CHARLES I. : FISHERIES AND RESERVED WATERS 213 



King's admiralty in the narrow seas. Boswell sent a few brief 

 notes of little relevancy about the jurisdiction of the admiral 

 and the Cinque Ports ; but he added the interesting information 

 that he believed Sir John Boroughs, the Keeper of the Records 

 in the Tower, was able to produce an " original " concerning the 

 first institution of " La Rool d'Oleron " by Edward I., in which 

 the sovereignty of the kings of England in those seas appeared. 

 This, said Boswell, was therefore before the kings of France 

 could pretend to any sovereignty there, having " neither right 

 nor possession of any part, or part of Britany, Normandy, or 

 Aquitaine." l This, then, was the famous roll of 26 Edward I. 

 now brought to light, or at least into use in the sphere of prac- 

 tical affairs. The discovery of Boroughs led Nicholas, the 

 Secretary of the Admiralty, to draw up a note about the roll, 

 "by which," he said, "it is apparent that in those tymes ye 

 soueraignty of those (Narrow) Seas was acknowledged by 

 those princes (of Denmark, Sweden, &c., as mentioned in the 

 roll): and justly, though no man can be said to have ye 

 property of the sea, because a man cannot say this water is 

 myne which runs, yet it is manifest that ye Kings of England 

 have and had ye soueraignty and jurisdiction of those seas ; 

 that is, power to give laws and redresse injuries done on the 

 same." 2 



The germ of the new pretension of Charles to play the part 

 of Plantagenet on the adjoining seas appears to have been this 

 disclosing by Boroughs of the ancient roll. All the later 

 writers on the English side of the controversy about mare 

 clausum and mare liberum, as Selden, Coke, Prynne, as well 

 as Boroughs himself, laid great stress on it. 



It was, however, as we have already hinted, in connection 

 with the fisheries that Charles's first actions were concerned. 

 He earnestly believed in the common opinion of the age that 

 sea fisheries formed a principal means of developing commerce 

 and navigation and maintaining a powerful navy, and early in 

 his reign, before the new idea of maritime sovereignty dawned 

 upon his mind, he did what he could to promote and foster 

 them. The old laws for the preservation of the spawn and 

 brood of fish, which had fallen into disuse, were put into force ; 

 proclamations appeared prohibiting wasteful fishing ; a vigorous 



1 State Papers, Dom., cc. 5. 2 Ibid., ccviii. 27. 



