MARITIME HISTORY 



and 1440 sailed from Poole. Seeing that the lists represent only a portion, 

 large or small, of the merchant marine, they show that notwithstanding war 

 and weak government it was still flourishing, a few of the vessels being of 

 300 and 400 tons. None of this size came from Dorset ; the largest, of 180 

 tons, belonged to Weymouth, and four others were also owned there, including 

 one of 100 and one of 120 tons. There were six Poole ships, of which the 

 largest was of 160 tons and the next of 120 tons ; Swanage sent one vessel of 

 26 tons. 



Sea-power played no great part in the wars of the Roses, both parties 

 enjoying freedom of water transit. As a whole the ports were Yorkist in 

 their sympathies, and the Weymouth people had so far impressed Edward IV 

 with their affection for him that in 1461 he made them a grant of jTioo in 

 recompense of the losses they had sustained in supporting him.°' Almost 

 simultaneously there was a pardon to Lyme — which, as usual, was pleading 

 devastation by the sea — of arrears due to the crown, therefore that town also 

 may be assumed to have been Yorkist in inclination." Margaret, with the 

 Prince of Wales, landed at Weymouth, driven in by weather, on 14 April, 

 1 47 1, the day the battle of Barnet was fought, but she probably received 

 scant welcome for Weymouth was still in favour with Edward and receiving 

 benefits from him in 1467.'' There were several arrests of ships in 1475 for 

 the French war ; one of them, from Newcastle to Bristol, must be almost, if 

 not quite, the last example of a general arrest affecting the whole country. 

 In October, 1484, Henry Tudor sailed from Brittany to join the duke of 

 Buckingham, who had revolted against Richard III. Henry's fleet was 

 scattered by storm ; he made Poole in his own ship, but was too wary to be 

 enticed ashore among the enemies waiting for him. Neither Dorset nor any 

 other county has much maritime history during the reign of Henry VII. 

 The king was not ignorant of the value of sea-power, and he increased the 

 crown navy, but his reign was peaceful and he preferred, for political reasons, 

 to hire Spanish ships to act with his own where his predecessors would have 

 used English ones. In relation to Dorset the most important event of the 

 reign, although unrecognized at the time, was Cabot's Newfoundland voyage 

 which, as the first cause of the fishery, was to have a far-reaching influence 

 on the fortunes of Weymouth and Poole. 



During these centuries there must have been many wrecks on the deadly 

 Chesil beach, on Portland, and in the scarcely less dangerous bay between 

 Portland and Durlstone Head. They do not appear in the records for, unless 

 a cargo was of more than ordinary value, the time and money necessary to set 

 in motion the cumbrous processes of the crown must have been prohibitive of 

 appeal when survivors had seen their property shared among the landowners 

 in the vicinity of the wreck. The right of wreck was coveted by manorial 

 lords and corporations, both for profit and as evidence of exemption from the 

 inquisition of the High Admiral. Legally, if man, dog, or cat escaped alive 

 from a ship it was no wreck, but if the cargo once came into the hands of 

 those ashore there was small chance of recovery. Every corporation used such 

 influence as it possessed to obtain local jurisdiction in admiralty matters, not 

 only as a question of dignity and profit but even more in order to escape the 

 arbitrary and expensive proceedings of the Lord Admiral's deputies, who 



** Pat. I EJw. IV, pt. iv, m. 20. *' Ibid. pt. iii, m. 10. '' Ibid. 6 Edw. IV, pt. ii, m. 13. 



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