CAPTURE OF FRENCH AND HANSARD SHIPPING,
A.D. 1449
(Paston Letters, Vol. I, p. 84)
Part of Robert Wynyngtone’s report of his service to the king “for the cleansing of the sea, and rebuking of the robbers and pirates thereof, which daily do all the noisance they can.”
First I send you word, that when we went to sea, we took two ships of Brest coming out of Flanders; and then after, there is made a great arming in Britanny to meet with me and my fellowships, that is to say, the great ship of Brest, the great ship of the Morlaix, the great ship of Vannes, with other viij ships, barges and balingers to the number of iij mli [thousand men;] and so we lay in the sea to meet with them.
And then we met with a fleet of a hundred great ships of Prussia, Lubeck, Campe, Rastocke, Holland, Zealand and Flanders, between Guernsey and Portland; and then I came aboard the Admiral and bade them strike in the King’s name of England, and they bade me skite [? strike] in the King’s name of England; and then I and my fellowships said, but he will strike down the sail, that I would oversail him, by the grace of God, an God will send me wind and weather; and they bade me do my worst, by cause I had so few ships and so small that they scorned with me. And as God would, on Friday last was, we had a good wind, and then we armed to the number of ii.m. men in my fellowship, and made us ready for to oversail them; and then they launched a boat and set up a standard of truce, and come and spake with me. And there they were yielded all the hundred ships to go with me in what port that me lust and my fellows; but they fought with me the day before and shot at us a j.m. guns, and quarrel out of number, and have slain many of my fellowships, and maimed also. Wherefore me thinketh that they have forfeit both ships and goods at our sovereign lord the King will ... and so I have brought them all the hundred ships, within Wight, in spite of them all ... for I dare well say that I have here at this time all the chief ships, of Dutchland [Germany], Holland, Zealand and Flanders, and now it were time for to treat for a final peace as for that parte.