64 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEA 



ment made by Camden about 1586, 1 and by Hitchcock some 

 years earlier, 2 that the Hollanders and Zealanders before they 

 began to fish for herrings off the east coast of England, first, 

 " by ancient custom, asked leave of Scarborough Castle " ; " for," 

 adds Camden, " the English have always given them leave to 

 fish, reserving the honour to themselves, and resigning, as if 

 from slothfulness, the benefit to strangers." Neither Hitchcock 

 nor Camden quotes any authority for the statement. Scar- 

 borough Castle was in early times an important stronghold on 

 the north-east coast, and it is not unlikely that foreign fisher- 

 men, who were frequently at the port, found it to their interest 

 to maintain friendly relations with the governor, and gave 

 notice of their arrival, or perhaps asked leave to dry their nets 

 and paid for the privilege. It was the practice for the governor 

 to levy dues, in kind, on fish brought ashore, for Edward III., 

 in 1347, ordered writs of attachment to lie against those who 

 during the fishing season sold their fish at sea instead of bring- 

 ing them to the town, thus defrauding the Castle of its dues. 

 Another instance, which was frequently made use of in negotia- 

 tions later with the Dutch on the question of the fishery, was 

 an alleged lease for twenty-one years granted by Queen Mary 

 to her husband Philip II. of Spain, by which his subjects 

 received licenses to fish on the Irish coasts. The first trace of 

 this story is found in a memorandum addressed to Lord Salis- 

 bury in 1609 by one Richard Rainsford, an agent for a fishery 

 company, 3 in which it is said that 1000 per annum had been 

 paid into the Irish Exchequer by Philip for the privilege, and 

 that Sir Henry Fitton, the son of the treasurer at the time, could 

 substantiate the statement "on oath if need is." No year is 

 mentioned by any of those who put forward this story, 4 and no 

 record of it is referred to. If not entirely apocryphal, and 

 invented as an argument against the Dutch, who were subjects 

 of Philip in the early part of his reign, it was probably con- 

 structed on a very slender basis. 



There is, however, one interesting case, or series of cases, in 



1 Britannia, Gough's edition, ii. 248. 



2 A Pollitique Platt, &c. 3 State Papers, Dom., James I., xlviii. 94. 



4 Malines, Lex Mercatoria, 189, from whom Selden quotes it, with the remark, 

 4 ' There are some also who affirm that the King of Spain, " &c. Mare Clausum, 

 ii. c. xxx. It is also given by Boroughs and other writers. 



