We have seen how the early type that prevailed so long in England was that of the Vikings, whilst in the Mediterranean the galley and carack were collateral kinds of craft. Whilst it is true that after the Crusades England did eventually begin to build real ships, yet long before this time out of the ports of Venice, Genoa and Barcelona were sailing big carrying ships of three decks and of several hundred tons burthen. Of enormous freeboard, the carack and caravel were more able to encounter bad weather and to remain in commission both winter and summer. Able, too, to carry considerable quantities of merchandise and large numbers of passengers with a fair chance of making port in safety, they were from the first destined to become the ideal ship for the trader in preference to the galley. In war-time the galley was more handy because she could be manœuvred quickly with oars. But the carack and caravel, when guns were introduced, instantly exercised an undisputed superiority in another respect, for they could carry larger and more numerous cannon, and had the commanding advantage of height, though they were in comparison with the galleys decidedly cumbrous. Slow in stays, top-heavy and decidedly uncomfortable, pitching into every sea, they were far from the ideal. Thus the galley (or its cousin the galleass) remained in existence for fighting, as distinct from merchant service, side by side until after the Armada. An effort was made to re-introduce the galley in the English Navy under Charles II., but though the galley flourished in the Mediterranean until the eighteenth century, it was doomed in England gradually but surely from the beginning of the fourteenth century. The Viking-like ships of England had gradually undergone important changes. Alfred had tried the experiment of building them of greater displacement, and this increase in size had gone on steadily after the time of William the Conqueror. Moreover, as we have seen, the development of the forecastle and sterncastle had prepared the English sailors for the logical outcome of these—the ship with two or three decks. At first a mere light scaffolding, castellated at the top and capable of being affixed to a merchant ship on the declaration of war, these castles had in the march of time assumed a more permanent character. Instead of being mere supports lashed together, the framework became more solid, and the design of the ship was adapted to suit these structures—the sweep of the hull, as we have seen, coming up to meet the platform, which steadily became lower and lower and projected less forward until both fore- and stern-castle were essential portions of the vessel.