In the times of the Norman kings of England both the war and the mercantile navies of the country were highly developed. William the Conqueror invaded this island without the assistance of a war navy. He trusted to good luck to transport his army across the Channel in an unprotected fleet of small vessels which were built for this purpose, and which were burnt by his order when the landing had been effected. We possess illustrations of these transport vessels from a contemporary source--the Bayeux tapestry, which was, according to tradition, the work of Queen Matilda, the Conqueror's consort. Fig. 27 represents one of these vessels. It is obviously of Scandinavian type, resembling in some of its features the Viking ship shown in Figs. 22 to 26. Apparently, oars were not used in this particular boat; the propulsion was effected by means of a single square sail. The mast unshipped, as we know from other illustrations on the same piece of tapestry. The steering was effected by a rudder, or steering-board, on the starboard-side. In all the illustrations of ships in this tapestry the main sheet was held by the steersman, a fact which shows that the Normans were cautious navigators. Another ship is represented with ten horses on board. We possess confirmatory evidence that the ship shown in Fig. 27 represents a type that was prevalent on our coasts in the eleventh and two following centuries, for very similar boats are shown in the transcript of Matthew Paris's "History of the Two Kings of Offa" (now in the Cottonian Library), the illustrations in which are supposed to have been drawn by Matthew Paris himself. The history is that of two Saxon princes who lived in the latter half of the eighth century, and was written in the first half of the thirteenth. We may fairly suppose that the illustrations represented the types of vessels with which the historian was familiar. They were all of the type depicted in the Bayeux tapestry. They are of the same shape at both ends, just like the Viking ship, and it may be added, like the boats to this day in common use along the coasts of Norway. [Illustration: FIG. 27.--One of William the Conqueror's ships. 1066 A.D.]