II - The Navy Treasurer's Quarter Book for 1562–1563

Summary

The main item here [4] is the first of the five Quarter Books surviving from the reign of Elizabeth, and is reproduced in full because of the unique insight which it provides into the detailed working of the Admiralty and its various agencies at that time. The regular income of £12,000 a year provided by the warrant of 1559 is recorded in its successive tranches under ‘Ordinary: Receipts’. Most of this revenue is absorbed by the wages and other charges itemised in the quarterly sections for the several royal dockyards, as ‘Ordinary: Deptford’ or ‘Ordinary: Portsmouth’. Further charges against the same income are listed under ‘Ordinary: Conduct’ (recruitment of shipwrights, caulkers and other craftsmen), ‘Ordinary: Prests’ (money advanced to Edward Baeshe for the victualling of shipkeepers and workmen in the harbours), and ‘Ordinary: Charges’, which relate to the collection of the money from the Exchequer. Extraordinary income is listed separately. This was obtained under a number of ad hoc warrants from different sources, and was so called not because it was exceptional, but simply because it was not issued under the ordinary warrant. Extraordinary expenditure relates to the actual ‘setting forth’ of the ships to the seas, and apart from that incurred at Portsmouth, is mostly under one or other of the general categories. ‘Extraordinary: Conduct’ relates to the recruitment of seamen, gunners and soldiers to serve in the ships; ‘Extraordinary: Prests’ to money advanced to Baeshe for victualling the ships for active service, and ‘Extraordinary: Charges’ to a variety of miscellaneous costs, most of them relating to communications. The ‘Extraordinary: Sea Charges’ cover the diets and wages of captains, masters and mariners on active service. It should be noted that at this stage Gonson is still passing substantial sums of money to Baeshe, who accounted separately in accordance with the Privy Council order of 1557. This was to change with the introduction of the victualling contract in 1565.

The overall composition is uniform, as the following table shows. The most significant variations are in the entries for Portsmouth, much fuller as the yard became the centre of operations during the Le Havre campaign, and in the sections on conduct money and sea charges, which increase for the same reason.