The English and French Navies, 1500-1650: Expansion, Organisation and State-Building

Challenges the received wisdom about the relative weakness of French naval power when compared with that of England.

This book traces the advances and deterioration of the early modern English and French sea forces and relates these changes to concurrent developments within the respective states. Based on extensive original research in correspondence and memoirs, official reports and accounts, receipts of the exchequer and inventories in both France, where the sources are disparate and dispe...