The Royal Navy
The Tudor period was the great age of discovery, the beginning of world expansion and the dominance of English sea-power. The first Tudor King, Henry VII, built the first dry dock at Portsmouth in 1495 and, whereas previously merchant ships would be hired for use in warfare, began building a fleet purpose-built for battle at sea.
Thus from his father Henry VIII inherited a stable realm with a healthy treasury and, in seven warships, the beginnings of an English navy. On his succession, Henry VIII invested heavily in the navy and immediately increased the number of warships and made vast improvements in both sea-worthiness and armaments. In 1514, he launched the Henry Grace a Dieu, the largest warship in the world, and in the same year Trinity House was inaugurated to develop navigational aids such as lighthouses, buoys and beacons, the latter being used to signal the invasion of the Spanish Armada in 1588. In 1540, he built the first naval dock in Britain at Portsmouth, and in 1546, established the Navy Board and created the Office of Admiralty. Before he died, his navy comprised a total of fifty-three great ships and he had earned himself the title �€�Father of the English Navy�€™.