The expression 'the Narrow Sea', or 'the Narrow Seas', which so
often appears in seventeenth-century diplomatic dispatches and
controversial writings, is a term upon whose exact signification
geographically there has been much dispute. The English kings from
ancient times claimed 'sovereignty'--_dominium maris_--in the
'narrow seas' or _mare britannicum_. Evidence is fairly conclusive
that the term under the Tudors and until the friction with the Dutch
arose on the questions of free fishery and the striking of the flag
in the reign of James I, was confined to the Channel, the narrow sea
between England and France. Lord Salisbury, as late as 1609, writing
to Sir R. Winwood at the Hague (Winwood, _Mem._ iii, p. 50), speaks
of 'his Majesty's narrow seas between England and France, where the
whole appertayneth to him in right, and hath been possessed tyme out
of mind by his progenitors.' It soon, however, became the accepted
interpretation of English statesmen, jurists, and writers that the
'narrow seas' meant the two seas between England and France, and
England and the Netherlands; thus Rapin (_Hist. d'Angleterre_ vii,
p. 454), 'la domination des deux Mers, c'est-à-dire, des deux bras
de Mer qui se trouvent entre l'Angleterre et la France et entre
l'Allemagne et la Grande-Bretagne.' This extension of the term was
vigorously contested by the Dutch. In the peace negotiations at
Cologne in 1673 the Dutch protested that no treaty between England
and any other power 'n'ait meslé la Mer Britannique avec celle du
septentrion' (_Verbaal der Amb._ 1673/74). The English popular view
of the question appears clearly in an anonymous pamphlet, _The Dutch
Drawn to the Life_, published in 1664, just before the outbreak
of the Second Dutch War. The writer speaks of 'the command of the
Narrow Sea, the Dutch coast and ours' (p. 53); and again, referring
to the action taken by King Charles I in 1640 (p. 148), 'When our
neighbours the Dutchmen minded their interest and were almost
Masters at Sea in the Northern Fishing ... upon our Fishmongers'
complaint the King encouraged several overtures and projects
concerning Busses for our own Coasts service, the prevention of
strangers, and the improvement of the Narrow Seas, &c.'