Many of the mediæval ships were most gorgeously painted and decorated. When the French king Charles VI fitted out a great naval armament at Sluys, in 1386, for the invasion of England--which did not come off, by the way--Froissart tells us that "gold and silver were no more spared than though it had rained out of the clouds or been scooped out of the sea". One young noble covered his mast with gold-leaf. "They made banners, pennons, and standards of silk, so goodly that it was marvel to behold them; also they painted the masts of their ships from the one end to the other, glittering with gold and devices and arms: and specially it was shewed me", says old Froissart, "that the Lord Guy de la Tremouille garnished his ship richly; the paintings that were made cost more than ten thousand francs. Whatsoever any lord could devise for their pleasure was made on the ships: and the poor people of the realm paid for all; for the taxes were so great, to furnish this voyage, that they which were most rich sorrowed for it, and the poor fled for it." Our own Henry V had rather "loud" tastes in his ship decoration. In the year 1400 he had a ship painted red, decorated with collars and garters of gold surrounding fleur-de-lis and leopards, as well as gilded leashes looped round white greyhounds with golden collars. All these were selections from the royal badges. Her mast was red also. The _Good Pace of the Tower_[6] was red too, but her upper works and stern were of a different colour, and she carried a gilded eagle with a crown in its mouth on her bowsprit. The _Trinity of the Tower_ was another red ship, elaborately adorned with coats of arms, while the _Nicholas of the Tower_ was black, "powdered" with "Prince of Wales's Feathers", with quills and scrolls in gold. The King's own particular ship, the "cog" _John_, carried the royal crest, "the Lion standing on the Crown", at her masthead, besides other decorations. The Genoese in 1242 painted their war-ships white, spotted all over with red crosses, so Henry perhaps only followed the fashion after all; but, generally speaking, red was the favourite colour, though black at times ran it pretty close in favour as groundwork for various patterns of ornamentation. But the continually growing decoration in the way of flags, standards, pennons, and streamers must by no means be overlooked. They were, perhaps, the most striking characteristic of the mediæval war-ship.