THE FISHERIES 77 



sequently. 1 These early agreements contain no provision about 

 the fisheries, and nothing to indicate a desire on the part of the 

 Scottish king or people to allow fishermen from the Low 

 Countries to fish in the adjacent waters. The feeling of the 

 coast population towards the foreigners was usually jealous and 

 aggressive ; attacks by the one and reprisal by the other were 

 of frequent occurrence, especially in the fifteenth and sixteenth 

 centuries. The Earl of Holland complained in 1410 that the 

 Scots had attacked the fishermen of that province " when they 

 went to sea to catch herrings in their fishing vessels and to 

 gain their living like honest men " ; and by way of reprisal he 

 gave permission to the people of Brouershaven to attack and 

 injure their "enemies," the Scots, wherever they could find 

 them, on sea or land. 2 There is much testimony to show that 

 in those times the Scottish fishermen were of a fierce and force- 

 ful disposition, and little inclined to tolerate the intrusion of 

 foreign fishermen within what they claimed as their " reserved 

 waters," that is, the firths and bays and a distance along the 

 coast described as " a land kenning," which extended to fourteen 

 miles or to twenty-eight miles from the shore. An indication 

 of their treatment of those who intruded is afforded by a 

 story told in one of the English State Papers on the authority 

 "of the old Bishop of Ross, who came in with King James 

 to England." He said that in the time of King James V. 

 (A.D. 1513 - 1542) the Hollanders, who had only a verbal 

 license to fish at twenty-eight miles off, came near the shore 

 within the mouth of the Firth of Forth, "and there fished 

 in despite of the king's command." James thereupon set out 

 men-of-war and took so many of them that " he sent a baril ful 

 of their heads into Holland, with their names fixed to their 

 foreheads on cards," as a warning to their fellows. 3 This tale 



1 Fcedera, ii. 529, 545. Mieris, Groot Charterboek der Graaven van HMand, &c., 

 ii. 268 ; iii. 257 ; iv. 223, 378, 692, 816. Klult, Historice Federum Bdgii Federati, 

 284. Yair, An Account of the Scotch Trade in the Netherlands, 6, 27, 36. 



2 Mieris, op. cit., iv. 146. About this time the Scots also did their best to drive 

 away English fishermen from their coasts. In 1400 they fitted out a small fleet 

 under Sir Robert Logan for this purpose, but it was apparently insufficient, and 

 Logan himself was captured by the men of Lynn. Walsingham, Hist. Anglicana, 

 364. In 1420 complaint was made to the English Parliament that the Scots had 

 at divers times attacked and taken English fishing vessels. Rot. Purl, , iv. 1 27a. 



3 State Papers, Dom., Charles I., clii. 63. See p. 218. 



