Lyon's Whelp - Appendix: 10 Lion's Whelps

Appendix: 10 Lion's Whelps

Final costings for each Lion's Whelp are believed to have been in excess of the contracted rate, thereby raising the possibility that shipwrights deliberately built ships larger than agreed upon in order to inflate the final invoice. The worse example of this was Peter Pett and the sixth Whelp. The Duke wanted each Whelp to weigh 120 tonnes, and cost £139.5.

After the Duke was assassinated in 1632, his fleet of ten Lion Whelps was take into the Royal Navy and the estate reimbursed £4,500 according to Captain Pennington who had supervised their construction. Had the fleet been sold to England, as the Earl of Nottingham had done with his Lion's Whelp in 1602, very likely much more money would have accrued to the Buckingham estate.

• Buckingham's first Lion's Whelp was built by William Castell of Southwark St Saviour in 1628. After the Duke was assassinated in 1632, she was taken into the Royal Navy and then converted into a chain ship for the Chatham “barricado” c. 1641. She was sent to Harwich as a careening hulk in August 1650, and then drops out of the historical record. Lion's Whelp may be the hulk at Harwich that was ordered to be sold in October 1651.

• The second Lion's Whelp was also built by William Castell of St. Savior's in Southwark. She was converted into a chain ship for the Chatham 'barricado' c.1641, then was ordered to be sold in August, 1650 together with the Defiance and Merhonour as having become too decayed, even to be a careening hulk at Harwich.

• The third Lion's Whelp was built by John Dearsley of Ipswich at Wapping. She was listed as unfit for service in Batten's survey of 1647 and 'cast' before February, 1643.

• The fourth Lion's Whelp was built by Christopher Malim of Redriff. She was used for experimental constructions in the Project Dutchman, c.1633. These works in the hold were ordered for removal in March 1643 because they were of no use in a man-o-war. Details of the experimental constructions are lacking, although Warrell's research points to Cornelius Drebbel as having executed the removal order. The fourth Lion's Whelp struck a rock in St. Aubrey's Bay, Jersey on August 4, 1636 and sank without any loss of life.

• The fifth Lion's Whelp was built by Peter Marsh of Wapping and spent most of her life in service in Ireland. She foundered in the North Sea on June 28, 1637 and sank with the loss of 17 men. Cause of this tragedy was placed with the shipyard who built her of 'mean, sappy timbers'.

• The sixth Lion's Whelp was built by Peter Pett of Ratcliffe. Peter Pett (1610-?1672) was an English Master Shipwright, the second Resident Commissioner of the Chatham Dockyard. Phinaes Pett was viewed as the greatest shipbuilder of his time, indeed perhaps the finest to have ever lived and worked in England. The reputation of the Pett dynasty ensured that the sixth Lion's Whelp was designed and constructed to the highest standards. Her captain was John Pett (1601/2 - 1628), the eldest son of Phineas Pett who died when the ship went down off the coast of Brittany when returning from the La Rochelle expedition in 1628.

• The seventh Lion's Whelp was built by Matthew Graves of Limehouse, She and the famous ship-of-the-line' Mary Rose got into a dispute with a Dutch warship from Enkhuisen over a Dutch privateer captured off the Suffolk coast. Negligence in the powder store led to a fierce explosion that destroyed the seventh Lion's Whelp amidst action involving several ships from both countries. There is speculation that Captain Cooper became severely disoriented immediately after the loss of the ship, and thereafter was mentally incompetent.

• The eighth Lion's Whelp was built in the yard of John Graves of Limehouse, and she was used to transport gold to the Scottish parliament in 1644. The Eighth is another pinnace in the Duke's fleet that went 'rotten'. In July 1645, she was judged too decayed to repair and ordered to be laid up on the Woolwich shore.

• The ninth Lion's Whelp was also built by John Graves of Limehouse and spent her active years in the Irish service. Her captain was Dawtrey Cooper in 1632/33, who had been the captain of the seventh Lion's Whelp when a seaman's negligence caused a fearful explosion and loss of life. During the ninth Lion's Whelp service at Ireland, there were continual disputes and near mutinies. She came to an end as a wreck in the River Clyde with the pinnace Confidence while taking supplies from Ireland to Dumbarton Castle (which is on the Clyde near Glasgow) in April, 1640. There is an incorrect record that the eighth and ninth Lion's Whelps were lost in a storm in 1628 that had wrecked the sixth. After a brief period of out of contact, the eighth and ninth returned to Portsmouth.

• The tenth Lion's Whelp was built by Robert Tranckmore of Shoreham, went over to the Royalists after the fall of Bristol in 1643, then was recaptured by Parliament's forces in 1645. She was at Helvoetsluys with the Earl of Warwick's fleet in 1648, then was fitted out as a fireship for Blake's pursuit of Prince Rupert to Lisbon in 1650. Later the tenth Lion's Whelp was used for convoy work and communications during the First Anglo-Dutch War. The last historical mention of the tenth Lion's Whelp is on October 19, 1654 when she was sold to Jacob Blackpath for £410.

With sale of the tenth, this fleet of Lion's Whelps passes from recorded history. Their fragmentary historical record has provided additional information about the building of small war ships in the 17th century, and activities of the Royal Navy in the Anglo-French War.