The arrival of the Barbary pirates radically changed English attitudes. Instead of patriotic pirates plundering foreign cargoes and bringing them hom….

Medieval England was a great military power with a sophisticated machinery of government, but her naval administration, at best improvised and for lo….

In every age states of varying size and constitution and at every level of development have found naval warfare to be one of their most formidable an….

The common sense of the word (navy) as we use it today refers to a permanent fighting service made up of ships designed for war, manned by profession….

Naval dominance of European waters was the largest, longest, most complex and expensive project ever undertaken by the British state and society..

The impossibility of keeping Englishmen sober ashore was a constant source of complaint, It was the great weakness of 16th century English infantryme….

It is not surprising that only one medieval state, Venice, long possessed anything clearly identifiavble as a navy in this sense. We shall see that n….

'A Naval History of Britain' which begins in the 7th century has to explain what it means by Britain. My meaning is simply the British Isles as a who….

Whether in peaceful trade or warlike attack, the sea unites more than it divides. Even if it were possible to treat England, or the British Isles, as….

It is well known that we fight in God's cause... but unless God helps us by a miracle the English, who have faster and handier ships than ours, and m….

Its subject is the slow and erratic process by which the peoples of the British Isles learnt - and then for long periods forgot - about the 'Safeguar….