Great Harry's Navy: How Henry VIII Gave England Sea Power

United Kingdom: Phoenix Press, 2007. New book, 372 pages. Henry VIII's domestic life overshadows a now almost forgotten fact: that he founded what would become the Royal Navy. When Henry ascended the throne, the country's fleet consisted of just five ships. At his death he handed down to his son, Edward VI, a navy of more than fifty vessels. Without Henry's interest, would Elizabeth I have had the sea power to beat off the Spanish Armada? Would Drake, Hawkins and Frobisher have been in a position to so profitably raid the Spanish Main? But this book is far more than a history of naval warfare. Geoffry Moorhouse tells us what it must have been like to live on a Tudor warship, how the felling of oak forrests led to the first Act of Parliament concerned with the destruction of the environment and why sailcloth, more often than not, came from Brittany.. Soft Cover. As New. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall.