CHARLES I. : THE NAVY 275 



preparing for the next year, should exclaim, " God grant they 

 may do more than the present fleet has done, or the money 

 were as well saved as spent." 1 No doubt the fleet had a 

 moral value, if that term can be used about it, the naval 

 demonstration being an intimation to France and to the Dutch 

 Republic that Charles was resolved to assert command of the 

 sea. Whether England could have proved herself mistress of 

 the seas in 1635, had Lindsey's fleet been opposed, is problem- 

 atical. But, at all events, Charles attained none of his special 

 objects. The sudden and successful uprising of the Spanish 

 Netherlands against the armies of France dispelled the fears of 

 Spain, and that power having no further immediate need of 

 England, the nearly completed alliance came to naught, and the 

 recovery of the Palatinate was further off than ever. 2 On the 

 other hand, the Dutch were much irritated. Charles had 

 denied their right to blockade the Flemish ports against free 

 commerce, 3 and it was through his action that the privateers 

 had been able to work such havoc and destruction among the 

 herring-busses. 



Something more must be said about one of the duties imposed 

 on Lindsey, in regard to which it was expected the English 

 fleet would shine namely, the homage of the flag. Apart from 

 forcing a number of merchant vessels, English and foreign, to 

 lower their top-sails, and some Dutch men-of-war and Dun- 

 kirkers, and even one or two of the French (on the English 

 coast) to strike their flag to the king's ships, nothing was 

 accomplished. The politic arrangement of Richelieu foiled 

 Lindsey and Charles alike, and the great spectacle of the 

 Admiral of France lowering his flag to the Admiral of England, 



1 Pennington to Nicholas, 3rd August 1635. State Papers, Dom., ccxcv. 18. 

 Pennington, it may be said, lost no chance of sneering privately at the Earl of 

 Lindsey, especially in his correspondence with his friend, Nicholas, the Secretary 

 to the Admiralty. When Lindsey finally reached the Downs in October, and 

 Pennington was appointed to command the winter fleet, he told Nicholas that 

 he had hoped that "they" who had had the " sweet of the summer should have 

 had a little of the sour sauce of the winter" ; he had spent " twice as much as he, 

 And more every way for the king's honour." Nicholas shared the feeling. On 

 hearing that Lindsey had appointed a French cook on board the Henrietta, Maria 

 he refused to believe it, " as it was never since his time known that any Frenchman 

 was admitted scarce to go aboard, much less to be an officer in any of the king's 

 ships" ; and he foretold great evils from it. Ibid., ccxcix. 19 ; ccxci. 61. 



2 Gardiner, op. tit. Brit. Mut. Add. MSS., 17,677, 0, foL 364. 



