The most remarkable part of the instructions issued to the first ship-money fleet referred to the hostilities between the ships of other nations, not merely in the King’s Chambers, but throughout the narrow seas. “In this your Lordship’s employment,” wrote the Lords of the Admiralty, “you are not to permit or suffer any men-of-war to fight with each other, or men-of-war with merchant, or merchant with merchant, in the presence of his Majesty’s ships in any part of the Narrow Seas. But you are to do your best to keep peace in those seas for the freer and better maintenance of trade and commerce through the same, so that all men trading or sailing within those his Majesty’s seas do justly take themselves to be in pace Domini Regis. And therefore his Majesty in honour and justice is to protect them from injury and violence.”[474]
It is interesting to compare these instructions to Lindsey with those given earlier to Pennington as admiral of the fleet for the guard of the narrow seas. His private instructions from the Lords of the Admiralty in 1631 contained a clause regarding the homage of foreign vessels on meeting the king’s ships. He was to expect the admiral or chief, in acknowledgment of the king’s sovereignty in the narrow seas, “to strike their toppe sayles in passing by,” and if they refused he was to force them to do so; and in no wise suffer any dishonour to be done to his Majesty, or derogation to his sovereign power in those seas. At that time the efforts of Richelieu to create a French navy had caused some disquiet in England, and Pennington was also ordered to do his utmost, by spies and otherwise, to discover whether any considerable preparations were being made abroad.[475] The instructions in 1631 appear to have represented the English pretensions so far as they were understood at the time. There was nothing about forbidding the hostilities of belligerents, as in Lindsey’s instructions. On the contrary, Pennington was told that if he saw any Hollanders and Dunkirkers in fight at sea he was to take no part with either, “but to pass by and leave them to their fortunes”; and he issued orders to his subordinates to that effect.[476] In his instructions in 1633 this clause was repeated, but in other respects they resembled those of Lindsey.[477] The same duties were allotted to him in 1634, and he was specially charged to free the narrow seas of pirates and sea-rovers, and to prevent hostilities in the King’s Chambers. “If,” he was told, “any man-of-war, or other, in any of his Majesty’s roads, harbours, or coasts, shall offer any violence by unduly taking out any ships, vessels, goods or merchandise, of what nation soever, or commit any other insolency, you shall do your best to recover the same again from them, and reform the abuses, either by due admonition, or (if that will not serve) by bringing the offender to answer to justice, preserving by all means the honour of his Majesty from such insolencies (as much as in you lieth), having always a due regard to the amity between his Majesty, his friends and allies.”[478]
But a change took place, as we have seen, in the following year. Among the suggestions made by Pennington to the king, and repeated to the Admiralty, was one that any foreign ship attacked by another foreigner in the narrow seas might put herself under the protection of any of the king’s ships by coming under its lee, “in the same manner as under a castle on shore.”[479] It was certainly a proposal as bold as it was brilliant. Ships of war have long been regarded by certain writers on international law as being essentially an extension of the territory of the state to which they belong; but no writer ever suggested that the water around them on the high sea should be looked upon as partaking of the same character. The sea round a king’s ship, within range of the guns on board, was to be a sanctuary like the waters of the King’s Chambers,—a sort of territorial girdle which it carried about with it like an aureole round the head of a saint. Pennington’s suggestion was considered by the Admiralty early in April 1634, and Nicholas, the Secretary, was instructed to confer with Sir Henry Marten, the Judge of the Admiralty Court, with regard to it. Nicholas summed up his own views oracularly in the sentence, “If a merchant fly from men-of-war, it concerns the king’s ships to preserve trade.” Sir Henry Marten gave a clear opinion. “It is not fit,” he said, “nor honourable for the king’s ships appointed to guard the Narrow Seas to suffer any men-of-war to fight with each other, or men-of-war with merchants, or merchant with merchant, in the presence of the king’s ships within the Narrow Seas, for that the king’s ships are set forth to keep peace in those seas for the freer and better maintenance of trade and commerce through the same: and all men trading or sailing within the king’s seas do justly take themselves to be in pace Domini Regis; and since such are in pace Domini Regis, it doth concern the king in honour and justice to protect them from injury and violence.” The language of the first part of this statement is the same as in the regulation prepared a little before with respect to hostilities within the King’s Chambers ([p. 251]); but its purport went much further than the recommendation of Pennington, and in effect extended the protection afforded by the King’s Chambers, and the regulation applying to them, to the whole of the narrow seas.
The Admiralty approved of the opinion of Sir Henry Marten, and Nicholas was directed to embody it in Pennington’s instructions. Before doing so, however, it was deemed desirable to get the king’s own opinion, and he was asked by Windebank, at the instance of the Admiralty, whether Pennington should be instructed not to permit any man-of-war to fight in the narrow seas in the sight of his Majesty’s ships, while he commanded there as Admiral. Pennington had then only two ships and two “Whelps” under his command,—a force quite inadequate to enforce an innovation so revolutionary,—and Charles apparently did not think the time or circumstances fitting for it, for the Admiral’s instructions in 1634 were virtually the same as in 1633, except that the clause about passing by Dutch and Dunkirkers in fight and leaving them to their fortunes was omitted at the special request of Lord Cottington.[480] But next year, when the imposing ship-money fleet was ready, Sir H. Marten’s memorandum was inserted, almost verbatim, in the Earl of Lindsey’s official instructions.
In addition to the official instructions, the Earl received private commands from the king. In these the new doctrine as to the sovereignty of the seas received a new gloss, corresponding to the tenour of Coke’s despatch to Boswell, and they were clearly intended to embroil us with the Dutch Republic, as well as with France, and thus enable Charles to carry out his clandestine agreement with Spain. He was not to permit the warships of other states to keep guard, or commit acts of hostility, or take spoil or booty, “within his Majesty’s seas”; and it was also resolved that the fleet should be employed in forcing the Dutch herring-busses to take the king’s licenses for permission to fish, or in interrupting them in their fishing. It was a common practice for orders of this kind given to naval officers to be expressed in general or indefinite language, leaving to them the responsibility of applying them to specific cases according to their judgment and discretion. Both Pennington in the previous year, and the Earl of Northumberland in the following year, had to ask for further and more precise directions. So also did Lindsey now. He wrote to Charles on receipt of the royal commands, asking a number of questions. In the first place, he asked that the “bounds of his Majesty’s seas might be expressed”—a reasonable request, and one frequently made by naval officers. He was loftily told by Coke, who replied, that “his Majesty’s seas are all about his dominions, and to the largest extent of those seas,”—an answer not very illuminating, and of little use to the Admiral.[481] His second question was whether the ships of the King of France, or the Archduke, or the Dutch States, might not “lie to and again” upon their own coasts, as they have anciently done? To this the reply was that they might stay in their harbours or roads, or pass “to and again for trade,” but not otherwise. Then he asked whether the Dutch men-of-war might not lie before Dunkirk, “as they have been accustomed to do”? (in blockading the port, which belonged to Spain). For answer, he was curtly referred to his instructions. Then there was another disturbing suggestion: If no men-of-war were to be permitted “to lie in the King’s seas,” notice, he said, should be given of the fact by proclamation or otherwise. He was told that this was already done—the remark having reference, no doubt, to the despatches sent to foreign Governments. Finally, he inquired what he should “do with the herring fishers.” But the patience of Coke appears to have been exhausted, and no answer at all was given.[482]
It was obviously the intention of Charles to force a quarrel with France and the Dutch Republic on a point or points connected with the sovereignty of the sea, which might rouse popular enthusiasm in England and enable him to attempt to recover the Palatinate for his nephew, while ostensibly defending the national honour. But the punctilios and hesitation of Lindsey about the duties before him must have raised misgivings at Court as to whether the right man had been chosen for the job. It was not long before this feeling deepened into mortification and disgust.
The fleet was ready at the beginning of June. Before its setting off one or two incidents happened which might have seemed ominous to the superstitious. A shot fired from the Admiral’s ship, in answer to the salutation of the rest of the fleet as he sailed into the Downs, hit a poor woman on shore and broke her leg; the same day, during musketry exercise, a seaman nearly killed a master of the navy,—and these, as it turned out, were the sole effective warlike operations of the fleet. On the very day of departure a couple of Dunkirk privateers “were so insolent” as to set upon a Dutch merchantman in Dover Road, under the Admiral’s nose and in sight of the fleet, battering the ship, slaying the gunner, and wounding the men. As an offset, the fleet captured a small prize from a Dunkirker, which was to be sold for the benefit of the Fishery Society. Then the Earl himself had been snubbed by the Admiralty, and left with a flea in his ear. He wanted a vessel to serve as a “kitchen” to accompany the fleet, and a salary for a secretary; but there being no precedents, the requests were refused. Then he complained that he had not enough flags, and above all that he lacked a standard, which made him “not a little wonder, considering his commission gave him as much power as a Lord Admiral of England—or rather more by being General, who is always a representative person of his prince”; he said he was “a little maimed” without it.[483]
The fleet weighed anchor early on the morning of the 7th June, and steered down Channel on its mission. At that time a combined Dutch and French squadron blockaded Dunkirk—France, which in January had entered into a treaty with the States for an invasion and partition of the Spanish Netherlands, having declared war against Spain a month before Lindsey left the Downs. There was thus every prospect of a collision if the English Admiral carried out the king’s wishes, and both the Court and the capital were on the tiptoe of expectation of stirring news. The fleet had scarcely quitted its anchorage when London was full of rumours. The Swallow got credit for having sent to the bottom a Dutch man-of-war before she had even left Deptford. A few days later it was reported that a fight had taken place in the Channel, a violent cannonade having been heard on the English coast, whereat Charles looked anxious and moody.[484] But it was only a peaceful salutation between the English fleet and a Danish man-of-war, “who did their duty” in passing by. On 12th June “certain news” arrived by express from Dungeness that a great battle had been fought off Calais, in which the Hollanders were totally defeated. Authentic despatches from the fleet soon put an end to such rumours. Very bad weather had been experienced, which forced them to take shelter at the Isle of Wight; thereafter they sailed for Portland, having received intelligence that a French squadron of fourteen sail and a Dutch one of the same number were there, each flying its national flag.
At a council held on board the Admiral’s ship, it was resolved that if the Dutch struck when they came up with them and the French did not, a message was to be sent to the Dutch Admiral “that we did not expect to see the friends of the king our master in company of them that do affront him, therefore we desire them, like friends, to stand by and see the sport.” But there was no “sport,” for when the English fleet got to Portland on 20th June, the allies had gone; “the same wind,” wrote Lindsey, “which brought me thither carried them out to sea” the day before. Learning from the Mayor of Dartmouth that a fleet of fifty-six sail had been seen off Falmouth on the 19th, the fleet went off westwards, calling at Plymouth, where it stayed for a few days. On one occasion they thought they had come up with their quarry. They espied a great number of ships at a distance, dimly visible in the morning mist, which made them “provide their guns” and get ready for action. But they turned out to be only peaceful salt-ships from Rochelle. Despatches were sent to the Court from Plymouth on 23rd June, in which Lindsey stated he was going on to Land’s End, “and so to make a short return from thence.” He also defended himself from complaints that seem to have been made against him from Dunkirk, apparently owing to his seizure of the prize for the Fishery Society. He told Windebank that two or three more Dunkirk men had been brought to him who had taken prizes from the French, but that he had dismissed them without meddling with their prizes. And then he added—what must have been unpleasant reading to Charles—that the king’s instructions had bound him to carry an equal hand between the subjects of his allies, and from that “compass” he would not vary. He would perform as friendly offices to the Dunkirkers as to either the French or the Hollander.
Neither the impartial sentiments of the Admiral nor his proceedings were approved at Court, where the king was getting impatient. The summer was passing, and the opportunity of forcing a conflict was passing with it. He soon learned how his conduct was regarded from despatches from Coke. Since the Earl went to sea, wrote the bustling Secretary, the account he had been able to give the king out of his despatches had been only of a fall from his coach, and of the stay his fleet had made in the Downs, then near St Helens, and thence of his plying along the coast to Plymouth, where the Mayor had advised him he was on Sunday, five days earlier. All this, he said, gave his Majesty little satisfaction, who expected to hear the fame of his acts in the open sea, whereof he had committed the custody to his trust. And though the civil answer sent by the French Vice-Admiral to the Mayor of Weymouth[485] had been well taken, yet it would have been more for the king’s honour and the Earl’s also if this office had been done with due homage to the Earl. And this all the more because there was a common report that the French had forced some English merchant vessels to strike sail to them, and that the French and Dutch had visited English ships,—an act, said Coke, of direct pretence to equal rights in our seas which the Earl must not suffer; he must not allow English ships to be visited by the men-of-war of any nation whatsoever, and he must be careful to protect them from all wrongs. In particular—and the request should have opened his eyes,—if any English merchant ships came from the Straits, Spain, or Portugal, with Spanish coin or other commodities (for Dunkirk), he must take care that no man go on board or interrupt them. He should convoy English ships in the same way, and for the honourable execution of his employment he should “strive to keep the open sea.” Coke concluded by telling him that he “thus freely enlarged himself” chiefly by the direction of the king, out of his own honour and interest. In another letter to Viscount Conway, who was on board the Admiral’s ship and had written a note to Coke of their proceedings, he used similar language. He did not want to hear of “misinformations,” but of “noble effects”; he had written to the Admiral whereby he would “perceive that neither spending time in harbour, nor at anchor, nor coasting along our shore, would answer the expectation they had of the fleet.” “You must command the seas or be commanded,” said Coke in his pompous vein. “Wisdom seeks not danger when with honour it may be shunned; but where honour and dominion lie at stake, brave men will set up their rests.”[486]