EARLY HISTORY 35 



tioned the king to levy an impost on all foreign ships passing 

 through the Channel, in emulation, no doubt, of the practice 

 of the Danish kings at the Sound. It was a few years after 

 the battle of Agincourt, and the Treaty of Troyes, by which 

 Henry was recognised as the future king of France, had just 

 been concluded. " The Commons pray," ran the petition, " that 

 seeing our Sovereign Lord the King and his noble progenitors 

 have ever been Lords of the Sea, and now by the grace of God 

 it has come to pass that our said Lord the King is Lord of the 

 shores on both sides of the sea, such tribute should be imposed 

 on all strangers passing through the said sea, as may appear 

 reasonable to the King for safeguarding the said sea." l The 

 answer of the king was that he would consider it (soit avise 

 par le Roy), the usual formula of refusal. In the following 

 year Henry was again involved in war with France, and he 

 died in 1422 and nothing more was heard of the proposal. 

 But it is extremely doubtful if he or any other English king 

 would have ventured to adopt the policy recommended by 

 the Commons. The shipping that passed through the Channel 

 was far more voluminous and important than that passing 

 through the Sound, and the waterway could not be so easily 

 commanded, as by guns from the shore. Any measure of the 

 kind would doubtless have led to a combination of other mari- 

 time Powers against England, which would have been fatal to 

 the attempt. It may be noted that the Parliament based their 

 proposal on the king's possession of both shores ; and this, in 

 accordance with the opinions of the Italian lawyers of the 

 preceding century, whose authority was great, carried with 

 it the right of sovereignty over the intervening sea. 



The statement in the petition that the kings of England 

 had ever been lords of the sea is true at least to the extent 

 that on several occasions previously the title was applied 

 to them, and this was usually at times when they possessed 

 actual supremacy and mastery over the seas in a special manner, 



1 A.I). 1420, Rot. Purl., iv. 126. "Item, priount les ditz Communes, que par 

 1'ou noatre tres soverain seignour le Roy et ses nobles progenitnura de tout temps 

 uunt estc Beignoure del meer, et ore par la grace de Dieu eat venuz que nostre dit 

 seignour le Roy eat seigneur deu coetes d'ambeparties del meer d'ordeigner que 

 eur toutz estraungera passautz parmye le dit meer tiel imposition a 1'oeps noptre 

 dit seiguour le Roy apprendre qui a luy seinblera resonable, pur la salve garde del 

 dit meer." 



