EARLY HISTORY 45 



on either side during the truce or sufferance between us and 

 the said King of France, on the coasts of the sea of England 

 and other neighbouring coasts, and also towards Normandy 

 and other coasts of the sea more remote." 1 To these com- 

 missioners the following joint complaint or libel bears to have 

 been submitted on behalf of England and certain mariners of 

 other nations, charging one Reyner Grimbald or Grimaldi, a 

 Genoese who is known to have been at the time in command 

 of ships in the service of France operating against the Flem- 

 ings, with seizing their merchants and merchandise contrary 

 to the treaty at Paris : 2 



CONCERNING THE SUPREMACY OF THE SEA OF ENGLAND AND THE 

 EIGHT OF THE OFFICE OF ADMIRALTY IN THE SAME. S , 



To you the Lords Auditors deputed by the Kings of England and 

 of France to redress the wrongs done to the people of their kingdoms 

 and of other lands subject to their dominions by sea and by land in 

 time of peace and of truce The proctors of the prelates and nobles 

 and of the admiral of the sea of England 4 and of the commonalties 

 of cities and towns and of the merchants mariners messengers and 

 pilgrims and of all others of the said realm of England and of 

 other lands subject to the dominion of the said King of England 

 and elsewhere, as of the coast of Genoa, Catalonia, Spain, Almaigne^ 

 Zeeland, Holland, Friesland, Denmark, and Norway, and of several 

 other places of the Empire do declare, That whereas the Kings of 

 England by right of the said kingdom, from a time whereof there is 

 no memorial to the contrary, had been in peaceable possession of the 



1 Selden, op. cit., lib. ii. c. xxvii., quoting from Rot. Pat., 31 Edw. I., m. 16, 

 which reads as follows: "Des enterprises, mesprises, et forfaitz en Treue ou en 

 Sufferance, entre nous et le dit Roi de Fraunce, dune part et dautre, es costeres de 

 la iner Dengleterre et autres per decea et ausint per deuers Normandie et autres 

 costeres de la mer per de la." 



- The King of France ordered John de Pedrogue, a celebrated seaman of Calais, 

 to collect a fleet there and proceed with it to Holland against the Count of Flanders, 

 who had invested Zierikzee. Included in the fleet were eleven Genoese galleys^ 

 under Reyner de Grimaldi, who was given the chief command by Philip, with the 

 title of " Admiral," John de Pedrogue acting under him. Nicolas (op. cit., i. 373) 

 gives a description of the fight. 



3 The translation, for which I am indebted to Miss E. Salisbury, is from 

 membrane 12. 



4 The expression is also used in a document of 1297, when Lord William de 

 Leybourne is described as "Admiral of the sea of the said King of England." 

 Fadera, i. 861. 



