An unexpected obstacle intervened to prevent the plan being carried out. Gerbier, the British agent at Brussels, chiefly by bribing the mistress of the Cardinal Infant, had secured a promise that the passports would be granted; but the Spanish Admiral absolutely refused to be bound by them. He declared he would not spare a single herring-boat, even if the Cardinal went down on his knees to him. He would pay attention to no passport that did not come direct from Madrid.[570] Thereupon the Dutch fishermen refused to have anything to do with the licenses which had been sent to Boswell “under the King’s hand and signet.”[571]
Still, the peculiar resources of Charles were not exhausted. He might yet, he thought, be able to distribute the licenses among the fishermen when they came to fish off the British coast, without employing his fleet for the purpose, or running the risk of war with the Republic. The third ship-money fleet had assembled in the Downs in April and May; it consisted of twenty-eight ships, of which nine were merchant vessels, and the Earl of Northumberland was again appointed Admiral, his instructions, dated 15th April, being identical with those of the previous year.[572] The state of the negotiations with France, and other causes, prevented the king from renewing his enterprise against either the French for the honour of the flag or the Dutch in connection with the fishery. The fleet, therefore, to the wonder and discontentment of the officers, was kept for the most part lying at anchor, ships being occasionally detached for special purposes.
On 3rd July, Windebank wrote to the Earl of Northumberland telling him of the failure of the secret treaty with the Cardinal Infant, and saying that it was the intention of the Hollanders, who had refused the king’s licenses sent to Boswell, to fish in his Majesty’s seas as heretofore, many of the busses having already left Holland under strong convoys. By the king’s commands he sent him about 200 licenses, “and withal his pleasure is,” said Windebank, “that you dispatch immediately one of the merchant ships under your charge (being not willing to employ any of his own until it appear what the success will be) toward the north with these licenses, with order to make offer of them to the fishers, and if they accept them to distribute them at the same rates they were taken the last year. And if such as take them,” he continued, “desire to be safe-conducted in their return, your Lordship is to assure them his Majesty will take them into his protection, and cause some of his fleet to accompany them homewards for their defence.” But if the fishermen refused to take the licenses, then the Earl was to notify the fact to the king, who would “take further resolution.” Sir William Boswell, added the Secretary, had been informed of the king’s intentions, and told to assure the fishermen willing to take the licenses of his Majesty’s protection. The Cardinal Infant and the Spanish Ministers had also been informed, and did not well relish it.[573]
This despatch, sent by express messenger, appears to have somewhat surprised the Earl. His clear intelligence must have told him that a tortuous and fatuous proceeding of this kind could only end by making the king ridiculous. He apparently wished Charles to reconsider the matter, and asked for further directions. Ignoring part of Windebank’s letter, he inquired how Captain Fielding, whom he intended to send, should behave himself if the fishermen proved obstinate and refused the licenses; and he pointed out that if they accepted them and the king resolved they should be convoyed home, it would need a large number of ships, as the busses returned in small fleets.[574] Windebank two days later repeated the instruction that, if they refused, the fact was to be immediately notified, when the king would take further resolution. “The truth is,” he said, “his Majesty in this present conjuncture is not willing to proceed so roundly with them as he hath done heretofore, and therefore thinks fit to hold this way of inviting them fairly to acknowledge his right without sending his whole fleet, which would be a manifest engagement and obligation to him in honour to perfect the work upon any conditions, and notwithstanding any opposition whatsoever, and might be of dangerous consequence, and destructive to the present condition of his affairs. And therefore he chooses rather to attempt it with as little noise as may be, that if the business take not in this way it may receive the less blow, and in case of their refusal he may have time deliberately to consider what resolution to settle.”[575]
At this time Charles was very anxious to be on good terms with the States. Van Beveren, the special Dutch ambassador, who was returning home, was very cordially received by him on taking his leave on 16th July. The king then insisted on the States entering the alliance, and he expressed his pleasure at the courtesies which had been shown to the Prince Elector. Besides the usual gifts on such occasions, Van Beveren tells us he sent him a few days later a handsome diamond ring.[576] But even if Charles had been moved by no special desire to conciliate the Republic, the preparations which were being made in Holland to guard the fishermen from molestation might have given pause to the attempt to repeat the operations of the year before. The Dutch Government were perfectly aware of Boswell’s intrigues about the licenses, and they put little faith in the assurances received through the Queen of Bohemia. They resolved to err on the safe side by equipping a powerful fleet to protect the busses. In April and May, Pennington reported to the Admiralty that Van Dorp (not yet cashiered) was cruising between the Downs and Dunkirk with twenty sail of stout men-of-war, and that he heard that six French warships were bound for the north to aid in guarding the fishermen.[577]
Fielding departed on his mission in the Unicorn, one of the ships furnished by London, and on the morning of 18th July he came among the busses fishing off Buchan Ness, Aberdeenshire. They numbered between six and seven hundred, and were convoyed by twenty-three men-of-war. Fielding, according to his account, “found the busses very willing” to take the licenses, and two did so. Then one of the Dutch warships came up and lay by him, and the captain asked him to speak to his Admiral before sending for the busses; “but it blew hard that day and the next, so that no boat could pass.” On the 20th he spoke with the Admiral of South Holland and the Commander of North Holland, and explained his mission; but they would not then give their answer. On the following day all the commanders of North and South Holland and of Zealand, with three other captains, told him “that they durst not let his boat pass among the busses to give out his Majesty’s licenses before they had orders from their Masters.” This was their answer, but they declined to give it in writing. The Unicorn then made sail for England to report the rebuff.[578]
The result of his manœuvre was mortifying to the king. Fielding, sailor-like, did not conceal the outcome of his mission in diplomatic reserve. The story soon spread throughout the fleet, and occasioned both hilarity and indignation. When Fielding left, Pennington expressed the opinion to his friend Nicholas that the attempt would fail and would bring greater inconveniences in its train. On his return, Northumberland said it would have been much better if the king had absolutely forborne his request to the Dutch than have demanded it in the manner he did. After the successful campaign of the year before, Charles was now practically warned off his own seas, “as he is pleased,” said Pennington, “to call them.”[579] It was a pitiful position for the Sovereign of the Seas, with a great armada lying idle at the Downs and his bombastic declarations still echoing in the ears of Europe.
As soon as it was known at Court that the story had got out, Windebank was commanded to take such measures as he could to contradict it. To duplicity was added mendacity. Fielding in his report had described an occurrence he witnessed on returning along the coast to Scarborough. Thirteen Dunkirkers had attacked a Dutch man-of-war, and as the Unicorn came upon the scene the latter sank, and the English captain unsuccessfully endeavoured to save the drowning men. Windebank seized upon this incident. He wrote to Captain Fogg, who was in command of the ships in the Downs in the absence of the Admiral, that the report spread about that the Hollanders had refused his Majesty’s licenses to fish in his seas was “utterly mistaken.” Fielding had not been sent to offer licenses to the busses, but to tender the king’s protection. His Majesty, hearing “that the Dunkirkers had prepared a great strength to intercept them in their return from the fishing,” had sent Fielding, “in love to them,” to give them notice of it, and to offer them safe-conduct. “This,” said Windebank, “you are publicly to advow whensoever there shall be occasion, and to cry down the other discourse as scandalous and derogatory to his Majesty’s honour.”[580] Similar directions were sent to the Earl of Northumberland.
At the beginning of August 1637, Charles, conscious of the ridicule that would ensue if the third ship-money fleet lay at anchor all the year, and yet having nothing for it to do, sent it to the west—“to make one turn in an honourable procession, to continue the boundaries of our master’s dominion in the sea,” as Roe, with gentle sarcasm, described it. It got as far as the Land’s End, and returned to the Downs on 5th September, having “scarce seen a ship stirring on the sea, except the poor fishers that dwell upon the shore.”[581] Windebank told Northumberland that the king was “very sensible” of the story which was being told about the licenses, and that he had been specially commanded to give the refutation of it in charge of the Earl, “and that you should do it in the same way that I have directed him (Fogg), namely, that his being sent to the busses was to give them notice of the forces prepared by the Dunkirkers to intercept them in their return, and to offer them his Majesty’s protection, but no licenses; that of the licenses to be cried down and the other to be advowed and reported through the whole fleet.” Fielding was to be admonished to be more reserved in future “in such great services,” and in the meantime to “make reparation by divulging this and suppressing the former report.”[582] Captain Fogg readily agreed to suppress “the false report,” as he called it; but what Northumberland’s answer was does not appear. He seems to have received the king’s commands only on returning to the Downs, and he left the Triumph a few days thereafter. What he thought is not doubtful: he was getting disgusted at his employment. “No man,” he wrote to Roe, “was ever more desirous of a charge than I am to be quit of mine, being in a condition where I see I can neither do service nor gain credit.”[583]
There is clear evidence indeed that by this time the naval officers, as well as the people generally, were becoming tired of the king’s great pretensions and small performance. Even Pennington, a simple, loyal, unimaginative man, always ready to obey orders, had begun to joke, as we have seen, at the king’s seas, “as he is pleased to call them.” Throughout the country discontent was deepening. The opposition to the collection of ship-money was growing formidable, and the declaration of the Judges in favour of the king’s right to levy it only postponed the inevitable for a little.[584] In his letter to the Judges, Charles based his case on the necessity of maintaining his sovereignty of the sea. The honour and safety of the realm of England, he said, “was and is now more neerely concerned then in late former tymes, as well by divers councells and attempts to take from Us the dominion of the seas (of which we are sole Lord, and rightfull owner and proprietour, and the losse whereof would bee of greatest danger and perill to this kingdome and other our Domynions) as many other waies.”[585]