Parliamentarian alliance established two patrol squadrons for the Atlantic and North Sea coasts, known collectively as the "Scotch Guard". This consisted mainly of small English warships, controlled by the Commissioners of the Navy based in London, but it always relied heavily on Scottish officers and revenues, and after 1646, the West Coast squadron became much more a Scottish force. In 1650, Cromwell's invasion compelled the weakened Covenanters to accept political union, and during the First Anglo-Dutch War

First Anglo-Dutch War

The First Anglo–Dutch War was the first of the four Anglo–Dutch Wars. It was fought entirely at sea between the navies of the Commonwealth of England and the United Provinces of the Netherlands. Caused by disputes over trade, the war began with English attacks on Dutch merchant shipping, but...

, measures were taken to impress Scottish seamen for the "State's Navy" of the English Commonwealth. Scotland was now being drawn into in the Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

's recruitment patterns, supplying conscript seamen aboard English-built ships for fleet battles.

Scotland's independence was restored in 1660, and although Scottish seamen received protection against arbitrary impressment by English men of war under Charles II

Charles II of England

Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...

, a fixed quota of conscripts for the Royal Navy was levied from the sea-coast burgh

Burgh

s during the Second

Second Anglo-Dutch War

The Second Anglo–Dutch War was part of a series of four Anglo–Dutch Wars fought between the English and the Dutch in the 17th and 18th centuries for control over the seas and trade routes....

and Third Dutch Wars

Third Anglo-Dutch War

The Third Anglo–Dutch War or Third Dutch War was a military conflict between England and the Dutch Republic lasting from 1672 to 1674. It was part of the larger Franco-Dutch War...

. Royal Navy patrols were now found in Scottish waters even in peacetime, such as the small ship-of-the-line HMS Kingfisher

HMS Kingfisher (1675)

HMS Kingfisher was a 46-gun fourth-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built by Phineas Pett III at Woolwich Dockyard and launched in 1675. She was specially designed to counter the attacks of Algerine corsairs in the Mediterranean by masquerading as a merchantman, which she achieved by...

, stationed at Dumbarton in 1685, which was considered too powerful for the rebellious Earl of Argyll

Archibald Campbell, 9th Earl of Argyll

Archibald Campbell, 9th Earl of Argyll was a Scottish peer.He was born in 1629 in Dalkeith, Scotland, the son of Archibald Campbell, 1st Marquess of Argyll....

's Dutch-built frigates to fight.

Nonetheless, the Scottish privateer force remained active, and in 1667, Samuel Pepys

Samuel Pepys

Samuel Pepys FRS, MP, JP, was an English naval administrator and Member of Parliament who is now most famous for the diary he kept for a decade while still a relatively young man...

admitted privately that it seemed to be as effective against the Dutch as the entire Royal Navy. In response, the Dutch sent a squadron of warships and fireships into the Forth, but achieved little - the privateers, although outgunned on the open sea, retreated into harbour, and set up their larger guns as shore batteries. Both of the later Dutch Wars were hugely profitable for Scottish sea-rovers, and Scottish letters of marque increasingly became popular with English privateers, especially those issued by the Duke of Lennox

Charles Stewart, 3rd Duke of Richmond

Charles Stewart, 3rd Duke of Richmond, 6th Duke of Lennox KG was the only son of George Stewart, 9th Seigneur d'Aubigny and Katherine Howard, daughter of Theophilus Howard, 2nd Earl of Suffolk...

as Lord High Admiral; he took a smaller share of the profits than the English Admiralty, and his feudal court was probably more favorable in determining whether captured ships were legitimate prizes of war.

The last years of independence, 1689-1707

By the time of England's Glorious Revolution

Glorious Revolution

The Glorious Revolution, also called the Revolution of 1688, is the overthrow of King James II of England by a union of English Parliamentarians with the Dutch stadtholder William III of Orange-Nassau...

, the Royal Navy had more than a hundred warships, most of them large ships of the line designed to fight fleet battles against rival navies. In Scotland, the Revolution of 1689 and the Nine Years' War saw the government reliant as ever on privateers and hired merchant ships, but in the mid-1690s, two separate schemes for larger naval forces were put in motion. As usual, the larger part was played by the merchant community rather than the government.

Private business interests equipped a capable force of four ships of the line for overseas campaigns, probably Scotland's largest warships since the Great Michael. Two big ships were built at Hamburg, the St Andrew and Caledonia, cited as carrying 56, 60 or 70 guns in varying sources. The St Francis of 46 guns was purchased and renamed Unicorn. The Amsterdam-built Rising Sun mounted 60 guns but was capable of bearing an even heavier armament. Although initially envisaged as privateers, they eventually sailed in peacetime, and there is some evidence that they were commissioned as Royal Scots Navy ships.

These ships were used to support the Darien Scheme

Darién scheme

The Darién scheme was an unsuccessful attempt by the Kingdom of Scotland to become a world trading nation by establishing a colony called "New Caledonia" on the Isthmus of Panama in the late 1690s...

, a colonial project to establish a Scottish economic and military presence in the Americas. The project was a disaster, and almost all the ships were lost during the retreat from the colony. Only the Caledonia returned to Scotland, and her subsequent career is obscure.

Simultaneously, it had been decided to establish a professional navy for commerce protection in home waters, with three purpose-built warships bought from English shipbuilders in 1696. The Royal William of 32 guns was the smallest type of fifth rate in the English ranking, but she carried a half-battery of five nine-pounder guns per side on the lower deck, giving a heavier broadside than comparable Royal Navy vessels, and at first the Scots called her a "ship" rather than a "frigate". The other two vessels were sixth-rate

Sixth-rate

Sixth rate was the designation used by the Royal Navy for small warships mounting between 20 and 24 nine-pounder guns on a single deck, sometimes with guns on the upper works and sometimes without.-Rating:...

s, the Royal Mary and Dumbarton Castle, each of 24 guns, generally described as frigates.

Even before the financial crisis caused by the failure in Darien, the Privy Council struggled to pay their running costs, and the War of the Spanish Succession

War of the Spanish Succession

The War of the Spanish Succession was fought among several European powers, including a divided Spain, over the possible unification of the Kingdoms of Spain and France under one Bourbon monarch. As France and Spain were among the most powerful states of Europe, such a unification would have...

saw just the two smaller frigates mobilized, "to beat off the small privateers". This they did, but much of the actual responsibility for manning and equipping the ships was passed on to the burghs in the traditional manner, and initially, the government even decided to lease out the Royal William as a merchantman for trade with the West Indies, rather than commissioning her as a warship. Her intended captain was Thomas Gordon, a veteran Aberdeen merchant captain with privateering connections; instead of crossing the Atlantic, he became the last commander of the Royal Scots Navy, taking charge of HMS Royal Mary on the North Sea patrol, moving to Royal William when she entered service in 1705, and being promoted to commodore in 1706.

As a consequence of the Act of Union in 1707, the Royal Scottish Navy was merged with the English Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

, but there were already much larger English ships called Royal William and Mary, so the Scottish frigates were renamed HMS Edinburgh

HMS Edinburgh

Six ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Edinburgh, for the Scottish city of Edinburgh. In addition, one ship of the Royal Navy has carried the similar name HMS Duke of Edinburgh....

and HMS Glasgow

HMS Glasgow

Eight ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Glasgow after the Scottish city of Glasgow: was a 20-gun sixth rate, previously the Scottish ship Royal Mary. She was transferred to the Royal Navy in 1707 and was sold in 1719. was a 24-gun sixth rate launched in 1745 and sold in 1756. was a...

, while only Dumbarton Castle

HMS Dumbarton Castle

Three ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Dumbarton Castle after Dumbarton Castle.* The first Dumbarton Castle, originally of the Royal Scots Navy was a frigate taken into the Royal Navy in 1707....

retained its name. Within two years, only the ex-Royal Mary remained in service, and when she was paid off in 1719, the last meaningful connection of the Royal Navy to the old Scottish fleet had disappeared.

Most of the Scottish officers had already left, resigning their Royal Navy commissions when the Elector of Hanover became king in 1714. Commodore Gordon led the bulk of Scotland's naval officers away to the Russian Empire, where Peter the Great was in the process of launching a new navy, and needed experienced officers to command his ships. Within two years, Gordon was a Russian admiral, eventually becoming the Baltic Fleet's commander-in-chief in 1727, leading a mighty fleet of ships-of-the-line from the 100 gun flagship Peter and Paul, and governing the great naval fortress of Kronstadt

Kronstadt

Kronstadt , also spelled Kronshtadt, Cronstadt |crown]]" and Stadt for "city"); is a municipal town in Kronshtadtsky District of the federal city of St. Petersburg, Russia, located on Kotlin Island, west of Saint Petersburg proper near the head of the Gulf of Finland. Population: It is also...

Officers

Captain John Bosswell
Captain John Brown
Commodore Thomas Gordon - later as Royal Navy Captain 1708-1714
Sir Andrew Wood of Largo
Andrew Wood of Largo
Sir Andrew Wood of Largo was a Scottish sea captain. Beginning as a merchant in Leith, he was involved in national naval actions and rose to become Lord High Admiral of Scotland. He was knighted c. 1495...
Sir Andrew Barton
Andrew Barton
Sir Andrew Barton served as High Admiral of the Kingdom of Scotland. Notorious in England and Portugal as a 'pirate', Barton was a seaman who operated under the aegis of a letter of marque on behalf of the Scottish crown, and is therefore more widely described as a privateer...

External links

etext (incomplete) of James Grant (ed.), The Old Scots Navy from 1689 to 1710 (1914), at Electric Scotland

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Origins

Expansion under James IV

Voyages of James V

The Isles and France

The second voyage to the Isles

The sea war during the Rough Wooing

England's ally, 1560–1689

The last years of independence, 1689-1707

Officers

See also

Further reading

External links