UNDER THE TUDORS.
The policy of freedom of commercial intercourse, navigation, and
fishery which was enunciated in the Intercursus Magnus and the treaties
which preceded it, was faithfully observed throughout the sixteenth
century. No attempt was made by any of the Tudor sovereigns to
interfere with the liberty which foreigners enjoyed of fishing on the
English coast; nor was any claim put forward by them to the dominion
or lordship of the surrounding seas. On the contrary, throughout the
greater part of the century, facilities were given for the peaceful
exercise and encouragement of sea-fishing, even in time of war; while
on several occasions the last and greatest of the monarchs of the
Tudor line actively contested the old pretensions of Denmark to the
sovereignty of the northern seas, and the more recent claims of Spain
and Portugal to the exclusive right of navigating the great oceans.
It was nevertheless during this century that changes occurred which
made it easy for James early in the next to initiate a new policy
of _mare clausum_, and to repudiate the provisions of the so-called
Burgundy treaties. The most important of these changes was perhaps the
decay which overtook the sea fisheries. Apart from their commercial
and economic value, the fisheries were looked upon as indispensable
for the maintenance of maritime power, and probably at no previous
time had greater efforts been made to foster maritime power than
under the Tudors. The hardy fishermen who navigated their barks to
distant seas--to Iceland, to Wardhouse, round the North Cape, and
now to Newfoundland--were trained in a school of seamanship which
fitted them admirably to take their place for the naval defence of the
country. Even the herring-smacks and the dogger-boats that fished in
the North Sea and the Channel turned out mariners by no means to be
despised,--men acquainted with the coasts and the tides, able to manage
sails and educated to the sea. It was this aspect of the fisheries
which was mostly regarded by the statesmen of those times, and for
which the “political lent” and the protective legislation were designed.
The causes which led to the decay in the English fisheries were no
doubt various, but perhaps the chief one, and the one on which most
stress was laid in the latter part of the century, was the Reformation.
The very large consumption of fish due to the observance of Lent
and the numerous days of fasting, or fish-days, has been referred
to (see p. 58). The suppression of the monasteries (1536-1539) and
the dispersal of the inmates and dependants must alone have had
considerable influence, but the relaxation of ecclesiastical rule among
the laity which followed was much more detrimental to the fisheries.
The decay of the sea-coast towns, so frequently spoken of in the reign
of Elizabeth, was mainly attributed to this cause. Another influence
which operated in the same direction, most markedly towards the end
of the century, was the great growth of the fisheries and commerce of
the Dutch. After the assertion of their independence of Spain (1581),
commonly called the “abjuration of Philip,” their fisheries developed
with great rapidity. One of the first acts of the new Republic (1582)
was the codification of the fishery statutes; and about this time
they applied to the deep-sea herring fishery the name of Great or
Grand Fishery (_Groote Visscherye_), as being “the chief industry of
the country and principal gold-mine to its inhabitants,” in contrast
to the real gold-mines of Spain. They furnished the greater part of
Europe with cured herrings and other fish, and the fish supply of
England, and more particularly of London, fell to a large extent into
their hands. Their herring fishery was carried on along our east
coast, and the spectacle of great fleets of foreign fishing vessels
frequenting our waters, while the native fisheries were falling to
decay, roused envious and jealous feelings in the breasts of patriotic
Englishmen.[156]
Under the Tudors the efforts made to foster the sea fisheries did
not, as has been said, take the form of interfering with the foreign
fishermen. They were rather directed, on the one hand, to increase
the consumption of fish by restoring the strict observance of Lent
and fish-days, and, on the other hand, to check the importation
of fish caught by foreigners. In this way it was hoped that the
native fisheries would be stimulated to supply at least the home
markets. As early as 1541--a year or two after the suppression of the
monasteries--an Act was passed which apparently indicates that the
decline in the fisheries had already set in, and that it was customary
for the English people to purchase fish from foreigners rather than
catch them for themselves. Heavy penalties were imposed on any person
who should bring into the realm for sale fresh fish (except sturgeon,
porpoise, and seal, which were then included in the term) which they
had purchased from strangers in Flanders, Zealand, Picardy, France, or
elsewhere beyond the sea, “or upon the sea between shore and shore”;
but the buying of fish at Iceland, Scotland, Orkney, Shetland, Ireland,
or Newfoundland--to all which places English vessels went--was not
prohibited.[157] This statute was re-enacted four years later, and
again by Edward VI. and Queen Mary.[158] In the reign of Elizabeth a
number of similar statutes were made, with the object of favouring the
native fishermen in their competition with foreigners.
About the same time as the first Act of Henry was passed we begin
to get evidence of laxity in the observance of Lent and of measures
taken to deal with it. Many persons, including noblemen, were brought
before the Privy Council charged with having eaten flesh in Lent, and
were committed to the Fleet. The mayor and aldermen of London were
commanded to make inquisition throughout all the wards of the city as
to the households in which flesh was used in Lent, and the butchers
were required to furnish information as to the quantity of flesh sold
by them, and to whom, in the same period.[159] This activity of the
Privy Council foreshadowed the new policy of the “political lent”
which was inaugurated a few years later in the reign of Edward VI.,
and with which the name of Cecil was associated. By this time it was
clearly recognised that the religious changes that had taken place were
prejudicial to the fisheries by lessening the consumption of fish, and
in 1548 an “Act for Abstinence from Flesh” was passed, by which fines
were imposed on those who did not observe the usual fast-days. The
object of the measure was clearly explained. “One day or one kind of
meat of itself,” it said, “is not more holy, more pure, or more clean
than another, for that all days and all meats be of their nature of one
equal purity, cleanness, and holiness;” but “considering that due and
godly abstinence is a mean to virtue, and to subdue men’s bodies to
their soul and spirit, and considering also especially that Fishers,
and men using the trade of living by fishing in the sea, may thereby
the rather be set on work,” it was enacted that no person should eat
flesh meat on Fridays, Saturdays, Ember-days, Lent, or on any other day
which was accustomed a fish-day, under a penalty of ten shillings fine
and ten days’ imprisonment without flesh food.[160]
By this statute the political lent was established, and the policy of
compelling the people to eat fish for the good of the fisheries and
the navy was continued with more or less vigour for a century and a
half. Sir William Cecil was especially active in its favour. He caused
careful inquiries to be made into the condition of the decayed havens
and sea-coast towns and the state of the fisheries. He was informed by
the London fishmongers, to whom he had submitted a series of questions,
that there was not so much fish then consumed “by a great quantity”
as used to be the case, and that the number of vessels engaged in the
fisheries had greatly decreased. On the latter point they referred to a
return made about the twentieth year of the reign of Henry VIII., which
showed that seven-score and odd ships then went to the Iceland fishery,
about 80 crayers to Shetland, and about 220 crayers from Scarborough
and other towns to the North Seas fishing, making a total of about 440
fishing vessels; while at the time they wrote--in the reign of Edward
VI., and probably in 1552 or 1553--the number had fallen to about 133,
of which 43 went to Iceland, 10 crayers to Shetland, and 80 to “the
North Seas,” showing a decrease in the twenty-four or twenty-five
years of about 307 “ships and crayers.”[161] A similar story of the
decay of the fisheries came from the east-coast towns. At Lynn, which
was maintained chiefly by the Iceland and the herring fisheries, and
which twenty or thirty years before sent out about thirty vessels
to those fisheries, there were then only two Iceland barks, and no
herring-smacks at all. It used to be able to furnish 300 mariners for
the king’s service, while now it could not supply more than twenty
or thirty. And so at Burnham (where the fishing-boats had decreased
from 26 to _nil_), Wells, Clee, Cromer, Yarmouth, and other Norfolk
ports--all had greatly decayed. The fisheries and the shipping had
fallen off, the “men of substance” had lost their money or left, the
population had diminished, and even the houses were falling down.
To a statesman like Cecil, who knew the value of the mariners bred
at the fishing ports for manning the navy if need arose, and how a
flourishing fishery multiplied shipping, such information must have
been disquieting. He calculated that while within twenty years back
there had been 150 ships for Iceland, 220 for the north seas, and 78
for “Shotland” (Shetland), the numbers had fallen when he wrote to 43
for Iceland, 75 for the north seas, and 9 for Shetland; and that the
number of fishing vessels had decreased from 448 to 127.[162]
In replying to Cecil’s second question as to the cause of the decay
in the fisheries, the fishmongers said it was first of all due to the
diminished consumption of fish, since the fish-days were not “duly
observed as heretofore,” which “took away such hope of gain as in time
past they have had” in carrying on the fisheries. A second reason they
gave was the greater love “for ease and pleasure” than in former times,
people now preferring to buy their fish from strangers rather than to
“travail and venture for it themselves,”--a very common charge against
Englishmen then and for a long time afterwards. As a third reason, they
said the price of fish was regulated in various towns by the mayors
and other officers in such a way that they were often forced to sell
without sufficient profit, while Government purveyors made them part
with their fish at nominal prices. It is to be noted that they made no
complaint against foreign fishermen or the importation of foreign fish.
During the brief reign of Mary (1553-1558) Cecil was in the shade, but
shortly after the accession of Elizabeth he again devoted attention to
the decay of the fisheries and tried to apply fitting remedies. Among
the State Papers of the year 1563 is a long and elaborate document,
copiously revised by Cecil himself, which deals with the condition of
shipping and fisheries, and obviously formed the basis and argument for
the great Act made in the same year.[163] In this paper the decay of
the navy both in ships and mariners was traced by Cecil to a variety
of causes: the piracies of Turks and Moors on the Levant trade, the
transference of the spice trade from the Venetians to the Portuguese
and Spaniards, the Spanish law of bottomry, the augmentation by the
King of Denmark of the tolls at the Sound and his recovery of Iceland,
and the decay of the English fisheries. Herrings and other sea fish,
he said, were now taken upon our coast by strangers, who brought them
into the realm and sold them “to the very inhabitants of the parts
that were used to be fishermen,” while Englishmen had themselves been
prohibited from exporting fish.[164] The remedies which Cecil proposed
were that the importation of wines and woad should be allowed only in
English ships; that Englishmen should be prohibited from purchasing
fresh herrings which had been caught by strangers; that they should be
free to export and sell sea fish out of the realm; and, principally,
that Wednesday should be made an additional fish-day. The decay of the
fisheries, he said, was manifest on all the sea coast in the decay of
the port towns, which soon would be “remedeless,” and it was caused
by diminished consumption of fish at home and the want of foreign
markets.[165] On the other hand, Scotland, Norway, Denmark, Friesland,
Zealand, Holland, and Flanders caught not only sufficient fish for
themselves, but exported it to other countries, including England;
while Spain provided herself by her fisheries on the south coast of
Ireland, and France “aboundeth with fishermen” from her great fisheries
at Newfoundland and Iceland.[166] Cecil’s conclusion was that there was
no likelihood for a long time of developing a flourishing export trade
in fish, and that it would be necessary to institute another fish-day
to increase the demand at home. On this part of his proposals he
entered into a long argument, showing that in 1536 the 500 monasteries
which paid tithes to the king, with a minimum number of 25,000 inmates,
must have required a great supply of fish, as fish was then eaten on at
least seventy-six days a year more than at the time when he wrote.[167]
By the great Act passed in 1563, “Touching certain Politic
Constitutions made for the Maintenance of the Navy,” Wednesday was
added to the two fish-days previously enjoined by the statute of Edward
VI., but only after long debate and opposition on the part of the
“puritans.”[168] The Act also contained provisions to restrain foreign
importation of fish, to encourage the export of English-caught fish by
subjects, and to remove the complaints as to the action of purveyors
and burdensome impositions--points on which the fishmongers had laid
some stress. Herrings and other sea fish taken by Englishmen in English
ships were to be freely exported without paying custom; no tax, toll,
or restraint was to be imposed on fish taken and landed by subjects; it
was made illegal to buy from strangers any herrings unless they were
“sufficiently salted, packed, and casked”; only English vessels were to
be allowed to carry coastwise any fish, victuals, or other goods; the
cultivation of flax for fishing-nets was to be encouraged; and on the
plea that there was “much deceitful packing” of cod and ling brought
into the realm by aliens, the importation of these fish was forbidden,
except only “loose, in bulk and by tale.” Most of these provisions
and prohibitions would operate against the Dutch, who had not only a
large part of the trade in herrings with England, but practically the
monopoly in supplying barrelled cod and ling.[169]
From this time forward the policy of protecting the native fisheries
by checking the competition of foreigners went hand in hand with the
encouragement of the consumption of fish by the compulsory observance
of fish-days. Interfering as it did with established practice and
conflicting trade interests, the Act aroused opposition in various
quarters, especially on the part of those who were interested in the
important commerce in cured cod-fish. In the year after it passed,
the Queen’s purveyors were unable to obtain in England sufficient
supplies of fish for the navy and the royal service, and they were
licensed to import cod-fish, lings, and green-cod, in barrels or casks,
notwithstanding the prohibition in the Act,[170]--a privilege which
had to be extended to all English subjects a few years later with
respect to fish caught in their own vessels “with cross-sails.”[171] On
the other hand, it was claimed that the Act had done good. The coast
people of Norfolk and Suffolk informed the Council in 1568 that it had
increased the trade in fish in these counties; and as the Act had been
passed for four years only and continued at the Queen’s pleasure, they
petitioned that it should be renewed, and that provision should be
made to put a stop to the importation by strangers of cod and ling in
bulk, which were dried and sold under the name of Iceland fish, to the
detriment of those engaged in the Iceland fishery, and also to ensure
that fish-days should be better observed.[172] In the same year the
Council instructed the magistrates of London, Hull, and Southampton,
and the justices of various shires, to commit to jail any persons
fraudulently dealing with foreign imported cod and ling as Iceland
fish;[173] and three years later another Act was passed, giving effect
to the wishes of the fishermen, and continuing the former Act for other
six years.[174] It contained a new provision showing that complaints
had been made about the vessels, some of them foreign, which came
“pretending” to buy fresh herrings on the coast of Norfolk. To avoid
“lewd outrages” by these “catches, mongers, and Picardes,” in cutting
and damaging the drift-nets of the fishermen, they were prohibited from
anchoring between sunset and sunrise during the fishing season in the
places where the boats were accustomed to fish.
Up to about this time no complaint seems to have been made against
the foreign fishermen either by English fishermen or by statesmen or
writers. The men from the Low Countries appear to have pursued their
occupation in peace side by side with the Englishmen. But in 1570
the first note was heard of what became later almost a continuous
lamentation. A petition was presented to the Privy Council asking
that “letters” should be sent to Zealand and Holland, or ships of
war despatched to protect the English fishermen from the evil doings
of the Low Countrymen. “Otherwise,” the petitioners said, “both wee
and all others that entend fysshing in all partes of this realme
shall be utterly undone, for that the fishermen Flemynges this yeire
have so spoyled and mysused all the coaste men, that it hath so
discomforted them” that they feared “the whole avoyadaunce of fysshing
both for herring and other fysshing upon all the north coast of this
realme.”[175] Whether or not this complaint referred to the outrages
described in the Act quoted above is uncertain, but probably it did
not, as the Hollanders and Zealanders fished for themselves, and they
were now becoming rather numerous. It does not appear that any special
action was taken regarding the petition. It was Cecil’s aim to increase
the use of fish within the realm and to foster the native fisheries,
but he had no desire to interfere with the liberty of fishing enjoyed
by the Hollanders. Such action would have been contrary not only to the
treaties but to the international policy of England at that time. On
political and religious grounds the aid of the Dutch was needful in the
struggle against the common enemy, Spain.
That the English people had become interested in the condition of
the fisheries and somewhat jealous of the fleets of foreign vessels
which fished along their coast may be inferred from the appearance
at this time of two works--one by Captain Robert Hitchcock, and the
other by the learned and unfortunate Dr John Dee. It is a curious
circumstance that those authors, who wrote at the same period, should
each have advocated one of the two lines of policy adopted in the next
century. Hitchcock was all for freedom of fishing, for strangers and
natives alike. His remedy was the creation of a great English fishery
organisation to oust the Dutch from our seas. Dee, on the other hand,
was emphatic in claiming _mare clausum_ and an exclusive fishing for
Englishmen, and in urging heavy taxation of foreigners who fished in
the British seas.
Hitchcock was a gentleman and a soldier who, in 1553, as he himself
tells us, while serving the Emperor Charles V. in his wars in the Low
Countries, had observed with astonishment that the wealth and shipping
of Zealand and Holland were due to their sea fisheries. Pondering on
his discovery, he thought out a plan some years later by which a great
national fishery might be established in England to supplant the
Dutch, so that the wealth acquired by them in the British seas might
go to profit his own countrymen. It was the first of the innumerable
schemes of the kind which are to be found scattered over the economic
literature of the next two centuries. Having reduced his plan to
writing, he submitted it about the year 1573 to the Earl of Leicester,
in 1575 to Queen Elizabeth, and in the following year he distributed
copies to men of influence, in the hope “that God would stir up some
good man to set out this work.” It appears even to have been brought to
the notice of Parliament by Sir Leonard Digges, but its consideration
was deferred “for want of time.”[176] The copy presented to the Queen
is preserved among the Burghley Papers in the British Museum,[177] and
the completed work, somewhat enlarged,--now very rare,--was published
(in black-letter) on 1st January 1580 as “A New Year’s Gift to
England.”[178]
The plan of Hitchcock was to borrow £80,000 for three years, when the
whole amount would be repaid from the proceeds of the fish sold. The
shires were to be arranged in eight groups, each group providing with
its £10,000 fifty fishing vessels of not less than 70 tons burthen, or
400 altogether. These were to be built after the manner of “Flemysche
Busses” and distributed at eighty ports around the coast; and at
eight of the chief ports (London, Yarmouth, Hull, Newcastle, Chester,
Bristol, Exeter, and Southampton) two “honest and substantial men of
credit” were to be appointed chief officers, to act as treasurers,
purveyors, and directors. Hitchcock estimated that each ship when
ready for fishing would cost £200; the crews were to consist of a
skilled master, twelve mariners or fishermen, and twelve “strong
lustie beggers or poore men taken upp through the land.”[179] The
scheme proposed that the busses should first fish for herrings on the
coast of England and Ireland during the fourteen or fifteen weeks
this fishing lasted, the herrings being cured and branded after the
“Flemish” fashion. The busses were also to visit Newfoundland for cod
and ling; or some were to go to Iceland, “Wardhouse,”[180] the north
seas of England and Scotland, or to Ireland. It was intended to employ
some of them in winter in exporting the surplus of cured fish to
France, “or elsewhere.” As for the all-important question of earnings,
it was calculated that each buss would catch at least 50 lasts, or 600
barrels, of herrings, worth £10 a last; altogether £200,000 from this
item,[181] and if two voyages were made, the amount would be doubled.
It was supposed that each buss would bring back from Newfoundland
20,000 of the best “wet” fish and 10,000 dried--together worth £500;
the same value was placed upon the 15,000 cod and 10,000 ling to be
procured at Iceland, Wardhouse, or the north seas; and besides the
fish, each ship was estimated to return with £50-£60 worth of cod-liver
oil. Then with regard to the “vent” or sale of the fish, it was assumed
that about half of the herrings, or 120,000 barrels, would be required
for home consumption--not an exaggerated idea, for from other accounts
it appears that London and the parts around it consumed about this time
60,000 barrels. Markets for the surplus herrings, it was believed,
would be found at Normandy, Nantes, Bordeaux, and Rochelle. The profits
were to be divided into shares, and besides paying off the borrowed
capital and the interest (at 10 per cent), a stock of £8000 was to be
formed at the eight chief ports, and £400 at the “225 decayed towns”
in England and Wales for the philanthropic purpose of giving work to
the poor. Nay, there was more. At the chief ports the surplus earnings
were to provide a salary for “an honest, virtuous and learned man,” who
was to travel constantly about the coasts preaching to the people, “as
the Apostles did.” Among the indirect benefits to the nation Hitchcock
included the transformation of idle vagabonds, of whom there were
plenty, “daily increasing,” into good subjects--some of the Members
of Parliament thought this part of the scheme alone entitled it to
national support,--the addition of 9000 mariners for manning the navy,
the saving of coin spent on foreign fish, the increase of the Queen’s
customs, of commerce and navigation, and the repair of the decayed
towns.
Such was the dream of this enthusiastic but thoroughly sincere old
soldier: to expel the Hollanders from our seas by means of a national
fishery organisation and to win back for England the wealth they
gathered from her waters. At the time when he wrote, foreign fishermen
were not nearly so numerous on our coasts as they became later. The
herring-busses from the Low Countries which fished on the east coast
numbered, he says, between 400 and 500, and the Englishmen “for feare
of them,” and of tempests, fished in small vessels near the shore, as
he shows in a “similitude,” here reproduced (fig. 2). Besides these,
between 300 and 400 ships and barks from Biscay, Galicia, and Portugal
fished off the south-west coast of Ireland from April to July, “near
to Mackertymors country”; and also on the west and north-west coasts
of Ireland for cod and ling from about Christmas to March. Hitchcock
makes no complaint against the foreign fishermen for fishing in “her
Majesty’s seas.” With a fine catholic generosity he indeed expressly
says that all men of what country soever should be free to do so; that
there was enough fish in the northern seas for all, even if there were
1000 sail more than there was. He believed that the English, by being
so much nearer the fishing grounds, ought to be able to undersell the
foreigner and get the markets and the trade.[182]
[Illustration: Fig. 2.--_Hitchcock’s representation of the English and
Flemish fisheries._]
The scheme of Dr John Dee was very different from that of Hitchcock.
A mathematician, an astrologer, a reputed magician, and, above all,
an accomplished scholar, he looked at the subject from another point
of view. Well acquainted with the writings of the Italian jurists
and the practice of the Italian states, he expounded the view that
the fisheries and the sovereignty in the British seas pertained to
the crown of England, and that foreigners should be compelled to pay
tribute for the liberty of fishing within them. It is the philosopher
of Mortlake, indeed, who must be recognised as the literary pioneer
of the claims to the sovereignty of the sea which were put forward
by England in the seventeenth century. In 1577 he published a book
entitled _General and Rare Memorials pertayning to the Perfect Arte
of Navigation_,[183] in which he dealt with the fisheries and the
boundaries of the British seas, and recommended that the tribute to
be exacted from foreign fishermen should be expended in maintaining a
navy to be called “The Petty Navy Royall,” for keeping the seas and
supervising the fisheries. “Should not forreyne fishermen,” he asks,
“(overboldly now and to to injuriously abusing oure riche fishings
about England, Wales and Ireland), by the presence, oversight, power
and industry of this Petty Navy Royal be made content; and judge
themselves well apaid to enjoy, by our leave, some great portion of
revenue to enrich themselves and their countries by, with fishing
within the seas appertayning to oure ancient bounds and limits? Where
now, to oure great shame and reproache, some of them do come in a
manner home to our doors; and among them all, deprive us yearly of
many hundred thousand pounds, whiche by our fishermen using the said
fishings as chief, we might enjoy; and at length, by little and little,
bring them (if we would deal so rigorously with them) to have as little
portion of our peculiar commodity (to our Islandish Monarchy, by God
and Nature assigned) as now they force our fishermen to be contented
with; and yearly notwithstanding, doo at their fishing openly and
ragingly use suche words of reproche toward our Prince and realm, as no
true subject’s hart can quietly digest; and besides that, offer such
shamefull wrongs to the good laboursom people of this land, as is not
(by any reason) to be born withall, or endured any longer: destroying
their nets, cutting their cables to the los of their anchors; yea, and
often-tymes of Barkes, men and all.”[184] Here is the first note of
a plaint which will become very common. He also accused the foreign
fishermen, under colour of fishing, of making secret soundings of the
channels and banks along our coast, to the great danger of the realm.
As for their fishing on the English coast, he says, erroneously, that
the men from the Low Countries had frequented the herring fishing off
Yarmouth for only thirty years (since 1540), since when their numbers
had greatly increased. They had now become “very rich, strong, proud,
and violent,” so that the ships of Norfolk and Suffolk, next to the
fishing places, were reduced in numbers by 140 sail, besides crayers
and other craft. The number of Flemish herring-busses that came to
our coast he placed at over 500, while there were about 100 French;
and 300 or 400 “Flemings” fished for cod in the north seas, “within
the English limits.” Other foreigners, moreover, caught herrings on
the Lancashire and Welsh coasts, and about 300 sail of Spaniards,
besides Frenchmen, fished off Cape Clear and Blackrock in Ireland. All
these fishings, said Dee, were “enjoyed as securely and freely from
us by strangers, as if they were within their own King’s peculiar sea
limits; nay, rather as if those coasts, seas and bays were of their
private and several purchases: to our unspeakable loss, discredit and
discomfort, and to no small further danger in these peculiar times of
most subtle treacheries and fickle fidelity.” While admitting that the
British seas were free for navigation, Dee held that the fisheries
pertained to the crown of England, and that no foreigner had a right
to cast a net in our sea without first obtaining leave from the Queen.
To her belonged “the tenth” of all foreign fishings “within the royal
limits and jurisdiction” in the British and Irish seas, and it was “a
most reasonable and friendly request” that foreigners should pay that
tenth in acknowledgment of the liberty to fish,--a tribute which he
calculated would amount to £100,000 a-year, and which he urged should
be devoted to the maintenance of the “Petty Navy Royal.”
Dee was not only the first English writer who claimed the sovereignty
of the sea and the fisheries for England; he was also the first who
attempted to define their boundaries in detail. At the time when he
wrote, it appears indeed to have been held in theory by some lawyers
that the limit of the English seas extended to the mid-line between
England and foreign coasts, except in the case of the Channel, where
the water right up to the opposite shore was believed to be under the
sovereignty of England. The doctrine, no doubt, was evolved from the
opinions of the Italian jurists, whose authority was then very high
(see p. 539), and from the political relations with France then and in
former times. Two years before Dee published his book, Plowden, an
eminent lawyer, acting as counsel in a case concerning the rights on a
manor to wreck of the sea, argued for the defendant that “the bounds of
England” extended to the middle of the adjoining sea which surrounded
the realm, but that the Queen had the exclusive jurisdiction on the
sea between England and France by reason of her title to France, and
so also with Ireland; whereas in other places, as towards Spain, she
had only the moiety. It was the same, said Plowden, with the sea as
with great rivers. But while Plowden allowed the “jurisdiction and
governance of all things” to the Queen on the sea within the limits
stated, he denied to her the right of property in it or in the land
under it; it was common to all men, and she could not prohibit any
one from fishing in it; the water and the land under it were things
of no value, and “the fish are always removable from one place to
another.”[185]
Dee adopted the same opinion as to the limits, but held, as we have
seen, that the fisheries were appropriated. The boundaries of the
Queen’s “peculiar seas,” he said, were “in all places to be accounted
directly to the myddle seas over betweene the sea-shores of her own
kingdom (and of all petty Isles to the same kingdom appertayning) and
the opposite sea-shores of all forrein princes: and in all seas lying
immediately betweene any two of her own coasts or sea-shores, the whole
breadth of the seas over (in such places) is, by all reason of justice,
appropriate to her peculiar jurisdiction and sea royalty,” even if
the distance in such cases were 1000 miles or more.[186] On the other
hand, according to Dee, neighbouring countries were to be allowed the
same rights and interests in the moiety of the sea appropriate to their
coasts.
The limits of the British seas, and the sovereignty pertaining to
them, were more fully described by Dr Dee some years later in a long
unpublished letter or treatise addressed to Sir Edward Dyer,[187]
who had apparently asked him for a fuller statement of his views on
the subject. In his book Dee said little about the boundaries in the
Channel, where the principle of the mid-line was complicated by two
circumstances--the claim of Elizabeth to the French crown, and the
possession by England of the Channel Islands. In his later treatise he
says that presupposing “for doctrine’s sake” that Calais was in the
hands of Spain, and the northern coasts of Picardy and Normandy were
appropriated by France (which was the case), then the boundary must
be drawn in the very middle of the Channel between Dover and Calais,
and then westwards in the middle line between the opposite coasts of
England and of Picardy and Normandy, until it touched the middle of a
straight line drawn between Portland and the island of Alderney. In
this region, west of the line, inasmuch as the coasts of the Channel
Islands and the opposite coast of England belonged to the Queen, her
Majesty had “absolute, peculiar, and appropriate Sea Sovereignty and
Jurisdiction Royall.” The western boundary of this area of absolute
sovereignty in the narrow seas coincided with a line drawn from Start
Point to an “island” that Dee calls “Rocktow,” which is unrepresented
on charts, but which is probably a phonetic synonym for “Roches
Douvres,” a group of islets off the north coast of Brittany.[188] From
the middle of this line the boundary passed westwards, again midway
between the coasts of England and Brittany, until it touched the middle
of a third straight line drawn from the north-west part of Ushant
to about the Lizard. These were the limits on the supposition above
referred to; but, “speaking more boldly in her Majesty’s right,” Dee
declared that the whole sea between the south coast of England and
the north coast of France--Picardy, Normandy, and Brittany--was under
the Queen’s “sea-jurisdiction and sovereignty absolute,” inasmuch
as she was a real monarch of France by direct inheritance and prior
conquest, and therefore had right to the French coasts; and this
“absolute sovereignty” served to “enlarge and warrant” the Queen’s
“Jurisdiction Respective” in the ocean to the west of France. So also
the jurisdiction of the crown of England extended into the main ocean
to the west of England and Ireland by reason of the possession of the
shores; while the ocean around Scotland, inasmuch as that country was
(he said) in olden times tributary to the English kings, yielded to
her Majesty “a mightie portion of Sea Sovereignty,” as it stretched
away westwards to “that famous and very ancient Platonicall or
Solonicall Atlantis.” For the same reasons Dee claimed prerogative and
jurisdiction for the Queen in the northern ocean, and between Scotland
and the opposite coasts of Norway and Denmark, “at least to the
mid-sea,” and so to the southwards “half seas over” between the east
coast of England and the coasts of Denmark, Friesland, and Holland, to
the Straits of Dover.
Within the British seas as thus defined, Dee claimed that the crown
of England had first of all sovereign jurisdiction, over foreigners
as well as over subjects,[189] and part of the duty of the Petty
Navy Royal--which, as stated, was to be maintained by taxing foreign
fishermen--was to guard and protect foreign ships passing through our
seas. This doctrine he based upon the law as laid down by the Italian
jurists. Nor did he forget the purely naval side. Quoting the old
proverb, “A sword keepeth peace,” he argued that the presence of a
fleet such as he suggested would cause other nations to respect us more
than they did, and enable us to enjoy the royalty and sovereignty of
the narrow seas and of our other seas better than the possession of
Calais and Boulogne could do.
Dee’s work was premature. His proposals that Elizabeth should tax
foreigners for fishing in the British seas and exercise jurisdiction
over foreign vessels passing through them remained as much a dream
as the scheme of Hitchcock.[190] It need not be supposed that such
measures as Dee proposed were intrinsically distasteful either to
the Queen or to Cecil. If a navy could have been acquired so easily,
or a much less sum than £100,000 gathered from foreign fishermen in
a “friendly” way, as Dee supposed, neither the sovereign nor the
statesman was likely to let the chance go by. But they knew better than
the philosopher, or than the Stuarts in the next century, that a policy
of the kind would involve them in difficulties with other Powers,--with
France and Spain as well as with the Protestant Netherlands.
So far from adopting any policy of this nature or making any claim
to a special sovereignty in the surrounding seas, Elizabeth steadily
opposed all claims which other nations put forward to _mare clausum_.
Long before Grotius, she was the champion of the free sea, although
it must be admitted that the action of the English Queen was no more
based on considerations of the general good of mankind than were the
efforts of the Dutch publicist: both had in view the interests of
their native land. Elizabeth’s motive was to secure liberty of trade
and fishery for her subjects, which was threatened by the pretensions
of Spain and Portugal on the one hand and by Denmark on the other.
The Portuguese pretension was of long standing. When that nation in
the latter half of the fifteenth century had pushed her way down the
west coast of Africa and ultimately round the Cape of Good Hope to the
East Indies, she obtained from the Pope various bulls securing her
in her possessions, and granting sovereign authority to the crown of
Portugal in all the lands it might discover in the Atlantic from Cape
Bojador to the Indies. By an inhuman doctrine established during the
Crusades, Christian princes were supposed to have the right to invade,
ravage, and acquire the territories of infidel nations on the plea of
extending the sway of the Christian Church; and the Pope, from his
supreme authority over all temporal things, disposed of these heathen
lands to such princes as might bring them under the dominion of the
Church and propagate the true faith among the inhabitants. Immediately
on the return of Columbus from his first voyage in 1493, the Spanish
monarchs accordingly obtained a bull from Pope Alexander VI. confirming
them in the newly-discovered regions; and in order to prevent disputes
with Portugal as to the extent of their respective claims, another bull
was issued, on 4th May 1493, containing the famous line of demarcation
between their territories. This was an ideal straight line drawn from
the North Pole to the South Pole, passing 100 leagues to the west of
the Azores and Cape Verde Islands. All islands or lands discovered
to the west of this line by the Spaniards, and which had not been in
the possession of any Christian Power before the preceding Christmas,
were to belong to the Spanish crown; and all territory discovered to
the east of it was to belong to Portugal. The Pope, moreover, granted
a monopoly of commerce within those immense regions to the respective
crowns, so that other nations could not trade thither without license
from the Spanish or Portuguese sovereigns.[191] Spaniards even were not
allowed to go to the New World either to trade or form establishments
without royal license and authority. Disputes arose between Spain and
Portugal as to the equity of the Pope’s line of demarcation, and by the
Treaty of Tordesillas, 7th June 1494, they agreed that the inter-polar
line should pass 370 leagues to the west of Cape Verde Islands.[192]
The exclusive rights conferred by the Pope were rigorously enforced
by Spain and Portugal. Navigation to their new possessions, or the
carrying on of any trade or commerce with them, without royal license
was made punishable by death and confiscation of goods.[193]
Early in her reign Elizabeth had occasion to protest against the
claims of Portugal, and had a heated dispute with King Sebastian about
them.[194] Later, the daring exploits of Drake on the Spanish seas were
more than a flagrant violation of Philip’s pretension to _mare clausum_
in the western Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans--a claim which Elizabeth
refused to recognise. When Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador, complained
to her in 1580 of Drake’s depredations, and that English ships
presumed to trade in the “Indian” seas, he was told in effect that the
Spaniards, contrary to the Law of Nations, had prohibited the English
from carrying on commerce in those regions, and had consequently drawn
the mischief upon themselves. She was unable to understand, she said,
why her subjects and those of other princes should be barred from the
“Indies.” She could not recognise the prerogative of the Bishop of
Rome “that he should bind princes who owe him no obedience,” and her
subjects would continue to navigate “that vast ocean,” since “the use
of the sea and air is common to all; neither can any title to the ocean
belong to any people or private man, forasmuch as neither nature nor
regard of the public use permitteth any possession thereof.”[195]
About the time when Drake left England, the question of the right of
Spain to forbid the English to trade to the Indies had been considered.
It was argued that the Pope’s bull was void, for several reasons. The
consent of the Pope had been conditional for the conversion of the
natives, while the “usage of the Spaniards hath been otherwise.” The
bull could have no force in tending to the prejudice of a third party,
because all princes by the Law of Nations had the right of navigation
in the sea and the right of traffic, and the Pope could not deprive
them of these rights. Besides, there had been agreements between Spain
and England since the date of the bull that the subjects of each state
might freely traffic in the dominions of the other; and the Spanish
lawyers had come to the conclusion that the Venetians could not legally
inhibit others from trading in the Adriatic, and therefore, by the
same reasoning, neither could the Spaniards or Portuguese prohibit
orderly and lawful traffic to their Indies.[196] Elizabeth has been
charged with inconsistency on the ground that at the time when she was
asserting the freedom of the seas against the claims of Spain she was
claiming for herself, “with very great energy,” a similar dominion in
the British seas.[197] The charge is quite unfounded. No claim was put
forward by her to the sovereignty of the British seas. On the contrary,
they were declared to be free for the navigation and fishery of all
nations.
The policy of Elizabeth as to the freedom of the sea is revealed still
more clearly in the negotiations with the King of Denmark as to the
right of fishery at Iceland and in the northern seas. Denmark claimed
not only the Sound and the Belts and the maritime dominion of the
Baltic, with the right of controlling the navigation through them, but
also the seas intervening between the coasts of Norway on the one hand
and Iceland and Greenland on the other. A similar claim was made to the
sea between Norway and the Orkney and Shetland Isles, at all events
prior to 1468, when they were acquired by Scotland. Putting aside
altogether the differences that arose with regard to the dues exacted
at the Sound and in connection with the Baltic, a great many disputes
had occurred between England and Norway and Denmark as to the right of
Englishmen to trade and fish at Iceland and along the Norwegian coast,
and many treaties were made between the two Powers regulating that
right. From an early period numerous barks from Lynn, Yarmouth, Hull,
Scarborough, and other east coast ports, and from Bristol, frequented
the northern seas for fishing and buying fish, and for traffic,
visiting not only Iceland, but Helgeland, Nordland, and Finmark, and
going at least as far east as Wardhouse or Vardö. In 1415 Henry V., at
the request of King Eric, and notwithstanding an earnest petition of
the Commons to the contrary,[198] prohibited his subjects from going to
Iceland or other islands belonging to Norway or Denmark;[199] in 1429
the King of Denmark prohibited English merchants from purchasing fish
at Finmark, or elsewhere in his dominions than at Bergen, against which
the English petitioned Henry VI.;[200] and in 1490 an important treaty
was concluded between Henry VII. and King John II. of Denmark and
Norway, by which English subjects were granted liberty to sail freely
to Iceland for fishing or trading on paying the usual customs, provided
that they obtained a renewal of their license to do so every seven
years.[201] This treaty was renewed in 1523 between Henry VIII. and
Christian II.,[202] but disputes frequently arose later, and several
embassies were charged with composing the differences.
Apparently the English fishermen did not always conduct themselves
with propriety. They were accused of committing various wrongs and
injuries on the inhabitants, and in 1585, on the complaint of the King
of Denmark, Queen Elizabeth issued an Order in Council reproving them
for their excesses, and intimating that if they were continued the King
of Denmark would interdict their fishing, and “punish such as shall
without his license repair thither, and confiscate their ships and
goods.” The king, she said, had promised that if the English fishermen
abstained from committing outrages and behaved themselves, and paid the
customary duties, he would allow them to enjoy the liberties they had
formerly possessed; and she commanded the principal officers at her
ports to take bonds from all those going to Iceland or Wardhouse for
their good behaviour.[203] But the disputes and difficulties continued.
The English fishermen omitted to renew their licenses septenially,--in
1592 it was said they had not been obtained for twelve years, and the
stipulation had been forgotten by those in authority,[204]--and the
Danes began about 1593 to interrupt them in their fishing at Westmoney
and in the sea off Iceland, and to seize their vessels. On complaint
being made to the King of Denmark, he declared his willingness to allow
the Englishmen to fish at Iceland under license, except at Westmoney
(small islands on the south coast), where the fishing was reserved for
his court.[205] At the close of the century the Danes used stronger
measures. In 1599 several English vessels were seized or molested. Five
ships of Kingston-upon-Hull, while at Wardhouse for fish, as had been
their custom for years, were met there by a small Danish fleet with
the King of Denmark himself on board, who caused them to be seized as
prize, took all the goods and effects of the Englishmen, beat some of
the crew and put them in irons, and finally carried off four of the
ships.[206] Other English vessels were driven away from their fishing
on the high seas around Iceland, although far from the coast.
Elizabeth complained strongly of these acts of injustice as being
contrary to the Law of Nations.[207] A Danish ambassador who came to
England at this time tried to justify the prohibitions by reference
to the treaty of 1583, by which permission had been given to English
vessels to navigate the northern seas to Russia, but which did not
grant any authority for fishing; and he requested the Queen to publish
an edict inhibiting her subjects from fishing at Iceland or Wardhouse
without the license of the King of Denmark, declaring that many English
vessels persisted in carrying on the fishery without any license,
contrary to the treaties. Reliance was also placed on an old treaty
made in 1468 between Edward IV. and Christian I., in which it was
stipulated that English vessels should not go farther north on the
coast of Norway than Hagaland.[208] In the following year ambassadors
were dispatched from England to negotiate an arrangement concerning
the tolls levied at the Sound and the freedom of the northern seas for
English fishermen,[209] and in a paper of 1602 conveying instructions
to the ambassadors at Bremen we find an admirable exposition of the
principles of the freedom of the seas.
After claiming that the treaties of 1490 and 1523 had given liberty of
fishing to the English, the ambassadors were to declare that the Law
of Nations allowed fishing in the sea everywhere, as well as the use of
the ports and coasts of princes in amity for traffic and the avoiding
of the dangers from tempests; so that if the English were debarred
from the enjoyment of those common rights, it could only be in virtue
of an agreement. But there was no such contract or agreement. On the
contrary, by denying English subjects the right of fishing in the sea
and despoiling them for so doing, the King of Denmark had injured them
against the Law of Nations and the terms of the treaty. Moreover, with
respect to the licenses the Queen declared that if her predecessors
had “yielded” to take them, “it was more than by the Law of Nations
was due”; they might have yielded for some special consideration; and
in any case it could not be concluded that the right of fishing, “due
by the Law of Nations,” failed because licenses were omitted. As to
the claim to the sea between Iceland and Norway on the ground that the
King of Denmark possessed both coasts--the argument used by Dee and
Plowden for the dominion of the English crown in the Channel--Elizabeth
was emphatic. If it was supposed thereby “that for the property of
a whole sea it is sufficient to have the banks on both sides, as in
rivers,” the ambassadors were to declare “that though property of sea,
in some small distance from the coast, may yield some oversight and
jurisdiction, yet use not princes to forbid passage or fishing, as is
well seen in our Seas of England and Ireland, and in the Adriatic Sea
of the Venetians, where we in ours and they in theirs, have property of
command; and yet neither we in ours nor they in theirs, offer to forbid
fishing, much less passage to ships of merchandise; the which by Law
of Nations cannot be forbidden ordinarily; neither is it to be allowed
that property of sea in whatsoever distance is consequent to the banks,
as it happeneth in small rivers. For then, by like reason, the half
of every sea should be appropriated to the next bank, as it happeneth
in small rivers, where the banks are proper to divers men; whereby it
would follow that no sea were common, the banks on every side being
in the property of one or other; wherefore there remaineth no colour
that Denmark may claim any property in those seas, to forbid passage or
fishing therein.”
The ambassadors were to declare that the Queen could not agree that
her subjects should be absolutely forbidden the seas, ports, or coasts
in question for the use of fishing, “negotiation,” and safety; she had
never yielded any such right to Spain and Portugal for the Indian seas
and havens. Nevertheless, if the King of Denmark for special reasons
desired that she should “yield to some renewing of license,” or that
“some special place upon some special occasion” should be reserved for
his own use, they were in their discretion and for the sake of amity
to agree; but the manner of obtaining the license was to be defined in
such a way that it would not be prejudicial to her subjects, nor “to
the effect of some sufficient fishing,” and the licenses were to be
issued in the subject’s name rather than in hers or the king’s.[210]
Denmark continued to insist upon her right to the trade with Iceland,
and to the fisheries in the northern seas,[211] which became of greater
importance early in the next century when the whale-fishing was
established at Spitzbergen. The Danish claim to a very wide zone of
territorial sea around Iceland was enforced until quite recent times.
The dispute between Elizabeth and the King of Denmark as to the rights
of fishing in the North Atlantic bears a strong resemblance to that
between James I. and the Dutch, which began a few years later, when the
positions, however, were reversed, James insisting on his right to the
fishery on the British coasts, while the Dutch used the arguments of
Elizabeth in favour of the complete freedom of the seas. One difference
in the two cases may be pointed out. England by agreeing to take
licenses from the King of Denmark, in the treaties of 1490 and 1523,
acknowledged the sovereignty of Denmark in northern waters, whereas
the Netherlands never acknowledged the sovereignty of England in the
British seas, within which the liberty of fishing had been expressly
granted to them by the Burgundy treaties.
Meantime the condition of the English fisheries had not much improved,
either under the restrictive legislation respecting imports and
exports of fish or by the measures taken to enforce the political
lent. The liberty given by the Act of 1571 for the importation of
cod-fish was opposed to the interests of the Iceland trade, and gave
rise to abuses. Great quantities of inferior fish were “engrossed”
by English merchants abroad and brought into the realm, which was
thus “furnished with foreign fish and herrings,” while the Iceland
fishery declined and the number of mariners available for the navy
diminished. The importation of foreign salted fish or salted herrings
by Englishmen or denizens was therefore prohibited; such fish were
allowed to be brought by aliens alone, who were to pay additional
customs, but fish from Iceland, Shetland, Newfoundland, and from the
Scottish seas were still to be admitted.[212] But the attempt to keep
out foreign fish failed in its object, the restrictions were found to
be otherwise injurious, and they were repealed in 1597. “It had been
hoped and expected,” it was said in the preamble of the repealing
Act,[213] “that the fishermen of this realm would in such sort have
employed themselves to fishing, and to the building and preparing of
such store of boats and shipping for that purpose, as that they should
long ere this time have been able sufficiently to have victualled this
realm with salted fish and herrings of their own taking, without any
supply of aliens and strangers, to the great increase of mariners and
maintenance of the navigation within this realm. Notwithstanding it
is since found by experience that the navigation of this land is no
whit bettered by means of that Act, nor any mariners increased, nor
like to be increased by it; but contrary wise, the natural subjects of
this realm being not able to furnish the tenth part of the same with
salted fish of their own taking, the chief provision and victualling
thereof with fish and herrings hath ever since the making of the same
Statute been in the power and disposition of aliens and strangers,
who thereby have much enriched themselves, greatly increased their
navigation, and (taking advantage of the time) have extremely enhanced
the prices of that victual[214] to the great hurt and impoverishing of
the native subjects of this realm, and yet do serve the markets here in
very evil sort,” housing their fish till the price was raised to their
liking. Thus the merchants in England were hindered in their trade,
the navigation of the realm “which was intended to be augmented, hath
been rather impaired than increased,” and the price of fish had been
greatly raised, to the general prejudice of the people. After this very
thorough condemnation of its previous Act,[215] Parliament declared
that as strangers and subjects were at liberty to export English-caught
fish and herrings, it was only right to allow subjects as well as
foreigners to bring in fish to provision their own country, and the
previous Act was wholly repealed. Thus the condition reverted to what
it had been before this course of legislation began.
It is equally doubtful whether the compulsory fish-days or political
lent had much influence in fostering the fisheries. At first, if
a return from the Trinity House can be trusted, the number of
fishing-boats increased. They reported in January 1581 that since
the previous Parliament there had been an increase along the coast
from Newcastle to Portsmouth of 114 sail of fishing-boats, of between
fifteen and forty tons, which was equal to the maintenance of a
thousand additional seamen for the navy.[216] It is not improbable that
an increase of the herring-boats occurred on the east coast at this
time, but it was temporary, and more likely due to other provisions of
the Act of 1563. Cecil’s Wednesday, for which he had fought so hard,
was abolished in 1584, while certain penalties for eating flesh in
Lent, on Fridays, Saturdays, or other fish-days, were at the same time
augmented;[217] but in 1593 all the penalties were greatly reduced.[218]
The policy of the political lent did not fail from want of efforts to
enforce it. In London especially precautions were taken to have the law
carried out, and the fishmongers were naturally active in their own
interests. Taverns and inns were often raided; those who had flesh in
their houses during Lent were often put in the pillory, and those who
partook of it in the stocks; and butchers were frequently prosecuted
for selling flesh on forbidden days. Those who were licensed to provide
flesh in Lent for the sick were put under bond, and had to keep an
account of every joint they sold; watchmen guarded the city gates lest
any beef should be smuggled in. Similar measures were taken throughout
the country. The sheriffs and justices of the peace were ordered by the
Council to see that the Act was duly enforced, and innkeepers had to
enter into recognisance to observe it.
But there is abundant testimony that the observance of the fish-days
was evaded on all sides. The policy was against the temper of the
people. So long as it had been a matter of religion and ecclesiastical
rule they were faithfully observed. The motive was now too remote; and
although the people were exhorted on grounds of “conscience” to eat
fish on 153 days in the year in order to maintain the navy, and “great
numbers” at first obeyed, the “universal multitude” always abstained,
and their example was followed by the better classes. Many considered
abstinence from flesh on fish-days to be “papistical”; others objected
on economic grounds, saying they could maintain their families better
and cheaper on flesh than on fish; and great numbers took advantage of
the clauses in the Act granting license of exemption. The Lord Mayor
was pestered by such applications, very commonly from noblemen and
persons about the Court, even receiving them from the Queen herself,
and in 1595 he begged that the Act might be repealed altogether.[219]
Thus “Cecil’s fasts,” as the unpopular fish-days were vulgarly
called, designed by the great statesman to increase the fisheries and
strengthen the navy, became the butt of the popular dramatist, and
served little purpose except, in the words of Ben Jonson, to “keep
a man devoutly hungry all day, and at night to send him supperless
to bed.”[220] There is little doubt that the policy of the political
lent, if it had been feasible, would have succeeded in its object.
Edward Jennings at the end of the century calculated that shipping
had diminished in the proportion of two to five since the time when
fish-days were observed, and that the fisheries were reduced in the
proportion of four-fifths in the same period; while the number of idle
persons in England who had previously engaged in fishing in the sea
was estimated at 10,000. Even if those figures were exaggerated, they
indicate, as Parliament admitted, that the measures hitherto taken
to revive the fisheries had failed. It remained for King James to
try another plan, that of exercising an effective sovereignty on the
British seas by prohibiting foreign fishermen from fishing within them
without taking license and paying tribute.
Before passing to the reign of James something must be said about one
symbol of this sovereignty, as it was now regarded--the striking of
the flag and top-sails. From the beginning of the fifteenth century,
when the Flemish herring-boats, and no doubt others, lowered their
sails to English ships (see p. 43), there appears to be no record of
the ceremony until the middle of the next. In the reign of Henry VIII.,
although he was sometimes called “Lord of these seas,”[221] and ships
were appointed to “keep the passage of the narrow sea,” the honour of
the flag was probably only occasionally enforced. But under Edward
VI., during the Protectorate of Northumberland, we find it stated in
the King’s Journal that in April 1549 “the Flemings’ men-of-war would
have passed our ships without vailing bonnet, which they seeing shot at
them, and drave them at length to vail bonnet and so depart”; and again
in July of the following year, at Dieppe, the Flemish ships lowered
their sails to an English man-of-war.[222] This appears to be the first
recorded instance of foreign men-of-war saluting the ships of the
King of England, and it is noteworthy that in the latter case it was
performed in a French port by Flemish vessels.
That it was not always demanded in the absolute manner of later times
is shown by orders issued by the Privy Council in 1552. The Baron de la
Garde was in command of a French fleet of twelve men-of-war, and Sir
Henry Dudley, whose force was weaker, asked how he should act “touching
the preeminence of honnour to be gyven” when he met the Baron. The
Council replied that “in respect of thamitie and that the sayd Baron
is stronger then he uppon the sees sume tymes yelde and sume tymes
receyve thonnour”; and he was told to use the Baron courteously, “and
with such discression that the same yelding of the preeminence may
be interpreted to be of curtesy rather then to the derogacion of the
Kinges honnour.”[223] It was the French who consistently and constantly
opposed the English claim, and there is evidence that the salute was
a point of rivalry between the two countries even at this time. An
ordinance issued by Henry II. of France in 1555 (repeated by Henry III.
in 1584) required all vessels to strike their sails to ships of the
French navy whenever they met them at sea, and some Hamburgers were
seized because they did not do so.[224] The honour appears to have been
generally accorded by the Dutch in the reign of Elizabeth,[225] and
compelled from the Spaniards. In 1554, in the reign of Mary, when the
Spanish fleet was coming up Channel in all its bravery, with the royal
flag flying on the Admiral’s ship, and bringing Philip of Spain to
marry the Queen of England, the English Admiral, Lord William Howard,
fired a broadside into the Spaniard and forced him to lower his colours
while in his presence.[226] And later, when Anne of Austria was on
her way to Spain to marry Philip, the Spanish ships were fired on by
Admiral Hawkins at Plymouth and forced to strike the flag and lower
top-sails in like manner.[227] But it was not till the reign of Charles
I. that this punctilio became of great international importance.