A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



Sluys as well as along the coast, and the descent was expected to be made in the estuary of the 

 Orwell. Therefore in September two knights were appointed to survey the harbour and the neigh- 

 bourhood where a landing might be effected, as, wrote the king, he had information that the French 

 and their allies intended to land in that district. 1 Charles VI had proposed to invade in August ; 

 as no counter-preparation, not even the preliminary general arrest of shipping, was made here 

 until September it was fortunate that several causes disorganized the French design. 



Hostilities with France ceased in 1389, and for some years maritime commerce suffered only 

 its normal afflictions, for, although official peace existed, private war always continued. No 

 declaration of war came from cither side during the reign of Henry IV, but conditions at sea 

 differed nothing from actual belligerency. In consequence of this state of things, not only the 

 ports but many of the inland towns were ordered on 11 January, 1400-1, to build and equip ships, 

 singly or in combination, at their own cost by the following April ; Ipswich was to provide one 

 balinger, and Kirkley and Goseford, jointly, another. 3 Parliament met on 23 January and 

 protested against the proceeding and Henry's position was too uncertain to permit him, as he might 

 have done, to insist on the strict legality of his action. A general arrest of shipping in 1 40 1 

 applied, in Suffolk, only to Ipswich and Goseford ; two years earlier 3 there is a reference to Dunwich 

 as having been 'in great part destroyed' in 1357, and probably, although the smaller ports were 

 prospering by the fishery, they had not, from the nature of their trade, vessels large enough to be 

 of use for military purposes. The deep-sea fisheries, too, must have been in existence for some 

 time, for in 141 5 proclamation was made at Ipswich, among other places, that for a year there was 

 to be no fishing in Danish or Iceland waters 'aliter quam antiquitus fieri consuevit.' 4 In 1379 

 sixpence a ton convoy money was levied from herring boats by the week, but from 'other fishers' 

 only at the rate of twopence a week. 6 



In 1402 the French raided the Essex coast, which was perhaps the reason why a king's ship, 

 the Katberine of the Tower, was lying in Orwell Haven from May to October of that year. 6 Shortly 

 before then six Suffolk nobles had promised the king each to provide a ship with a sufficient number 

 of seamen, forty archers and twenty men-at-arms, two others undertook to provide a vessel between 

 them, and three more each the half cost of a ship with ten men-at-arms and twenty archers. 7 

 How or where, if the promises were fulfilled, these vessels were used is not known, but the east 

 coast was in much more peaceful condition than the south during the early years of the reign of 

 Henry IV. The Patent Rolls are full of details of piracies committed by the men of the southern 

 ports, while the east coast towns seldom appear as accused, Goseford and Bawdsey in 1404 being 

 the solitary representatives for Suffolk. A squadron of Spanish galleys in French pay wintered in 

 the French ports in 1 405, and in the spring of 1406 the commanders arranged a raid in the Orwell, 

 but a sudden gale drove them away when they were lying off the estuary. In the same year the 

 safeguard of the sea was committed on terms to a syndicate of merchants and shipowners, who 

 were given large powers, including authority to impress ships. No doubt they took up some in 

 Suffolk, although we have no details of their proceedings, but, as might have been expected, the 

 plan failed and in December the king resumed his responsibilities. Henry proposed going to 

 Guienne in 141 1, therefore in September there was a general arrest of every vessel of thirty tons 

 and upwards throughout England. In the following April the south-eastern portion of Suffolk — 

 Ipswich, Bawdsey, Colneys, Erwarton,and Harwich 8 — was directed to provide a hundred mariners 

 as against thirty from Essex and a hundred from Kent ; 9 this may perhaps, but not certainly, be a 

 measure of the relative maritime importance of the counties. 



To crush privateering and piracy Henry V, in 141 4, instituted officials in every port called 

 conservators of truces who, assisted by two legal assessors and holding their authority from the High 

 Admiral, were to have power of inquiry and punishment concerning all guilty of illegal proceedings 

 at sea. They were to keep a register of the ships and seamen belonging to each port, and acted as 

 adjudicators in such cases as did not go before the admiralty court. 10 They seem, so far as related 

 to judicial functions, to have been a link on the civil side between the earlier keepers of the coast 

 and the vice-admirals of the coast created in the sixteenth century. That the statute was strictly 

 enforced and helped to keep a little peace at sea is shown by the fact that two years later the king 

 consented to some modification of its stringency by promising to issue letters of marque when 

 equitable. In 1435 it was entirely suspended, being found 'so rigorous and grievous,' said the 

 Commons, taking advantage of a weak rule; in 145 1 it was brought into force again for a sJiort 

 time, and once more renewed by Edward IV. 



Henry V began his reign with the intention of having a great fleet of his own. The custom 

 of general impressment was now expensive both to the shipowner and the crown, slow and inefficient, 



1 Pat. 10 Rich. II, pt. 1, m. 29. ' Rymer, Foedera, viii, 172. ' Pat. 1 Hen. IV, pt. 5, m. 34. 



* Rymer, Foedera, ix, 322. s Rot. Pari, v, 138. 



s Exch. Accts. Q. R. bdle. 43, No. 7. ' Prot. of P. C. (first ser.), i, 106 (9 Feb. 1400-1). 



6 Sic. 9 Rymer, Foedera, viii, 730. " 2 Hen. V, cap. 6. 



208 



