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 87 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 88 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 89 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 90 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 91 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 92 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 93 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 94 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 95 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 96 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, 97 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, 98 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 99

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 100 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 101 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, 102 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. 103

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 104 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 105 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 106 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 107 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 108 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 Vard?. 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 109 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 110 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 111 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 112 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 113 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 victual214 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, 114 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. 115 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 116 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 117 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.