CHAPTER III. 



UNDER THE TUDORS. 



THE policy of freedom of commercial intercourse, navigation, 

 and fishery which was enunciated in the Intercursus Magnus 

 and the treaties which preceded it, was faithfully observed 

 throughout the sixteenth century. No attempt was made by 

 any of the Tudor sovereigns to interfere with the liberty 

 which foreigners enjoyed of fishing on the English coast ; nor 

 was any claim put forward by them to the dominion or lord- 

 ship of the surrounding seas. On the contrary, throughout the 

 greater part of the century, facilities were given for the peace- 

 ful exercise and encouragement of sea-fishing, even in time of 

 war; while on several occasions the last and greatest of the 

 monarchs of the Tudor line actively contested the old preten- 

 sions of Denmark to the sovereignty of the northern seas, and 

 the more recent claims of Spain and Portugal to the exclusive 

 right of navigating the great oceans. It was nevertheless dur- 

 ing this century that changes occurred which made it easy for 

 James early in the next to initiate a new policy of tnare 

 clausum, and to repudiate the provisions of the so-called 

 Burgundy treaties. The most important of these changes was 

 perhaps the decay which overtook the sea fisheries. Apart 

 from their commercial and economic value, the fisheries were 

 looked upon as indispensable for the maintenance of maritime 

 power, and probably at no previous time had greater efforts 

 been made to foster maritime power than under the Tudors. 

 The hardy fishermen who navigated their barks to distant seas 

 to Iceland, to Wardhouse, round the North Cape, and now 

 to Newfoundland were trained in a school of seamanship 

 which fitted them admirably to take their place for the naval 

 defence of the country. Even the herring-smacks and the 



