When war broke out England was in alliance with the Emperor Charles V., while France’s only supporter was gallant but feeble Scotland. The result was that the English Navy wasted the Scottish and French coasts, and swept French commerce off the sea. But in 1545 François I. succeeded in detaching Charles from the alliance. He then slowly collected a huge fleet. There finally assembled nearly 150 great-ships (_gros vaisseaux ronds_), 60 oared vessels of 40 or 50 tons (_flouins_), and 25 galleys from the Mediterranean. Besides the crews, there were 10,000 troops on board under the Maréchal Biez. The Commander-in-Chief was Admiral d’Annibault. Paulin, Baron de la Garde, and Leone Strozzi, Admiral of the Galleys of Rhodes, commanded the galleys. Henry had ample intelligence of the intended invasion. The whole of the available naval strength of England was concentrated at Spithead under the command of John, Lord Lisle, High Admiral of England, afterwards Duke of Northumberland. It consisted of ‘great-ships’ built in England or purchased abroad, ‘galleasses’--really galleons, or ships built on finer lines than the ordinary great-ship (see Chapter XIII.), and small craft. To deal with the free-moving galleys Henry had himself designed thirteen row-barges, fast, handy little vessels of about 20 tons, armed with several small guns, and propelled by sweeps as well as sails. The flagship was an unwieldy giant of 1,000 tons, the _Harry Grâce-à-Dieu_. The total number of vessels was over 100. The majority of the crews were soldiers; the supreme importance of the seaman was not yet realized. In view of the apparent superiority of the enemy Lisle was ordered to remain on the defensive. No less than 120,000 men were levied for land defence, organized in four armies.