APPENDIX
A. The Great or Herring Fishery.
From the nature of the land, Holland and Zeeland were always the home of fisher-folk. The herring fishery off the coast of Great Britain was from early times an industry pursued by many Hollanders and Zeelanders, but it was comparatively limited, until the invention of 'curing' made by Willem Beukelsz of Biervliet in the latter part of the fourteenth century (he probably died in 1397) converted a perishable article of food into a commercial commodity. The method of Beukelsz, which remained practically unchanged for some five centuries, without going into minute particulars, consisted in the following processes. Immediately after the hauling in of the nets the guts were in a particular manner removed from the fish, which were then packed in layers in barrels with salt between the layers. In the brine or pickle that was formed they were allowed to lie some time, fresh salt being added every fortnight. At first the Zeelanders were the chief herring fishers, but afterwards the towns on the Zuyder Zee and on the Maas became the head-quarters of the industry. During the Burgundian period many laws were enacted regulating the herring fisheries, but the edict[49] of Charles V, May 18, 1519, which extended and codified all previous enactments, remained the permanent basis of future legislation on the subject. The chief regulations concerned the branding of the barrels, the sorting of the fish, and the date of the beginning of the fishing. This date was originally August 24 (St. Bartholomew), but was afterwards changed first to July 25 (St. James), and finally to June 24 (St. John the Baptist). It is possible that some change in the habits of the herring shoals may have led to this considerable shifting of the date. After 1519 there were many fresh enactments made, referring particularly to matters concerning convoys and their cost, the duties levied, and many details in regard to the boats, tackle, and crews, and again a codification of all laws was carried out by a series of edicts in 1580, 1582, and 1584. These edicts of 1580 and 1582 (Groot Placaetboek van Holland en West Vriesland, tom i., 684-691, 696-707, 715-727, 748-751), continued to regulate the fisheries during the period with which these lectures deal; i.e. the first half of the seventeenth century. Especial attention was given in these regulations to the branding of the barrels in which the herrings were packed. Each fishing town had its official inspectors, who themselves branded the barrels with the mark of the cooper and that of the town, and no others were allowed to be used. The kind of salt for the curing was rigorously prescribed, and careful precautions taken that no other kind or damaged salt was smuggled on board. Not less minute were the regulations to ensure that the quality of the fish which came to the market should be guaranteed. All fish had to be sorted. Such as were caught before July 25 (St. James), being not fully developed, had to be kept apart. Such as were caught after July 25 had to be divided according to technical categories, 'full and sweet', 'empty', 'undersized or damaged'; and the skipper was enjoined under oath to place his own mark upon each barrel and to be personally responsible for the quality assigned, and not only so, the fisherman who packed the fish in the barrel was required to place his mark upon it. The most stringent rules were laid down as the correct method of curing. In fact, everything was done to show the importance of the industry, and the necessity of securing that the market was supplied with no counterfeit article, but only with herrings prepared in Dutch fashion by Dutch hands. In order to keep a fast hold upon the monopoly, the fishermen were forbidden under heavy penalties to sell their fish in foreign ports. In the seventeenth century, the interests of those engaged in this profitable trade were vigilantly looked after by a body known as the 'College of the Great Fishery', which met at Delft. The College consisted of five deputies from the towns of Enkhuysen, Schiedam, Delft, Rotterdam, and Brill, and so exclusive were they that during the period with which we are concerned other towns, even such important places as Amsterdam, Dordrecht, and Hoorn, were refused admission. One of the chief tasks of the College was to enforce the carrying out of the regulations.
During the reigns of the two first Stuarts, the Dutch fishing fleet was accustomed to sail out for the Scottish waters between the Shetlands and Cape Buchan Ness in the middle of June, so as to begin their fishing operations on St. John's Day, June 24. From June 24 to July 25, the fishing was wholly in the north; from July 25 to September 14 to the south of Buchan Ness, but still along the Scottish coast; from September 25 to November 25 in the neighbourhood of Yarmouth; from November 25 to January 31 off the mouth of the Thames and the Kentish coast. The fleet sailed out twice only, in June and again in the autumn, the task of conveying the barrels of fish from the fishing 'busses' to the Dutch harbours being carried out by a number of light vessels called 'ventjagers.' The herring fleet was always accompanied by an armed convoy, to the upkeep of which the State contributed 20,000 florins annually. In war time a small naval squadron was also detached to keep watch and ward against the attacks of Spanish cruisers and Dunkirk pirates.
The Herring or Great Fishery was compulsorily closed on January 31. During the spring months the fishermen occupied themselves with fishing by hook on the Dogger Bank, for cod, soles, and other fish. This was named 'The Small Fishery'.
B. The Narrow Seas.
The expression 'the Narrow Sea', or 'the Narrow Seas', which so often appears in seventeenth-century diplomatic dispatches and controversial writings, is a term upon whose exact signification geographically there has been much dispute. The English kings from ancient times claimed 'sovereignty'—dominium maris—in the 'narrow seas' or mare britannicum. Evidence is fairly conclusive that the term under the Tudors and until the friction with the Dutch arose on the questions of free fishery and the striking of the flag in the reign of James I, was confined to the Channel, the narrow sea between England and France. Lord Salisbury, as late as 1609, writing to Sir R. Winwood at the Hague (Winwood, Mem. iii, p. 50), speaks of 'his Majesty's narrow seas between England and France, where the whole appertayneth to him in right, and hath been possessed tyme out of mind by his progenitors.' It soon, however, became the accepted interpretation of English statesmen, jurists, and writers that the 'narrow seas' meant the two seas between England and France, and England and the Netherlands; thus Rapin (Hist. d'Angleterre vii, p. 454), 'la domination des deux Mers, c'est-à-dire, des deux bras de Mer qui se trouvent entre l'Angleterre et la France et entre l'Allemagne et la Grande-Bretagne.' This extension of the term was vigorously contested by the Dutch. In the peace negotiations at Cologne in 1673 the Dutch protested that no treaty between England and any other power 'n'ait meslé la Mer Britannique avec celle du septentrion' (Verbaal der Amb. 1673/74). The English popular view of the question appears clearly in an anonymous pamphlet, The Dutch Drawn to the Life, published in 1664, just before the outbreak of the Second Dutch War. The writer speaks of 'the command of the Narrow Sea, the Dutch coast and ours' (p. 53); and again, referring to the action taken by King Charles I in 1640 (p. 148), 'When our neighbours the Dutchmen minded their interest and were almost Masters at Sea in the Northern Fishing ... upon our Fishmongers' complaint the King encouraged several overtures and projects concerning Busses for our own Coasts service, the prevention of strangers, and the improvement of the Narrow Seas, &c.'
C. The Jülich-Cleves Succession Question.
The death of John William (March 9, 1609), the mad Duke of Jülich-Cleves, without issue, raised the important question of the succession to his territory, which lay astride the Rhine on the eastern frontier of the United Provinces. It was felt to be essential for the protection of Protestant interests in Germany and the Netherlands that the Duchies should not fall into the hands of a partisan of the house of Habsburg. Duke John William had four sisters, but only the claims of the descendants of the two eldest really counted. Maria Eleanora had married Duke Albert Frederick of Prussia. All her sons, however, had died young, but it was held that her claims had passed to the son of her daughter Anna, who had married John Sigismund, Elector of Brandenburg. This was disputed by the Count Palatine, Philip Lewis of Neuburg, who had married the second sister of the deceased duke, also named Anna. Eventually the Elector and the Count Palatine agreed to occupy the disputed territory jointly, and were known as 'the Possessors'. The Dutch recognized the title of 'the Possessors', but the Emperor Rudolph refused to do so, and with his sanction the Archduke Leopold, Bishop of Passau, at the head of an armed force, made his way into the Duchies and seized the fortress of Jülich. Henry IV of France, who had been meditating an expedition for the overthrow of the Habsburg power, seized the opportunity for planning a great alliance with the Dutch, James I of England, and the Protestant princes of Germany for the expulsion of the Archduke and the recovering of Jülich. His assassination, May 14, 1610, put an end to his ambitious schemes, but though deprived of the help of a great French army, Maurice of Nassau, at the head of a considerable force of Dutch and English troops, entered the Duchies and was joined by the troops of the 'Possessing' princes. On September 1, Jülich surrendered, and Archduke Leopold left the territory. The troubles were not, however, yet over. The 'Possessors', as perhaps might have been expected, quarrelled. John Sigismund of Brandenburg became a Calvinist, Wolfgang William of Neuburg married the sister of the Duke of Bavaria, and announced his conversion to Catholicism. In September, 1614, Maurice of Nassau, with Dutch troops, and Spinola at the head of a Spanish force, both entered the Duchies, and a hostile encounter seemed inevitable. Hostilities were, however, avoided, and by the treaty of Xanten (November 12) the two rivals agreed to a partition of the territory.