

UNDER THE STUARTS: JAMES I.: A NEW POLICY 119 



made to such a maritime sovereignty as was claimed by 

 Charles I. l The measures referred to were in relation to 

 neutrality in the war which continued between the United 

 Provinces and Spain, James having promptly concluded peace 

 with the latter Power. He issued a number of proclamations 

 referring to privateering and depredations at sea, most of them 

 being conceived in the interests of Spain ; and in one of these, 

 for the recall of British mariners in foreign service, dated 

 1st March 1604, the king forbad hostilities within his ports, 

 havens, roads, creeks, or other places of his dominions, or so 

 near to any of his ports or havens as might be reasonably con- 

 strued to be within that title, limit, or precinct, as well as the 

 hovering of men-of-war in the neighbourhood of such places ; 

 and he caused " plats " of the limits of his ports and jurisdiction 

 to be prepared for the instruction of his officers concerned. 2 



Long before the time of James the harbours, roadsteads, and 

 at all events some of the bays of a country were recognised as 

 belonging to it, in the sense at least that hostilities of belliger- 

 ent men-of-war or the capture of prizes were forbidden within 

 them ; they were " sanctuaries " under the jurisdiction and 

 protection of the adjoining territory. With regard to the 

 English Chambers, we find that in the treaty which Cardinal 

 Wolsey drew up in 1521, when acting as mediator between the 

 Emperor Charles V. and King Francis I. of France, it was 

 stipulated that during the war between these two sovereigns, 

 the ships, whether armed or unarmed, as well as the mariners, 

 of either side should be secure from attack by the other Power 

 in the harbours, bays, rivers, mouths of rivers, roads or stations 

 for shipping, and especially in the Downs or other maritime 

 place under the jurisdiction of the King of England. 3 There is 



1 An undated State Paper, calendared under the year 1604, entitled "Reglement 

 for Preventing Abuses in and about the Narrow Seas," contains a claim by the 

 king to a most absolute dominion over the Four Seas (State Papers, Dom., James, 

 xi. 40). It appears, however, to be merely a copy of the similar regulation pre- 

 pared in 1633 by Sir Henry Martin (see p. 252). It is not contained in the volume 

 of royal proclamations published in 1609, and is not referred to by Selden. It has 

 no doubt been wrongly calendared. 



2 It is given in Appendix D, from A Booke of Proclamations, published, since the 

 beginning of his Majesties most happy Reigne ouer England, &c., Vntill this present 

 Moneth of Febr. 3, Anno. Dom. 1609. Cum Priuilegio, p. 98. 



3 " Item, conventum et conclusum est, quod, dicto bello durante, nullus subditus 

 principum pnedictorum, intra portus et sinus maris quoscumque, flumina, ostia 



