108 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEA 



when she was asserting the freedom of the seas against the 

 claims of Spain she was claiming for herself, " with very great 

 energy," a similar dominion in the British seas. 1 The charge 

 is quite unfounded. No claim was put forward by her to 

 the sovereignty of the British seas. On the contrary, they 

 were declared to be free for the navigation and fishery of all 

 nations. 



The policy of Elizabeth as to the freedom of the sea is 

 revealed still more clearly in the negotiations with the King 

 of Denmark as to the right of fishery at Iceland and in the 

 northern seas. Denmark claimed not only the Sound and the 

 Belts and the maritime dominion of the Baltic, with the right 

 of controlling the navigation through them, but also the seas 

 intervening between the coasts of Norway on the one hand 

 and Iceland and Greenland on the other. A similar claim was 

 made to the sea between Norway and the Orkney and Shetland 

 Isles, at all events prior to 1468, when they were acquired by 

 Scotland. Putting aside altogether the differences that arose 

 with regard to the dues exacted at the Sound and in con- 

 nection with the Baltic, a great many disputes had occurred 

 between England and Norway and Denmark as to the right 

 of Englishmen to trade and fish at Iceland and along the 

 Norwegian coast, and many treaties were made between the 

 two Powers regulating that right. From an early period 

 numerous barks from Lynn, Yarmouth, Hull, Scarborough, 

 and other east coast ports, and from Bristol, frequented the 

 northern seas for fishing and buying fish, and for traffic, 

 visiting not only Iceland, but Helgeland, Nordland, and Fin- 

 mark, and going at least as far east as Wardhouse or Vardo. 

 In 1415 Henry V., at the request of King Eric, and notwith- 

 standing an earnest petition of the Commons to the contrary, 2 

 prohibited his subjects from going to Iceland or other islands 

 belonging to Norway or Denmark; 3 in 1429 the King of 

 Denmark prohibited English merchants from purchasing fish 



1 Hautefeuille, Hist, des Origines, des Progres, et des Variations du Droit mari- 

 time international, 15. Hall, A Treatise on International Law, 142. 



2 Rot. Parl., iv. 796. The petition declared that owing to the fish having deserted 

 the coasts where they used to be taken, the fishermen had been forced to go to 

 Iceland and other places for six or seven years past in order to catch them. 

 English fishermen, however, had frequented Iceland long before that time. 



3 Fftdera, ix. 322. 



