The Sovereignty of the Sea

ded it, was faithfully observed throughout the sixteenth century. No attempt was made by any of the Tudor sovereigns to interfere with the liberty w

nitiate 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, a

y 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

ear 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

rivy 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 mor

and, 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

. 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 fi

ngs 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 othe

nd 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 ot

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 magistrat

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 fish

e 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.

th 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

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 abou

he 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 comp

esentation of the Englis

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 a

ithin 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

nions 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, a

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, approp

nasmuch 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,"

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 th

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 sta

tic 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 th

lained 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 fr

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

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

ad 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 Westmo

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 fa

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 Ir

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 s

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 treati

y 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

ong 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, a

uring 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 so

ers 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 succeede

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

f 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