The discoveries of Columbus, Vasco da Gama, John Cabot, and their successors, had an enormous influence upon shipbuilding, as they not only widened the area of seaborne commerce, but offered strong inducements to navigators to venture on the great oceans, far from land, in craft specially adapted for such voyages. Hitherto, sailors had either navigated the great inland seas of Europe or had engaged in the coasting trade, and the longest voyages undertaken before the end of the fifteenth century were probably those which English merchants made between Bristol and Iceland, and between our Eastern ports and Bergen. Henry VII. not only encouraged commerce and voyages of discovery, but also paid great attention to the needs of the Royal Navy. He added two warships to his fleet, which were more powerful vessels than any previously employed in this country. One of them, named the _Regent_, was copied from a French ship of 600 tons, and was built on the Rother about 1490. She carried four masts and a bowsprit, and was armed with 225 small guns, called serpentines. The second ship was named the _Sovereign_, and it is remarkable, as showing the connection at that time between land and naval architecture, that she was built under the superintendence of Sir Reginald Bray, who was also the architect of Henry VII.'s Chapel at Westminster Abbey, and of St. George's Chapel, Windsor. The _Sovereign_ carried 141 serpentines. The _Regent_ was burnt in an action off Brest in the reign of Henry VIII., in the year 1512. She caught fire from a large French carrack, called the _Marie la Cordeliere_, which she was attacking. Both ships were utterly destroyed. The _Marie la Cordeliere_ was probably the largest warship of her time. She is said to have carried 1,200 men, and to have lost 900 killed in the action. She was built at Morlaix at the sole cost of Anne of Brittany, then Queen of France. [Illustration: FIG. 41.--The _Henry Grace a Dieu_. _Pepysian Library, Cambridge._] The _Regent_ was replaced by a very famous ship called the _Henry Grace a Dieu_, otherwise known as the _Great Harry_. As a consequence, most probably, of the size and force of some of the French ships, as revealed in the action off Brest, the _Henry Grace a Dieu_ was a great advance on any previous British warship. She was built at Erith, and was probably launched in June, 1514. Her tonnage is given in a manuscript in Pepys' "Miscellanies" as 1,500; but it is generally believed that she did not in reality exceed 1,000 tons. [Illustration: FIG. 42.--The _Henry Grace a Dieu_. _After Allen._]