Having glanced in this cursory manner at the ships which flew the "meteor flag" between the times of our two greatest queens, Elizabeth and Victoria, it will be well to give some account, however brief, of the costume of the men who manned them. We have little or no personal information about the seamen of the Elizabethan navy, but we know from their doughty deeds that they were good men and true, and we also know that they, like their predecessors, were pretty well paid and provisioned. Uniform clothing they probably had not,[22] but in the reign of James I there is a description of a masque in which appeared men dressed as "skippers", in red caps, short cassocks, wide canvas breeches striped with red, and red stockings. The six "principal masters of the navy" were provided annually with coats of red cloth, "guarded", or faced, with velvet of the same colour, and "embroidered with ships, roses, crowns, and other devices". But, though this fine apparel was provided for the favoured few, the seamen began at this time to be neglected, poorly paid, badly fed, and ill-treated--thanks probably to having such greedy officials and incapable officers as the Duke of Buckingham and other courtiers at the head of the navy. The Venetian ambassador to James I reports the great falling off of the British navy as compared to that of Henry VII and VIII. [Illustration: "THE GLORIOUS 1ST OF JUNE", 1794 On this date Lord Howe achieved a victory over the French which was considered so important that on the return of the fleet to Spithead the King presented Howe with a gold chain and a sword valued at 3000 guineas.] "Now", he writes, "it only numbers thirty-seven ships, many of them old and rotten and barely fit for service." Never was it in a worse state, and good men were naturally harder and harder to get. Charles I was anxious to restore the navy to its former glory and efficiency, but his persistency in demanding "ship-money" from his subjects led eventually to the Civil War, which resulted in his downfall. The Commonwealth, however, did what he had been ambitious of doing himself: it spent large sums on the navy, and ships and men were once more in good case. With the Restoration set in rottenness and corruption. Even Charles II, though he was too careless or too incapable to remedy matters, recognized the state of affairs. "If ever", said he, at a meeting of the Council, "you intend to man the fleet without being cheated by the captains and pursers, you may go to bed and resolve never to have it manned." His brother James was more keenly interested in the navy, in which he had himself served against the Dutch, and no doubt improved matters in various respects, but the lot of a seaman was still a hard one. It may have been at his suggestion, when Duke of York, that the maritime regiment, of which he was the first commander, was raised, possibly with some idea of its being the nucleus of a permanent establishment.