18 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEA 



meant the two arms of the sea passing respectively between 

 England and France, and England and Flanders, and corre- 

 sponding to one of the meanings of the Narrow Sea. 



The term, the Narrow Sea or the Narrow Seas, was applied 

 at different times or by different writers to very various areas. 

 In its original and more restricted sense it denoted the Straits 

 of Dover ; sometimes it signified only the southern sea or the 

 Channel proper ; at other times it included also the sea south 

 of the Wash and the Texel ; and yet again it was synonymous 

 with the whole of the British seas in which dominion was 

 claimed. In the political poem, The Libelle of Englyshe 

 Poly eye, which was written about 1436 with the object of 

 rousing the nation to the paramount duty of "keeping the 

 sea," the narrow sea is spoken of as lying between Dover 

 and Calais, 1 as it is also in the records of the Privy Council 

 for 1545, which mention the appointment of ships to "kepe 

 the passage of the Narrow Seas." - Later in the same century, 

 and very generally in the seventeenth century, it was used 

 to include the Channel, as when the Earl of Salisbury in 

 1609 referred to "his Majesties narrow seas between England 

 and France," 3 and likewise the sea off the Dutch coast ; 

 and at this period the Admiralty usually distinguished 

 between the guard of the Narrow Seas and that of the 

 North Sea. 



But in other cases, and very commonly in the seventeenth 

 century, the Narrow Sea was equivalent to the marginal sea 

 along the whole coast or to the " British Seas." Thus in one 

 of James's proclamations in 1604 for preventing abuses in and 

 about " the narrow seas," they are referred to as being 

 commonly called the four English Seas, and this was re- 

 peated in a proclamation of Charles I. in 1633. So also Lord 

 Chief Justice Hale in his treatise, De Jure, Maria, describes 

 the narrow sea, adjoining to the coast of England, as part 

 of the waste and demesnes and dominions of the King of 



1 " Thene here I ende of the comoditees 



Ffor whiche nede is well to kepe the sees ; 

 Este and weste, sowthe and northe they be ; 

 And chefely kepe the sharpe narowe see, 

 Betweue Dover and Caleise." 



2 Acts of the Priiry Council of England, N.S., i. 232, 242. 



3 Winwood's Memorials, Hi. 50. 



