102 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEA 



Plowden, an eminent lawyer, acting as counsel in a case con- 

 cerning the rights on a manor to wreck of the sea, argued for 

 the defendant that " the bounds of England " extended to the 

 middle of the adjoining sea which surrounded the realm, but 

 that the Queen had the exclusive jurisdiction on the sea between 

 England and France by reason of her title to France, and so 

 also with Ireland ; whereas in other places, as towards Spain, 

 she had only the moiety. It was the same, said Plowden, with 

 the sea as with great rivers. But while Plowden allowed the 

 "jurisdiction and governance of all things" to the Queen on the 

 sea within the limits stated, he denied to her the right of 

 property in it or in the land under it ; it was common to all 

 men, and she could not prohibit any one from fishing in it ; the 

 water and the land under it were things of no value, and " the 

 fish are always removable from one place to another." l 



Dee adopted the same opinion as to the limits, but held, 

 as we have seen, that the fisheries were appropriated. The 

 boundaries of the Queen's "peculiar seas," he said, were "in 

 all places to be accounted directly to the myddle seas over 

 betweene the sea-shores of her own kingdom (and of all petty 

 Isles to the same kingdom appertayning) and the opposite sea- 

 shores of all forrein princes : and in all seas lying immediately 

 betweene any two of her own coasts or sea-shores, the whole 

 breadth of the seas over (in such places) is, by all reason of 

 justice, appropriate to her peculiar jurisdiction and sea roy- 

 alty," even if the distance in such cases were 1000 miles or 

 more. 2 On the other hand, according to Dee, neighbouring 

 countries were to be allowed the same rights and interests in 

 the moiety of the sea appropriate to their coasts. 



1 Sir John Constable's case. Moore, Hist. Foreshore, 225, from Hargrave MSS., 

 15, fol. 95d. In the case for the crown the claim to the sea is very briefly put : 

 " Car quant est floud est parcel del mere que est solement en le Roign et netny 

 en ascun subject ; car est pur passage pur chescun, mes owner de ceo nul si non le 

 Roign." Anderson, Les Reports du Treserudite, i. 86. (ed. 1664). In a MS. in 

 the Cottonian collection (Galba, C. 11, "Acta inter Angliam et Belgium, 1564- 

 1567 ") it is said the jurisdiction of the Prince in the adjoining sea extends for a 

 distance of 100 miles unless (1) in seas lying between the territories of two princes 

 which contain less than a hundred miles, in which case it extends to the mid-line 

 usq' ad media eiusdem maris extenditur ; (2) where another prince has a right 

 to the whole sea. The authorities referred to are Bartolus, Angelus, Paulus de 

 Castro, and Joan de Platea. 



2 Op. cit., 21. 



