[496] State Papers, Dom., ccxcv. 44.
[497] The facts as to the movements, &c., of the fleet are mostly taken from the Earl of Lindsey’s Journal, written for the king’s information, and preserved in the Record Office. “A Relation of the passages that daily happened in this late expedition under my conduct, being by Your Majesty’s gratious appointment Admiral and General of your Majesty’s ffleet sett forthe for guard of your Narrow Seas, from the time that the ships mett all together in the Downes, 28o May, untill the 8o of October following, I making my first entrance aboard yor Royall ship the Merhonor, 16o May, in Tilbury Hope.” Ibid., ccxcix. 28.
[498] 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.
[499] Gardiner, op. cit.
[500] Brit. Mus. Add. MSS., 17,677, O, fol. 364.
[501] State Papers, Dom., cclxxviii. 3. Roe’s reference was to the fishings at the Zowe or Sowe, where great numbers of gurnards were caught ([see p. 65]). The stipulation of Richelieu concerned the allied squadrons which were to blockade Dunkirk, as arranged by Article viii. of the treaty. Article xii., after providing for the size of the squadrons, continues, “Et au cas que lesdites esquadres viennent à s’assembler, comme il peut arriver qu’il sera necessaire pour le bien commun, l’Admiral desdits Seigneurs les Estats abaissera à l’abord son pavillon du grand mast, et le saluëra de son canon, et celui du Roi le resaluëre comme de coustume, et comme il en a esté use par le Roi de la Grande Bretagne.” Dumont, Corps Diplomatique, 83 (?).
[502] State Papers, Dom., lxxix. 17. “Athwart ye opening of Falmouth four sailes stood with their forefoot,” and very earnestly tried to weather the English ships. Among them was a French man-of-war of Rochelle, but they shot four or five pieces of ordnance at him, and “soo brought him by ye lee.” [See p. 207].
[503] He reported, 16th September 1631, that two English merchantmen had met five French men-of-war, bearing the French king’s colours on the main-top, and the Malta colours on the poop, who saluted them with, “Amain, rogues, for the King of France”; but as the English ships refused to strike and prepared to fight, the French sheered off. He added that he had learned, through an interview between one of his lieutenants and one of the French commanders, that the latter had a commission to compel any English ships he could master to take in their flags and dowse their top-sails, and that three French admirals had been appointed for regaining the regality of the Narrow Seas, because, as the French officer said, the Pope had taken it from France and given it to England, but now that we had fallen from their religion it had been reassigned. State Papers, Dom., cxcix. 51.
[504] Nicholas to Pennington, 29th September 1631. Ibid., cc. 45.
[505] Pennington to Nicholas, 2nd October (ibid., cci. 7). Pennington, whose information about the French trying to make the English strike had given the Admiralty and the king “good content” (ibid., cc. 27), had been ordered westwards to retaliate, but “he hoped the Lords would not think that his two ships half-manned were able to encounter with twenty well manned”. Ibid., cci. 29.