Page:The Public Records and The Constitution.djvu/32

 Ordnance Department, which itself had a long and interesting history.

With the idea of our Army is naturally associated that of our Navy. A most important jurisdiction was Admiral, that of the Lord High Admiral. Though you may not improbably have seen it stated in some publications that King Alfred was Lord High Admiral, the earliest known mention of any English Admiral at all occurs in the reign of Edward I. There are certainly no records of any Pre-Norman Admiralty; and though there are ordinances reduced to writing at a later date which mention admirals of the reign of Henry I, it would seem that the writers were introducing their own terms, and not using those which were known in Henry's time.

Of course there were ships at an earlier period, and even, upon occasion, fleets, and there were sea-laws like those of Oléron; but there was not any clearly defined naval organization, nor any High Court of Admiralty, and not any administrative Department of the Admiralty. Before the reign of Edward III, when any admiral appears upon the scene at all, he is usually an Admiral of the North, an Admiral of the South, or an Admiral of the West. It was probably not before the year 1360 that there was an admiral in command of all three fleets; and there was certainly no permanent office of Lord High Admiral before that time.

As soon, however, as we find an Admiral-in-chief, we find that he is responsible to the King and Council. This is, of course, what we might have expected from our knowledge of the working of the constitution in Council, other ways.