From the “Black Book of the Admiralty” of the reign of Edward III. we see that the admiral’s ship carried two lanterns at her masthead when sailing at night in order that the masters of other ships of the fleet could see the course being taken by the flagship. The king’s ship was to be distinguished by three lanterns arranged triangular-wise. As to the armament of this period, they consisted of bows and arrows, archers from the fighting-tops and castles at bow and stern being able by means of their superior height to do considerable damage. Cannon were introduced in 1338, and before the close of the fourteenth century guns and gunpowder were becoming common, but the influence which cannon had on the design of ships we shall notice presently. Nor did the enterprising spirit imbued through the Crusades perish. As early as 1344 an Englishman, of the name of Macham, sailed as far south as to discover the Island of Madeira, but unfortunately his lady-love had fallen a victim to sea-sickness during the voyage, and after going ashore with some of his company, the ship either dragged her anchor or parted her cable and “with a good winde made saile away, and the woman died for thought.” However, after building a chapel over her grave, Macham, according to the account of Antonio Galvano given in Hakluyt, “ordeined a boat made of one tree (for there be trees of a great compasse about) and went to sea in it, with those men that he had, and were left behinde with him, and came upon the coast of Afrike, without sail or oare.” It was the information given by Macham and his men that induced the French to voyage thither and also to discover the Canary Isles. In 1360 Nicholas of Lynn, “a Franciscan Frier, and an excellent Mathematician of Oxford,” a good astronomer and experienced in the use of the astrolabe, “went in companie with others to the most Northern Islands of the world, and there, leaving his company together, hee travailed alone, and purposely described all the Northerne Islands with the indrawing seas.” We get some idea of the speed of the ships of olden days by the statement made that from Lynn (Norfolk) to Iceland is not more than a fortnight’s voyage with an ordinary wind. Reckoning the distance between the two as roughly a thousand miles this would give the day’s run at about seventy miles. It was from this same Lynn that sixteen ships and 382 mariners were contributed to the enormous fleet of English ships which Edward III. had in 1347, when he besieged Calais. Some idea of the development that had gone on since Arthur’s time may be obtained when we recollect that the English ships at Calais numbered 700 and the mariners over 14,000, without including the assistance of Ireland, Spain, and other helpers.