[476] 20th May 1631. Ibid., cxci. 80.
[477] State Papers, Dom., ccxxxvii. 1.
[478] Ibid., clvii. fol. 132, 26th April 1634.
[479] In the memorandum which Pennington submitted to the Admiralty, he said: “Sixtly, that if any stranger bee oprest by another stranger yt is stronger than hee, within the jurisdicion of ye Narrow Seas, and yt hee flyes for succor or refuge to any of his Majesty’s shippes imployed for the guard of the sayd Seas, and come under his lee, and craves protection, whether his Majesty’s ffloatinge ffortes shall not have ye same privelege in succoringe and defendinge them as ffortes a Land hath.” Ibid., cclxv. 23.
[480] Windebank and Cottington were two of the three in the confidence of the king as to the secret negotiations with Spain. State Papers, Dom., cclxv. 23, 25, 26, 41, 49, 78, 89; clvii. fol. 132.
[481] An equally obscure answer of Coke’s is recorded in the collection of papers for the ambassadors to Cologne in 1673 (State Papers, Dom., Chas. II., vol. 339, p. 513). “1636. Ea Leicester (sic) Query—What answer shall I give if I be asked what I mean by the seas of ye King my master, or our seas? The Answer returned by Mr Secretary Coke in his own hand: By the King’s or our seas you are not to understand or condescend to any restrictive sense but to answer ye Brittish Seas: and that the 4 seas mentioned in our laws are thereby meant, which you must not otherwise circumscribe or limitt; besides they are the same which in all antiquity have been acknowledged to belong unto us, as is sufficiently proved by authentic records.”
[482] State Papers, Dom., cclxxxviii. 84, 85.
[483] State Papers, Dom., cclxxxviii. 4; cclxxxix. 75. He had “no more than two blue and two white flags with six pendants to each of them; there are wanting two red flags and six pendants, one blue flag and one white.” The office of Lord High Admiral was in commission from the death of the Duke of Buckingham in 1628 until the appointment of the Earl of Northumberland in 1638.
[484] Gardiner, Hist., vii. 385.
[485] The inhabitants of the coast were apprehensive of the French fleet, and the Admiral sent a message to the Mayor offering to show his orders from the King of France, which bound him to honour and respect everything that belonged to his Majesty of Great Britain. State Papers, Dom., ccxci. 23.