Since Charles had resolved to assert his claims to the sovereignty of the sea by force if necessary, it was obviously essential that he should have a strong and capable fleet. During the peaceful reign of James the navy had greatly deteriorated from what it had been under Queen Elizabeth.444 The expedition to Cadiz in 1625, and that to Rhé two years later, revealed startling inefficiency and disorganisation, and efforts were soon made to bring it into a better state. When he assumed the crown, his fleet consisted of thirty ships; in 1633 it numbered fifty, including the ten small vessels called the “Lion’s Whelps”; and when the Civil War broke out there were forty-two, the difference being due to the shedding of the smaller ones.445

There were many reasons why a strong fleet should be provided, apart from any question of enforcing a new political sovereignty over the North Sea and the Channel. The maritime strength of the United Provinces was growing quickly, and France, under the wise and energetic guidance of Richelieu, was rapidly becoming a formidable naval power. Within the space of about five years before 1631, as Charles knew, the Cardinal had created a fleet of thirty-nine ships, of which eighteen were of 500 tons or over, and no less than twenty-seven had been built in French ports.446 These two states were drawing closer together, and while it was known that their alliance, which was then mooted and was soon realised, would 247 be chiefly directed against Spain, it was nevertheless a danger to England unless she was strong enough to defend her rights on the sea.

Other reasons were the insecurity of the seas from the prevalence of piracy, and the violation of the “King’s Chambers,” and even of English ports, by the Dunkirkers and the Dutch. Moorish pirates swarmed in the Channel and made havoc amongst English shipping. So bold and successful were they, that in 1631 they seized and sacked Baltimore, on the coast of Munster, and carried off over 200 English subjects into slavery. Within a space of ten days they captured twenty-seven ships and 200 men.447 The Dunkirkers played a corresponding r?le in the North Sea. In a petition to the king in 1627, the ship-owners of Ipswich complained that within a year the Dunkirkers had captured five of their ships, valued with their cargoes at ￡5000, and carried the crews to Dunkirk. No ship, they said, could go to sea, and the livelihood of seafaring men was taken from them, and the king’s service would thus suffer. The Mayor and burgesses of King’s Lynn put the losses of the town at twenty-five ships, worth ￡9000, and complained that they were unable to carry on the Iceland fishery. The Cinque Ports also complained that the Dunkirkers had taken their goods, imprisoned their mariners, and rifled and sunk their ships on the English shore; and they asked for a guard to enable them to go to the fishing in the north and at Scarborough and Yarmouth. The alarm was general all along the coast. In February 1629 the bailiffs of Yarmouth reported that the sea was overrun with Dunkirkers, who had even rifled and fired one of their ships close under the cliffs at Mundesley, notwithstanding the efforts of the sheriff and posse of the county; they said 250 fishing vessels were ready to go to the northern fishing and awaited convoy. In the next year they and other towns of Norfolk and Suffolk stated their intention of sending out two fishing fleets of “ships, barks, and crayers,”—one of 160 sail to Iceland and Westmony, and the other of 230 sail for the north seas,—and they begged for ships of war to guard them, as the livelihood or “utter ruin” of 10,000 people and their families depended on these fleets. Two years later they repeated their request to the Admiralty, saying they 248 usually sent out a fleet of about 300 sail, with 5000 persons, to the fishings mentioned, but the fishermen were now so terrified by the Dunkirkers that they refused to go. The Mayor of Newcastle also informed the Council that they had been despoiled to the extent of ￡7000; he said there were 300 sail in port which dared not venture out; and the Council were asked to take means to secure safe passage on the sea. At this time there were said to be forty Dunkirk privateers scouring the North Sea, many of them with English sailors on board.448 We have already seen how successfully these freebooters preyed upon the busses of the Fishery Society.

Here then was a clear case for a navy, when an effective navy did not exist. The Council and the Admiralty took such isolated measures as they could; but the Dunkirkers were almost always too nimble to be caught. “They take ships,” wrote the commander of a man-of-war convoying the Iceland fishing fleet, “and we in sight and cannot come up to help it.” The duty and expense of providing convoys to protect the fishermen were thrown on the fishing ports and the counties. In 1627 the Council ordered four Newcastle ships to be taken up for eight months, to convoy the Iceland fleet, at a cost of ￡1768, to be paid out of the “loans” in Suffolk. The estimate in the following year for a guard of four merchant ships, of 400 tons each, with 120 men for one month in harbour and 240 men for six months at sea, was ￡4399; and the Council in authorising the Admiralty to “press, victual, arm, and man” the ships, instructed that if Yarmouth and the other towns wanted convoy in future they should first consult together as to some mode of levying monies for it, either upon the coast towns or upon the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. This was done, in part at least, by levying a contribution of twenty shillings from each fisherman; and fishermen also protected themselves by insuring their vessels in London against the risks of capture by the Dunkirk privateers. The owners and masters of the merchant ships thus pressed to act as guards to the fishing fleets were usually most unwilling to serve, and sometimes “utterly refused,” and the Admiralty had 249 to get an Order in Council to compel them.449 Provision of a guard for the east coast generally was attempted by levying a duty of two and five shillings a ton on all coal laden at Newcastle or Sunderland for English and foreign ports respectively.450

Equally impressive evidence of the lawlessness that then reigned on the sea, and of the inability to deal with it effectively, was furnished by the flagrant violation of English ports and roadsteads, by the Dutch as well as the Dunkirkers, who waged incessant war with one another. The herring-busses and merchant vessels of the former were frequently captured, rifled, and burned by the privateers, and when the commander of a Dutch man-of-war had a chance of destroying one of the pests, he was not always deterred from vengeance by the Dunkirker taking refuge in English waters; and in like manner the privateer did not scruple to pursue his prey into English ports and anchorages. Sometimes, indeed, the warfare was continued on English soil and the lives of the king’s lieges endangered. In 1634, for example, a Dunkirker chased a Hollander vessel into Yarmouth harbour and robbed her, and a lively fusillade went on between the Dutchmen, who had taken refuge on the pier, and the crew of the privateer, and one of the former was killed. As the Dunkirkers refused to stop their “furious assault,” the bailiffs ordered two of the town’s guns to be fired at them, “which they only scoffed at”; and when the marshal called upon them in the king’s name to desist and begone, they only “answered with unseemly gestures and scorn,” and they did not make off until a company of musketeers went down to them. But next day as the privateer was hovering off the coast, two States’ men-of-war bore down upon her and she ran for shelter to the beach near Lowestoft; but the Dutch followed, seized her, and carried 250 her off, the crew escaping to shore, where they were promptly arrested and lodged in Yarmouth jail.

A still more outrageous transgression of the neutrality of an English port took place in the following year, at the very time that Lindsey’s fleet was cruising in the Channel. A Dunkirker brought a Hollander buss into Scarborough harbour, and she was followed by a States’ man-of-war, which opened fire, and a fight both with cannon and muskets took place. The bullets, flying into the town, hit several of the citizens, and some strangers on the sands were also hurt, “to the amazement and discouragement of the whole town.” Twelve Dunkirkers were slain, and the rest only saved themselves by swimming ashore, while the man-of-war went off with both the privateer and the buss. A fortnight later another privateer was chased into the harbour by a Hollander man-of-war, which landed three or four score of men, armed with muskets and pikes, to set upon the Dunkirkers when the ship lay dry; and the Dutch captain only consented to re-embark them, on condition that the bailiffs of the town would themselves place a guard of fifty men to watch the privateer, so as to prevent any of the crew escaping.451

This glaring outrage on English soil caused the Council to arrest a Dutch man-of-war, to be held until the one that had committed the misdeed should be delivered up; for, said Windebank, it was a matter that concerned the king himself in point of honour and the safety of the kingdom, as an act of hostility, “little less than an invasion,” had been committed in landing armed men on his Majesty’s territories, “violating his imperial chamber and threatening his subjects.” Nevertheless, in the next month a like offence was committed at Blyth, when a Dutch man-of-war not only attacked a Dunkirk privateer lying in the harbour, but landed fifty men armed with muskets, who marched in military order nearly half a mile, “to the great terror of the inhabitants,” and by seizing the fishing-boats, captured the Dunkirker and took her away. Not only so, but thirty of the Hollanders, armed, and with trumpets, pursued the crew of the privateer on land for a distance of 251 two miles.452 There was a natural excuse for the violence of the Hollanders in these proceedings. They were exasperated by the immense havoc which the privateers had just committed on their herring-busses, by sinking or burning over 100 of them, the remainder of the fishing fleet escaping into Scottish and English harbours.453

This insecurity of the sea and the open and daring violation of English ports remind one of the conditions that too frequently prevailed in earlier centuries. The misdeeds must have been galling to Charles, for only a short time before he had issued a public proclamation with the object of putting a stop to them. In February 1633 Sir H. Marten, Judge of the High Court of Admiralty, along with the Attorney-General, had been instructed, in view of the war between Spain and the United Provinces, to draw up a regulation whereby “his Majesty’s ancient rights, honours, and sovereignty in the narrow seas and in the chambers and ports may be preserved, and the trade of the kingdom of England and Ireland secured.”454 In this regulation (which is printed in Appendix H) a claim to absolute dominion over the Four Seas was made. The king spoke of “that sovereignty and especial and peculiar interest and property which he and his predecessors, time out of mind, have had and enjoyed in the said seas, and so approved not only by the fundamental laws of this his kingdom, but by the acknowledgment and assent of the bordering princes and nations, as appeareth by undoubted records”—language which seems like an echo of Selden’s Mare Clausum. Moreover, in referring to the limits of the “King’s Chambers,” he continued: “Albeit his Majesty doth justly challenge sovereignty and property in all those his seas, far beyond the limits hereafter to be described, and might with like justice require 252 from all persons using those his seas a forbearance from injuries and all hostile actions, yet (in and through all the same) suddenly to tie the hands of his friends and allies in open hostility each with other, is not for some reasons held convenient at this time,” and therefore he would cause the bounds to be laid down within which he would yield peace and security to his friends and neighbours.455

Clearly, however, something more than a proclamation was required to ensure the security of the seas and the neutrality of the chambers and ports. As early as 1627 official proposals had been made to build thirty ships of a small class to guard the narrow seas, which might compete in swiftness with the privateers and freebooters infesting them,—a plan that was partly carried out by the building of the ten “Lion’s Whelps,” which, however, proved complete failures. An estimate was also procured for building eighteen ships and two pinnaces, at a cost of about ￡43,000, the estimated expense of the crews being ￡6100 per month.456 Various other schemes were considered, including one to form a fleet of forty armed Newcastle colliers, to be employed primarily in convoying the coal ships, but capable of being called off at any time for the king’s service. The want of money was the great obstacle to the formation of a strong fleet. The wages of the seamen and others employed were always in arrear,—at the end of 1627 the arrears amounted to ￡251,361,—and the victualling and furnishing of the ships afloat were of the worst possible description.457 The necessity of a fleet to maintain the dominion of the sea and defend the coasts was being constantly urged upon the king. The Attorney-General, Heath, in 1632, called attention to the truism that our strength and safety lay “in our walls, which is our shipping,” and he strongly recommended that a powerful fleet should be maintained because of the boldness of the Hollanders, and in order to preserve 253 the king’s prerogative in the fisheries in the British seas, as well as to secure the mastery of the narrow seas.458

Charles required no spur in a matter the importance of which he thoroughly understood, and he had private and personal reasons for wishing that a strong force should be placed on the sea. It was the family policy as to the restoration of the Palatinate that chiefly guided him. At the end of 1633 he entered into negotiations with Spain for an alliance against the Dutch, and in the following year a secret treaty was drafted and sent to Madrid (four days before the issue of the first ship-money writs) in which Charles undertook to provide a fleet, partly at the charge of the King of Spain, who was to advance a sum of ￡50,000 and help to recover the Palatinate for his nephew.459 It was intended that the fleet should co-operate with the Spaniards against the United Provinces; the ports of Flanders were to be freed from the blockade maintained by the Dutch, and Spanish vessels carrying soldiers and money for Dunkirk were to be protected by English ships; the mastery of the Dutch at sea was to be destroyed, the Republic was to be attacked and overthrown, and the country divided between the allies. The open avowal of such a policy would have been equivalent to making it almost impossible, for an alliance with Catholic Spain against the Protestant Republic was in the highest degree unpopular in England, and the fleet, moreover, was to be created by means of the ship-money writs. The negotiations had been carried on with the greatest secrecy; only three members of the Council (Portland, Cottington, and Windebank) were in the king’s confidence, the others remaining in ignorance. It was thus necessary to deceive them as well as the nation as to the object of equipping a fleet. The insecurity of the seas from the prevalence of piracy and the violations of English waters, referred to above, were put forward among the ostensible reasons to justify it. “The pretext of this arming,” it was distinctly stated in 1634, “shall be to secure the coasts of Great Britain and Ireland, and to free them from pirates and others that commit hostilities and insolencies 254 there.”460 To deceive the people by fears of invasion, owing to the “great preparations both by sea and land of the neighbouring princes,” orders were given to have the beacons along the coast examined; to muster and make ready the trained bands to join their colours at an hour’s warning; to enrol all untrained men between the ages of sixteen and sixty, so that levies of them might be made “on any sudden occasion.”461

Another reason put prominently forward to cloak the nefarious scheme was the need of maintaining the ancient sovereignty of the sea. While the Spanish negotiations were proceeding, Boroughs, as we shall see, had finished his treatise on the rights of the crown in the adjoining seas, and Selden was busy with his Mare Clausum. The language of the ship-money writs, sent out in October 1634, and the charge of Lord Coventry to the Judges, breathed the same spirit as these treatises. In the writs, which were founded upon extracts made by Boroughs from records of the times of Edward I., II., and III.,462 the king described how “thieves, pirates, and robbers of the sea” were “taking by force and spoiling the ships and goods and merchandises, not only of our subjects, but also of the subjects of our friends in the sea which hath been accustomed anciently to be defended by the English nation,” delivering the men into miserable captivity. The pirates, he said, were daily preparing all manner of shipping further to molest the merchants, unless a remedy was applied, and that in view also of the dangers menacing the realm “in these times of war,” it was necessary to hasten the defence of the sea and kingdom. Therefore, he continued, “We willing by the help of God chiefly to provide for the defence of the kingdom, safeguard of the sea, security of our subjects, safe conduct of ships and merchandises to our kingdom of England coming, and from the same kingdom to foreign parts passing; forasmuch as we and our progenitors, Kings of England, have been always heretofore masters of the aforesaid sea, and it would be very irksome unto us if that princely honour in our time should be lost or in anything diminished,” it was necessary for the sea-coast towns to furnish ships or 255 an equivalent in money.463 In similar language Coventry told the Judges in 1635 that the dominion of the sea, “as it was an ancient and undoubted right of the crown of England,” so was it the best security of the land, which was impregnable so long as the sea was well guarded; and that those subjects “whose minds are most fixed upon the honour of the king and country” would not endure that it should be either lost or diminished. The safety of the realm, he said, required the dominion of the sea to be kept and the sea guarded: “The wooden-walls are the best walls of the kingdom; and if the riches and wealth of the kingdom be respected, for that cause the dominion of the sea ought to be respected; for else what would become of our wool, lead, and the like, the price whereof would fall to nothing if others should be masters of the sea?” If the dominion of the sea was lost, trade and commerce would be lost by being placed at the mercy of the neighbouring nations, and the whole kingdom would suffer.464

In carrying out his Spanish policy, Charles’s first task was to deceive his Council.465 For this purpose no better agent could have been chosen than Coke, who, as we have seen, was by this time enthusiastic about the sovereignty of the seas, and was known to be hostile to Spain. He was accordingly directed to prepare a report for the king on the unsatisfactory relations between England and foreign countries, and the need of providing a fleet. In the long statement he drew up, Coke described how the credit of the country had been lowered abroad, and innumerable wrongs and insolences suffered in various parts of the world, because of the want of a sufficient navy to make our name respected. “All free trade,” he wrote, “is interrupted”; within the king’s own chambers squadrons of men-of-war from Biscay and Flanders took not only Hollanders, but Frenchmen, Hamburgers, and his Majesty’s subjects. From the Hollanders “we suffered most by their intrusion on our fishings and pretence of Mare 256 Liberum,” and they pursued and took prizes in our ports and rivers. But our trade and rights were injured everywhere,—from Constantinople and Morocco to Denmark and Sweden,—and Coke recommended that the navy should be reinforced in order that the king might obtain justice and “recover his undoubted right of sovereignty in all his seas.”466 Coke read his report to the Council in June 1634; the ship-money writs were issued in October; and in May next year the first of the “ship-money fleets” was ready and was placed under the command of the Earl of Lindsey, with special instructions to maintain the king’s sovereignty of the sea.

On the Continent the naval preparations of England were followed with close attention. As early as 1633, Joachimi, the States’ ambassador in London, informed his Government that the English were putting forth pretensions to be sole lords and masters of the narrow seas, and he earnestly advised the States to avoid everything which might give the English offence in their excitable condition, on a matter which they had so much at heart.467 An indication of the feeling prevailing in England was observed by the ambassador early in the year, for when he complained that Dutch vessels had been fired on from Portland Castle and then detained, he was told they had presumed to put up their flags in the face of the king’s colours flying on the walls.468 Next year the repeated complaints from England as to the violation of the King’s Chambers by Dutch vessels of war, and the seizure of one of them by the English in consequence of the attack at Scarborough, did not lessen the apprehensions that began to be entertained in Holland. Rumours circulated that the English fleet was being prepared for the purpose of waging war against the Republic, and the answer given by the English ambassador at The Hague to inquiries as to the 257 object of the fleet was not calculated to allay anxiety. In the spring of 1635, a little before the Earl of Lindsey hoisted his colours on the Merhonour, Coke wrote a long and resounding despatch to Boswell, the English ambassador at The Hague, explaining the reasons for the naval preparations. “First,” he said, “we hold it a principle not to be denied, that the King of Great Britain is a monarch at land and sea to the full extent of his dominions, and that it concerneth him as much to maintain his sovereignty in all the British seas as within his three kingdoms; because without that these cannot be kept safe, nor he preserve his honour and due respect with other nations. But, commanding the seas, he may cause his neighbours and all countries to stand upon their guard whensoever he thinks fit. And this cannot be doubted, that whosoever will encroach upon him by sea, will do it by land also when they see their time. To such presumption,” he added, “Mare Liberum gave the first warning-piece, which must be answered with a defence of Mare Clausum: not so much by discourses, as by the louder language of a powerful navy, to be better understood when overstrained patience seeth no hope of preserving her right by other means.” The innuendo against the United Provinces was still further developed. They had impeached the king’s dominion in his seas for a long course of years. They had been permitted to gather wealth and strength in our ports and on our coasts by trade and fishery, for which they had “sued to King James for license,” granted under the great seal of Scotland; and when they had possessed themselves of our fishings “by leave or by connivance,” and obtained a great trade by our staple, they so increased their shipping and naval power that now they would not endure to be kept at any distance. “Nay,” exclaimed Coke, “to such confidence are they grown, that they keep guard upon our seas,” and prohibit us free commerce within them; they take our ships and goods unless we conform to their placards. Besides all which, “what insolencies and cruelties” they have committed against us in the past, in Ireland, in Greenland, in the Indies, as known to all the world; care would be taken to refresh their memories on these wrongs “as there should be cause.” After a preamble of this sort one might expect 258 a declaration of war to follow. But the fleet, Coke continued, was neither for revenge nor for the execution of justice for past wrongs. It was primarily to put a stop to the “violent current of the presumption” of men-of-war and freebooters, who had abused the freedom allowed by the king to friends and allies to make use of his seas and ports, by assaulting one another within his Majesty’s chambers and in his rivers, “to the scorn and contempt of his dominion and power.” The king intended no rupture with any prince or state; he was “resolved to continue and maintain that happy peace wherewith God hath blessed his kingdom, and to which all his actions and negotiations have hitherto tended.” But that peace must be maintained by the arm of power, “which only keeps down war by keeping up dominion.” Therefore the king found it necessary, even for his own defence and safety, “to re-assume and keep his ancient and undoubted right in the dominion of these seas, and to suffer no other prince or state to encroach upon him, thereby assuming to themselves or their Admirals any sovereign command; but to force them to perform due homage to his Admirals and ships, and to pay them acknowledgments, as in former times they did. He would also set open and protect the free trade both of his subjects and allies, and give them such safe conduct and convoy as they shall reasonably require. He will suffer no other fleets or men-of-war to keep any guard upon these seas, or there to offer violence, or take prizes or booties, or to give interruption to any lawful intercourse. In a word,” Coke concluded, “his Majesty is resolved, as to do no wrong, so to do justice, both to his subjects and friends within the limits of his seas.”469

The substance of this bombastic despatch, in which Charles was fully displayed in his new figure as a Plantagenet, was communicated by Boswell in a memoir to the States-General, and their High Mightinesses must have rubbed their eyes as 259 they read it.470 But it at least removed their fears of immediate war. Explanations of similar tenour, but couched in more moderate language, were made to other Courts. The intentions of the king were declared to be quite peaceful, and stress was laid on the violations of the King’s Chambers, “to the great derogation of that dominion at sea which has always of right belonged to the Imperial crown of this kingdom”; the fleet was to free his coasts and seas from such disturbances, to secure free trade to his subjects and allies, and “to reduce his dominion upon the British seas to the ancient style and lustre.”471

Let us now turn to the fleet which was to carry out this grand programme and see what it actually accomplished. The ships began to assemble in the Downs in May, the Earl of Lindsey being appointed “Admiral, Custos Maris, Captain-General and Governor” of the fleet, with the veteran Sir William Monson as Vice-Admiral, and Sir John Pennington as Rear-Admiral. It consisted of nineteen of the king’s ships and five armed merchant vessels, making twenty-four in all;472 and though other ten royal ships which were being prepared to reinforce it were ultimately discharged, it was said by the common people that “never before had such a fleet been set out by England.” In the king’s commission appointing the Earl of Lindsey it was stated that he had thought fit, by the advice of his Council, to set forth to sea a navy as well for the defence and safety of his own territories and dominions as for the guard and safe-keeping of his seas, and of the persons, ships, and goods of his own subjects and of his friends and allies “trading by sea to and fro our dominions for commerce and trade, and other their just and necessary occasions, from those spoyles and 260 depredations committed at sea ... and for sundry reasons and considerations of state best known to ourselves.”473

In the official instructions from the Lords of the Admiralty, issued on the day after the secret agreement with Spain had been drawn up, the Earl was ordered principally to guard the narrow seas and the king’s subjects and allies trading through them, and so to dispose his ships that “all parts of the seas, as well from the Start westward as the rest of the Sleeve from the Start to the Downs, and from thence northward, might be secured from men-of-war, pirates and sea-rovers and of picaroons that interrupt the trade and commerce of his Majesty’s dominions.” It was to be his principal care to preserve the king’s honour, coasts, jurisdiction, territories, and subjects within the extent of his employment, “that no nation or people whatsoever intrude thereon or injure any of them.” If he met “in his Majesty’s seas” any fleet or ships belonging to any foreign prince or state, he was to expect that the admiral or chief of them, in acknowledgment of his Majesty’s sovereignty there, should perform “their duty and homage in passing by”; if they refused and offered to resist, he was “to force them thereunto, and to bring them in to answer this their high contempt and presumption according to law.” He was to suffer no dishonour to be done to the king or derogation to his power or sovereignty in those seas. If English ships so far forgot their duty as not to strike their top-sails in passing, the commanders were either to be punished on the spot or reported to the Admiralty, who would punish them exemplarily. When he met with foreign men-of-war or merchant vessels, either at sea or in any road “or other place,” he was to send to them to discover if any English subjects were serving on board; and if so he was “to cause them to be taken forth and committed,” to answer their contempt of the king’s proclamation forbidding such service, and also to caution the commander of the vessel in which they were found not to receive English subjects again; but the Earl was expressly forbidden to send any of his men on board the foreign vessels to search for English subjects.

The most remarkable part of the instructions issued to the first ship-money fleet referred to the hostilities between the ships of other nations, not merely in the King’s Chambers, but 261 throughout the narrow seas. “In this your Lordship’s employment,” wrote the Lords of the Admiralty, “you are not to permit or suffer any men-of-war to fight with each other, or men-of-war with merchant, or merchant with merchant, in the presence of his Majesty’s ships in any part of the Narrow Seas. But you are to do your best to keep peace in those seas for the freer and better maintenance of trade and commerce through the same, so that all men trading or sailing within those his Majesty’s seas do justly take themselves to be in pace Domini Regis. And therefore his Majesty in honour and justice is to protect them from injury and violence.”474

It is interesting to compare these instructions to Lindsey with those given earlier to Pennington as admiral of the fleet for the guard of the narrow seas. His private instructions from the Lords of the Admiralty in 1631 contained a clause regarding the homage of foreign vessels on meeting the king’s ships. He was to expect the admiral or chief, in acknowledgment of the king’s sovereignty in the narrow seas, “to strike their toppe sayles in passing by,” and if they refused he was to force them to do so; and in no wise suffer any dishonour to be done to his Majesty, or derogation to his sovereign power in those seas. At that time the efforts of Richelieu to create a French navy had caused some disquiet in England, and Pennington was also ordered to do his utmost, by spies and otherwise, to discover whether any considerable preparations were being made abroad.475 The instructions in 1631 appear to have represented the English pretensions so far as they were understood at the time. There was nothing about forbidding the hostilities of belligerents, as in Lindsey’s instructions. On the contrary, Pennington was told that if he saw any Hollanders and Dunkirkers in fight at sea he was to take no part with either, “but to pass by and leave them to their fortunes”; and he issued orders to his subordinates to that effect.476 In his 262 instructions in 1633 this clause was repeated, but in other respects they resembled those of Lindsey.477 The same duties were allotted to him in 1634, and he was specially charged to free the narrow seas of pirates and sea-rovers, and to prevent hostilities in the King’s Chambers. “If,” he was told, “any man-of-war, or other, in any of his Majesty’s roads, harbours, or coasts, shall offer any violence by unduly taking out any ships, vessels, goods or merchandise, of what nation soever, or commit any other insolency, you shall do your best to recover the same again from them, and reform the abuses, either by due admonition, or (if that will not serve) by bringing the offender to answer to justice, preserving by all means the honour of his Majesty from such insolencies (as much as in you lieth), having always a due regard to the amity between his Majesty, his friends and allies.”478

But a change took place, as we have seen, in the following year. Among the suggestions made by Pennington to the king, and repeated to the Admiralty, was one that any foreign ship attacked by another foreigner in the narrow seas might put herself under the protection of any of the king’s ships by coming under its lee, “in the same manner as under a castle on shore.”479 It was certainly a proposal as bold as it was brilliant. Ships of war have long been regarded by certain writers on international law as being essentially an extension of the territory of the state to which they belong; but no writer ever suggested that the water around them on the high sea should be looked upon as partaking of the same character. The sea round a king’s ship, within range of the guns on board, was to be a sanctuary like the waters of the King’s Chambers,—a sort of territorial girdle which it carried about with it like an aureole round the head of a saint. Pennington’s suggestion was considered by the Admiralty early in April 1634, and Nicholas, the Secretary, was instructed to confer with Sir 263 Henry Marten, the Judge of the Admiralty Court, with regard to it. Nicholas summed up his own views oracularly in the sentence, “If a merchant fly from men-of-war, it concerns the king’s ships to preserve trade.” Sir Henry Marten gave a clear opinion. “It is not fit,” he said, “nor honourable for the king’s ships appointed to guard the Narrow Seas to suffer any men-of-war to fight with each other, or men-of-war with merchants, or merchant with merchant, in the presence of the king’s ships within the Narrow Seas, for that the king’s ships are set forth to keep peace in those seas for the freer and better maintenance of trade and commerce through the same: and all men trading or sailing within the king’s seas do justly take themselves to be in pace Domini Regis; and since such are in pace Domini Regis, it doth concern the king in honour and justice to protect them from injury and violence.” The language of the first part of this statement is the same as in the regulation prepared a little before with respect to hostilities within the King’s Chambers (p. 251); but its purport went much further than the recommendation of Pennington, and in effect extended the protection afforded by the King’s Chambers, and the regulation applying to them, to the whole of the narrow seas.

The Admiralty approved of the opinion of Sir Henry Marten, and Nicholas was directed to embody it in Pennington’s instructions. Before doing so, however, it was deemed desirable to get the king’s own opinion, and he was asked by Windebank, at the instance of the Admiralty, whether Pennington should be instructed not to permit any man-of-war to fight in the narrow seas in the sight of his Majesty’s ships, while he commanded there as Admiral. Pennington had then only two ships and two “Whelps” under his command,—a force quite inadequate to enforce an innovation so revolutionary,—and Charles apparently did not think the time or circumstances fitting for it, for the Admiral’s instructions in 1634 were virtually the same as in 1633, except that the clause about passing by Dutch and Dunkirkers in fight and leaving them to their fortunes was omitted at the special request of Lord Cottington.480 But next year, when the imposing ship-money 264 fleet was ready, Sir H. Marten’s memorandum was inserted, almost verbatim, in the Earl of Lindsey’s official instructions.

In addition to the official instructions, the Earl received private commands from the king. In these the new doctrine as to the sovereignty of the seas received a new gloss, corresponding to the tenour of Coke’s despatch to Boswell, and they were clearly intended to embroil us with the Dutch Republic, as well as with France, and thus enable Charles to carry out his clandestine agreement with Spain. He was not to permit the warships of other states to keep guard, or commit acts of hostility, or take spoil or booty, “within his Majesty’s seas”; and it was also resolved that the fleet should be employed in forcing the Dutch herring-busses to take the king’s licenses for permission to fish, or in interrupting them in their fishing. It was a common practice for orders of this kind given to naval officers to be expressed in general or indefinite language, leaving to them the responsibility of applying them to specific cases according to their judgment and discretion. Both Pennington in the previous year, and the Earl of Northumberland in the following year, had to ask for further and more precise directions. So also did Lindsey now. He wrote to Charles on receipt of the royal commands, asking a number of questions. In the first place, he asked that the “bounds of his Majesty’s seas might be expressed”—a reasonable request, and one frequently made by naval officers. He was loftily told by Coke, who replied, that “his Majesty’s seas are all about his dominions, and to the largest extent of those seas,”—an answer not very illuminating, and of little use to the Admiral.481 His second question was whether the ships of the King of France, or the Archduke, or the Dutch States, might not “lie to and again” upon their own 265 coasts, as they have anciently done? To this the reply was that they might stay in their harbours or roads, or pass “to and again for trade,” but not otherwise. Then he asked whether the Dutch men-of-war might not lie before Dunkirk, “as they have been accustomed to do”? (in blockading the port, which belonged to Spain). For answer, he was curtly referred to his instructions. Then there was another disturbing suggestion: If no men-of-war were to be permitted “to lie in the King’s seas,” notice, he said, should be given of the fact by proclamation or otherwise. He was told that this was already done—the remark having reference, no doubt, to the despatches sent to foreign Governments. Finally, he inquired what he should “do with the herring fishers.” But the patience of Coke appears to have been exhausted, and no answer at all was given.482

It was obviously the intention of Charles to force a quarrel with France and the Dutch Republic on a point or points connected with the sovereignty of the sea, which might rouse popular enthusiasm in England and enable him to attempt to recover the Palatinate for his nephew, while ostensibly defending the national honour. But the punctilios and hesitation of Lindsey about the duties before him must have raised misgivings at Court as............