62 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEA 



ant in Europe. It attracted foreign fishermen in increasing 

 numbers, and gradually the Dutch came to take the leading 

 part in it, displacing the Flemings and the men from Normandy 

 and Picardy, and even to a large extent the English themselves. 

 In 1512 we find Margaret of Savoy appealing to Henry VIII. 

 to protect the fishermen of Holland, Zealand, and Friesland in 

 their herring fishery, in which they were menaced by the 

 Hanseatic towns, which were fitting out vessels to interrupt 

 them ; and in her letter she describes the herring fishery as the 

 principal support of these states. 3 Towards the end of the 

 century, when the Dutch had begun to call their herring fishery 

 on the British coast their "great gold mine," another event 

 occurred which tended still further to strengthen their hold on 

 it by opening fresh markets on the Continent. This was the 

 failure of the great Bohuslan fishery in Sweden, which con- 

 tinued barren for about seventy years. 2 They were also 

 enabled to prosper in their fishery by the beneficent policy of 

 the English sovereigns towards them up to the reign of James I., 

 when the claim to the exclusive fishing in the British seas was 

 put forward on behalf of the crown. 



When this claim was advanced in the seventeenth century, it 

 was argued that the sea fisheries had always belonged to the 

 crown. Selden declared that " license had usually been granted 

 to foreigners by the Kings of England to fish in the sea ; and 

 that the protection which the kings gave to fishermen, as in 

 their own territory, was an ancient and manifest evidence of 

 their maritime dominion." 3 The cases adduced in support of 

 that contention are singularly few and unconvincing. One is 

 the tax imposed by Richard II. in 1379 on fishing vessels, 

 among others, in the admiralty of the north, but which, if it 

 was imposed on foreign vessels at all, must have been done 

 with their consent (see p. 33). Another relates to the arrange- 

 ments which were occasionally made for " wafting " or guard- 

 ing the fishermen at the Yarmouth fishing, and for which the 

 fishermen thus protected had to pay, an arrangement which 



1 Brit. Mus. MSS. Galba, B. iii. 16. Henry apparently acceded to the request ; 

 vide " John Heron's accompte for waftynge of the herring fleete in the parties of 

 Norfolk and Suffolk, anno quarto R. Henrici VIII." State Papers, Foreign and 

 Domestic, Hen. VIII., i. 1512. 



2 Ljungman, Nagra ord om de stora Eohus-lanska Sttlfiskeri. 



3 Mare Clausum, lib. ii. c. xxi. 



