DRAKE AND THE TUDOR NAVi
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and the rest in a short time after. To this end they were to deliver a special report every month. The particular duty of the Clerk of the Ships was to provide timber for building and repairs that of the Clerk of the Stores to see a proper reserve was kept up 'for sudden service and to insure elasticity in the whole system and the personal attention of each officer in his department it was specially enjoined that no assistant was to be con sidered a head officer but was to work in any department where he was ordered. in a fortnight,
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The practical thoroughness of the organisation is remarkable for the time. In conception, if not in practice, every head of department, it will be seen, was directly responsible to the Lord Admiral but under the supervision of the Vice-Admiral of England, who was, as we should say now, a naval Chief -of -the- Staff and the real working head of the Navy. The office of Lord Admiral was still a civil and political rather than a military appointment. It was filled with regard to the power and position of the candi date's family, rather than to his personal qualifications and experience as a naval officer. His civil jurisdiction, as a kind of Minister of Commerce with control of Harbours and the Police of the Coasts, and all Admiralty cases probably consumed the greater part of his attention. Even on his naval side he corresponded in his functions more nearly to a modern First-Lord or Minister-of-Marine than to a Naval Commander-in-Chief, and although on great occasions he might go to sea, it was rather as President of the Naval Council-of-War than as an Admiral-of-the-Fleet. His usefulness was by his high station to carry authority over rival officers, who could hardly be brought to submit to one of their own number. Feudal traditions, too, still made it impossible for so high a charge as the command of the Navy to be trusted to a commoner, however great his reputation. The dignity of the gentleman still required a nobleman to be in chief command, nor in the eyes of the nation would it seem that the whole force of the realm was being put forth unless one of the great feudatories