Generally, a vessel built with fine lines lacked end support, and tended to become arched or camber-keeled, while its stowage capacity was inconveniently small. The ship’s sides were made with a considerable degree of tumble-home above the water-line; though this, again, was a point of compromise and much argument. For while a reduced breadth of deck tended to give the hull more girder strength and to diminish the racking effect on it of heavy ordnance, yet this feature at the same time, by reducing the angle at which the shrouds could be set, augmented the stresses which were thrown on shrouds and bulwarks. § With the seventeenth century a new age of scientific speculation opened, and, under the personal encouragement of the Stuart kings, the art and mystery of shipbuilding received an illumination which was of great value to the royal armaments. The early interest of James I in his navy is signalized by his grant of a charter to the corporation of shipwrights: a corporation whose short-lived story is told by the editor of _The Autobiography of Phineas Pett_, recently published.[12] Before the sixteenth century, he tells us, no special trade was recognized for the building of warships, as distinct from traders. But in the early Tudor days, when, owing to the introduction of the new artillery the war vessel began to diverge in general design from the merchant ship, certain master shipwrights had been subsidized by the king for the building and repair of the royal vessels. The position of these officials was one of importance, their duties and privileges were extensive. The office was often hereditary. Thus, the royal patent granted to one James Baker in 1538 descended, with the accumulated lore and secrets of his profession, to his son Mathew Baker in 1572. And that granted to Peter Pett in 1558 descended to Joseph Pett in 1590. But as shipping grew and shipbuilding became more complex and widely distributed, the need for some central authority, which could regulate practice and standardize procedure, became increasingly felt. Accordingly a petition was presented. In 1605 the king granted a charter incorporating the master shipwrights of England as one body corporate and politic, for the good regulation of shipbuilding of all descriptions. In 1612 another charter was sealed, giving increased power to the confraternity: with instruction that it was to examine each new ship to see that it was properly built, “with two orlops at convenient distances, strong to carry ordnance aloft and alow, with her forecastle and half-deck close for fight.” Shipwrights’ Hall, as the corporation was called, surveyed and reported on tonnage and workmanship, and gave advice, when sought, to the lord high admiral. In the course of time its prestige declined. With the Commonwealth it grew into disuse, and by 1690 it was altogether extinct. For nearly a century the guild had struggled in vain to fulfil the intentions of its founders.