70 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEA 



confirmed at Amiens by John, Duke of Burgundy, in 1417, 

 in the reign of Henry V. 1 



The various fishery truces and conventions of Henry IV., 

 which were made at a time when great insecurity prevailed 

 on the sea and depredations were committed on all hands, 

 reflect credit on that able monarch, and notwithstanding the 

 naval weakness in the early part of his reign, they must have 

 had a favourable influence in fostering the sea fisheries. The 

 sort of treatment that fishermen in those times had frequently 

 to undergo is indicated in a complaint made to the king in 1410 

 that, notwithstanding the fishery truce with France, the men of 

 Harfleur had seized an English fishing vessel of twenty-four 

 tons, Le Cogge Johan de Briggewauter, and had thrown the 

 master and fourteen of the crew into prison, without food and 

 water, and held them to ransom for a hundred pounds. 2 Such 

 occurrences were by no means uncommon, and it was customary 

 for fishing vessels to go to sea armed, 3 a provision which also 

 enabled them on occasion to do a little piracy on their own 

 account. It was sometimes difficult for the authorities to 

 decide whether a vessel provided with fishing-lines and armed, 

 as some were, with "minions, falcons, and falconettes," and 

 having a good store of powder and bullets, had been equipped 

 to catch fish or prey upon other vessels. 



It does not appear that any treaty concerning liberty of 

 fishing was made in the warlike reign of Henry V. (1413-1422) ; 

 but, as stated above, this king confirmed the Burgundy treaty 

 in 1417. In the succeeding reign of Henry VI., in 1439, a 

 treaty was concluded for three years with Isabel of Portugal, 

 as representing her husband, Philip, Duke of Burgundy, which 

 provided for liberty in fishing in much the same language as 

 in the treaty of Henry IV. It was stipulated that all the 

 fishermen of England, Ireland, or Calais, as well as of Brabant 

 and Flanders, should be free to go all over the sea for fishing, 

 without any hindrance or molestation on either side, and that 

 they should have free access to the ports of either, under the 



1 Pcedera, ix. 483. 2 Rot. Part., iii. 643J. 



* Pikes and bows and arrows were used. Later, in the early part of the seven- 

 teenth century, a regular part of the equipment of a herring-buss was half-pikes 

 and muskets, an estimate for one being ten half-pikes, 1 ; muskets with banda- 

 leers, rests, and moulds, 6, with 6 Ib. of gunpowder and 6 Ib. of leaden bullets. 





