Newcastle. The navy-yards and storehouses at Woolwich and Deptford also owe their origin to this king; who has a very good right, therefore, to the title of the creator of the English navy. Henry's great ship, the Regent, was blown up, with the 700 men on board of her, in a battle fought with the French fleet off Brest, a few months after she put to sea; on which he caused another, still larger, to be built, which he called the Henry Grace de Dieu. Several others were afterwards added, so that, at the close of the reign, the entire navy belonging to the crown amounted to about 12,500 tons. Henry, also, about 1525, erected at a great expense the first pier at Dover; and in 1531 an act of parliament was passed (23 Hen. VIII. c. 8) "for the amending and maintenance" of the havens and ports of Plymouth, Dartmouth, Tinmouth, Falmouth, and Fowey. In the preamble it is asserted that these ports had been, in time past, the principal and most commodious havens within the realm for the preservation of ships resorting from all parts of the world, as well in peril of storms as otherwise; but that, whereas formerly ships of 800 tons might easily enter them at low water, "and there lie in surety, what wind or tempest soever did blow," they were now in a manner utterly decayed and destroyed by means of certain tin-works, called stream-works, which had so choked them up that a ship of 100 tons could "scantly enter at the half-flood." The act, however, did not provide for the "amending" of the harbours further than by prohibiting the working of such stream-works, except under certain specified regulations, for the future.
The latter part of this reign is marked by the commencement of a course of public improvements intimately connected with the internal trade of the country—the reparation of streets and highways. The first act in the Statute-Book on this important subject is the 14 and 15 Hen. VIII. c. 6, passed in 1523, authorising the proprietor of the manor of Hempstead, in the weald of Kent, to enclose an "old common way or street for carriages, and all other passages and business," on laying out another at the least as broad and as commodious in aVOL. I.
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