28 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEA 



Birch, 1 from which it appears that Edgar claimed to be, not lord 

 of the sea, but of the islands in the sea. 2 This is the version 

 given by Sir John Boroughs in his Sovereignty of the British 

 Seas, and it is also mentioned by Selden. But, after all, the 

 authenticity of the preamble of this charter is not well estab- 

 lished. Kemble marks it as doubtful, a view supported by 

 intrinsic evidence as to an imaginary conquest of Ireland. 

 Thorpe is of opinion that the preamble was fabricated about 

 1155, when Henry II., in concert with Pope Adrian IV., 

 was meditating the conquest of that island. It may there- 

 fore be concluded that King Edgar's assumption of maritime 

 sovereignty had its source in a monkish fable, although he 

 may have possessed the actual command of the sea in his 

 time. Later on, the supposed role of Edgar among the Anglo- 

 Saxon kings was a common argument for the English claims. 

 He was looked upon as a sort of patron saint of the doctrine 

 that the kings of England were lords of the sea. Charles I. 

 put his effigy on the beak of his great ship, the Sovereign 

 of the Sea, and inscribed his name in a motto on her guns. 

 Oliver Cromwell, too, quoted his exploits to the Dutch ambas- 

 sador in the course of the negotiations after the first war with 

 Holland. 



It is not to the Anglo-Saxon period of our history that we 

 must look for the origin of the claims of England to the 

 sovereignty of the sea, even in a purely military sense. At 

 that time, for at least three centuries before the Norman 

 Conquest, the Northmen and not the English were the real 

 lords and masters of the sea. They offered an example of 

 what is now so much spoken of as the influence of sea-power 

 on history that is unsurpassed in later annals. Their leaders 

 were styled sea-kings for the best of reasons. Their fleets 

 darkened every coast from within the Arctic circle to the 

 furthermost bounds of the Mediterranean. Through their 

 command of the sea they took permanent possession of the 

 larger part of England ; they penetrated almost every great 

 river in Europe the Elbe, the Schelde, the Rhine, the Seine ; 

 they formed settlements from Friesland to Bordeaux; they 

 discovered and planted colonies in Iceland (A.D. 861), Greenland 



1 Cartularium Saxonicum, iii. 377. 



2 "Insularum oceani qua; Brytanniam circumjacent." 



