Travelling by ship in tudor England

[jomarch]

My characters are traveling from London to Berwick-upon-Tweed in 1590. I figured they could ride on horseback to King's Lynn and take a ship to Berwick (or?), bur I don't know: how long would a sea journey like that last and what type of ship would be used? All I could find was that a ship called Anne made that journey quite regularly a few decades before that - I'm guessing it could still be doing it at that point? How long would a ship like that operate for?

Comments

[nineveh_uk]

Without a reason to be there particularly, if you want them to travel by ship, I'm not sure that it would make sense to ride to King's Lynn first rather than simply sail from London, itself a substantial port. Even if they couldn't get passage on a ship all the way to Berwick, theyd be able to get one some distance. However, by 1590 there is also a well-established road for your journey, the Great North Road covering the journey from London to Edinburgh, generally via Berwick, so they can simply travel by land if you want. You're about 60 years too early for stage coaches, though by this time private coaches did exist in England, but they could also ride. There were inns at the towns en route.

[jomarch]

Thank you! Which di you think wojld make more sense for delivering state letters, the road or a ship? I thought the ship would be faster and .ore convenient for someone who did the job semi-frequently, and it's not the job of a messenger who needs to be as fast as possible and change horses often, but of an established spy.

[nineveh_uk]

For state letters, there was an official post by this time, Henry VIII had set it up. This would have carried the correspondence between between Elizabeth I and James VI, who exchanged personal letters in this period, as well as official state business. This was through a post roads set-up. So looking into that would probably give you useful information. There's also an official secret service by this period, too.

That said, that would be a courier function with multiple riders, so not what you want if you want a single character to make a journey. But I think I'd probably start with looking at how it was formally done, as in the course of that you'll probably find information about general travel, and maybe people like Elizabeth's major ministers who presumably did send individual messengers on various jobs (earlier, also Cromwell did so).

[jomarch]

Specifically, it's Kit Marlowe and Robert Poley. I know that Poley carried letters to Berwick, and later in life begged to be given the job again. Marlowe's duties in the secret service are unknown but plausibly might have involved similar work. I thought that carrying letters would be a good excuse to get those two together for a few days.

[zero_pixel_count]

I know it's not what you're asking for but the first part might also need checking if you haven't already - you're writing in a time before the big fen drainage projects and I don't think there would have been much in the way of good roads out that way. Even if there's a reason they need to go via Lynn, I think it probably would still make more sense to take ship from London itself, and very likely quite a lot faster. (Gut feeling says it would probably also be cheaper, but I have to admit I've got nothing to back that up with.)

Journey time wise, I feel like 5-7 days would be entirely plausible, but could easily be longer if plot reasons call for it, perhaps because of weather, or because the ship is making other stops. (A few years back, my spouse was supposed to sail from Newcastle to the south coast in a 60ft boat, and that was planned to take between a week and 10 days and they were taking it easy.)

In terms of operational life it seems entirely plausible that that ship would still be sailing a few decades later, if she'd been maintained - the reason there are only a small number of hundred-plus-year-old wood boats on the Norfolk Broads has nothing to do with the theoretical working life of the boats themselves (and everything to do with the fact that a great many of them were used as decoys during WW2 and, unsurprisingly, did not survive the experience...)

[(Anonymous)]

Amazing, thank you!