ABSTRACT
The turbulent years from 1483 to 1485 saw no break in the continuity of naval administration. Thomas Roger received a general pardon from Richard III in 1483, and one from Henry VII in November 1485, retaining his office throughout. Although his patents of appointment are dated March 1485 (from Richard) and February 1486 (from Henry),1 he had already taken charge of some of the King's ships in October 1485, and there seems to have been no break in his activity. He died in harness in January or February 1488, and the accounts which his widow Joanne later submitted commence in August 1485, immediately after Henry's accession.2 The picture which these accounts present is fuller than any which can be derived from the equivalent submissions of John Starlyng or William Soper, and show the Clerk's duties at this date to have been varied and somewhat ill-defined,3 but hardly arduous. Henry VII appears to have inherited six ships. Of these, two, the Falcon and the Trinity, do not appear in Roger's account at all, and must have been in other hands throughout the two and a half years. A third, the Martin Garcia, he held for only four days in December 1485, before the king gave it to Sir Richard Guildford. There can hardly have been time to compile the inventory of rigging and tackle which was handed over with the ship.4 Consequently the record relates mainly to the management, maintenance and disposal of the 1 Naval Accounts ana" Inventories of the Reign of Henry VII, ed. M. Oppenheim, xvi-
other three, the Grace Dieu, the Mary of the Tower and the Governor. Each was formally taken over 'in a dokke at Hamill (Hamble) on the hoke in the Countie of Southampton', the Grace de Dieu on 10 October and the others on the l l th. The contents of each was inventoried, and these inventories form a substantial proportion of the whole account.1 A week after receiving her, Roger moved the Governor from the Hamble to Bursledon, where she needed only four shipkeepers instead of the previous twenty-two. Over the next five months he expended £115.18s.2d. upon wages, victuals and maintenance work; and then on 18 February 1486 he handed her over 'apparailed and tackled' to Ralph Astry and Thomas Grafton, merchants of London. This must have been a sale or a gift rather than a rental, because the Governor never reappears in the records, but the purchase price, if any, was credited elsewhere. The Grace de Dieu was elderly and much rebuilt. Although she was the largest ship owned by the King, her future was in doubt from the start. John Haster, a London shipwright, was brought down to Southampton to inspect her, and the decision to dispose of her seems to have been taken before the end of October.2 Her masts were felled, and the ballast removed; and the last shipkeepers were paid on 11 March 1486. Then, or shortly after, she was handed over to Sir Reginald Bray 'to be broken spent and emploied for and upon the makyng of (the King's) ship cald the Souveraine'.
