Chapter VIII: CHARLES I. NAVY--continued (2)

The young Elector, Prince Charles Louis, took a considerable part in the conversion of the king; or rather, he was made use of by the Dutch ambassador for this purpose. When Van Beveren first arrived in London, he let it be known that the States were desirous of doing something for the Prince; but his hint was not then taken up, since hopes were entertained that Arundel’s mission to Vienna would make other aid unnecessary.[565] Arundel was recalled in September; it was known that his mission had failed, and early in October Van Beveren saw his opportunity. Through a trustworthy friend[566] the suggestion was made to the Elector that if some arrangement could be come to about the fishery question, negotiations might be begun for a treaty between the States and England relating to the recovery of the Palatinate. The ambassador learned that the Prince had already taken steps in the same direction. Through the intermediary of Laud, the proposal had been made to Charles that the Dutch, instead of paying license-money for liberty to fish in the British seas, should place at the disposal of the Elector some ships and soldiers, the king’s proclamation for restraint of fishing being meanwhile suspended. Charles would not agree to this. The ambassador, he said, had offered assistance when he arrived without any hope of an equivalent on his part, and he could not give up his claim to an acknowledgment of his rights. Van Beveren, on the other hand, informed his confidant that it was a question of principle with the States, and that it would be better to break off all negotiations if the “acknowledgment” was insisted on. Nevertheless, these private negotiations continued, and finally a draft treaty was prepared embodying two proposals. The first agreed well enough with Van Beveren’s instructions. It was to the effect that a fleet should be equipped to which England should contribute thirty ships and 8000 men, and the States fifteen ships and 4000 men; and France was to be asked to furnish the same force as England. The combined fleet was to attack Spain by sea and effect a landing. The second proposal related to the fishery, and it provided that while these operations were going on, the Dutch herring fishermen would be allowed to fish freely and in security, as they had always done from the time of Queen Elizabeth and King James, approaching the coasts near enough to carry on their fishing profitably, and to dry their nets on shore, without the king interfering with them in any way.[567]

This proposition, at first sight apparently favourable to the States, was rejected by Van Beveren. Although it got rid of the difficulty for the time, the question was sure to be raised at a later period when the naval and military operations were concluded; its acceptance would, moreover, be equivalent to a tacit acknowledgment that the king had the right to exclude them from the fishery. The ambassador was afraid of a precedent which bargained as a _quid pro quo_ for what was claimed as a right; and the negotiations went no further.

But Charles, although unwilling to risk the success of the treaty with France, from which great things were expected, by openly insisting upon the acceptance of his licenses by the Dutch fishermen, was reluctant to abandon his policy. From the readiness with which the fishermen had taken the licenses after they “understood” them (as Northumberland reported), he was apparently led to believe that they really desired his protection, and that the only obstacle in his way was the opposition of the States’ Government. He therefore decided that instead of trying--or at least before trying--to enforce the licenses by means of the fleet in the ensuing summer, the attempt might be made secretly to induce the fishermen to accept them in Holland before they left for the fishing. Boswell, the English ambassador at The Hague, was instructed to try what could be done in this way, and so anxious was Charles for such acknowledgment of his sovereignty of the sea as acceptance of the licenses implied, that the ambassador was authorised to reinforce his persuasion by bribing those who were most influential among the fishermen. The fishermen, according to Boswell, were not averse to the proposal, but they very naturally wished to know, first of all, how the licenses of the King of England would protect them from the Dunkirk privateers. If the Government at Brussels would acknowledge the validity of the licenses, or if the Cardinal Infant agreed to back them with passports of his own, the offer, they said, would be worth considering; but they could scarcely depend on the protection of the English fleet alone. As a sign that they were in earnest, they offered to place £2000 at Boswell’s disposal if he could get the matter settled in this way. This sum, with the king’s approval, was forwarded to the English representative at Brussels, to be used in gaining over the Spanish authorities.[568] The Dutch fishermen were a practical race of men. They cared little for abstract questions about the sovereignty of the sea. But they suffered much from the Dunkirk privateers, and the burden of maintaining convoys was a heavy one. Any reasonable scheme which promised to free them from the attacks of their relentless enemy at small cost was bound to be attractive. That the proposal was seriously considered was also shown by a spontaneous application made to the Secretary of the English Admiralty on behalf of the fishermen of Schiedam. The agent in London, Mr Brames, who supplied them with lampreys for bait, wrote to Nicholas for a copy of the license granted in the previous year, with a statement of the rates charged. If the fishermen were pleased with the license and the price, they would, he said, come themselves for them. Charles instructed Nicholas to give the information wanted, but only “as from himself.”[569]

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]

The king’s dominion on the sea was rapidly waning. Fielding’s ignoble mission was the last attempt that fate permitted Charles to make in actively asserting it. The shadow of the coming revolution was already upon him. The trial of Hampden for refusing to pay the ship-money focussed the attention of England, and it was followed by complaints of other grievances arising from the personal government of the king. The popular tumult in Edinburgh in the summer about the new Liturgy had as a sequence the National Covenant and insurrection. Charles found another use for his fleet than the enforcement of his sovereignty of the sea in the expedition to Scotland to subdue his rebellious subjects; and the British seas, even the King’s Chambers, were soon again the scenes of flagrant acts in violation of his authority. By a strange irony it was at this time that the king’s “Great Ship,” the famous _Sovereign of the Seas_, whose praises were sung by Thomas Heywood, the dramatist, was launched at Woolwich. Its construction had been under consideration for several years; it was begun in January 1636 and launched early in October 1637. Charles took a keen personal interest in his great ship, and supervised its details. He selected a scutcheon and motto to be engraved on each of its 102 brass guns--the rose and crown, sceptre and trident, and anchor and cable, with the inscription, _Carolus Edgari sceptrum stabilivit aquarum_--Charles established the dominion of Edgar over the seas; and on the “beak-head” sat the effigy of King Edgar, trampling on seven kings.[586] As its name implied, it was meant to be a symbol as well as an instrument of the king’s sovereignty of the seas; and it was symbolical of it in a sense undreamt of by Charles. It was costly, highly decorated and begilt, but useless until it was cut down and made serviceable under the Commonwealth. He inserted it in the list of ships to serve in the fleet that assembled in the Downs in 1638, but it was not ready to join.

This fleet consisted of twenty-four king’s ships and seven merchant vessels, and, owing to the illness of the Earl of Northumberland, it was placed under the command of Sir John Pennington.[587] It did still less than the fleet of the previous year. Two ships were sent to the westwards on an alarm that “Turkish” pirates were in the Channel; it convoyed two vessels laden with gunpowder into Dunkirk, notwithstanding the blockade by the Dutch, and returned to the Downs; and two ships were despatched to the north to intercept supplies of arms and munitions of war from Rotterdam and Bremen to the Scots. There was not even the “one turn in an honourable procession” to the westwards as in the previous year, and the fleet rode idly at its anchorage.

The question of the “homage of the flag” had by this time also fallen somewhat into the background. In the two preceding years it had been enforced with much zeal. In 1636, when Northumberland’s fleet was among the herring-busses, Captain Carteret, in the _Happy Entrance_, forced a Spanish fleet of twenty-six sail to strike to him off Calais, though they tried their best to avoid it. A Dunkirker was also made to strike and “lie by the lee” off Nieuport by Captain Slingsby. But the French still refused to lower their flag when on the other side of the Narrow Sea. Sir Henry Mervin, on meeting two French men-of-war off Gravelines with their colours in the main-top, fired some twenty shots at them without causing them to strike. In the Mediterranean the French retaliated. An English vessel on the coast of Barbary was forced to lower its flag to French ships of war, and because the captain refused to go on board them when requested, the ship was attacked and captured. In the following year Captain Straddling of the _Dreadnought_ used drastic measures against some Hollander merchant-ships. Falling in with four of them off the Lizard, homeward bound from Brazil, with their flags abroad, he commanded them to strike. One refused till many shots were fired, excusing himself afterwards by saying he thought the English ships were Dunkirkers. Straddling took him into custody, and lodged him in Plymouth fort “to answer his insolence and contempt of his Majesty’s regality in these seas,” and he remained a prisoner there for a fortnight before he was released by order of the Admiralty.[588] But in 1638 there were few incidents of this kind, probably because of the fleet lying at anchor so long, though it may be supposed that the general condition of public affairs did not whet the zeal of the naval officers.

It was not long before advantage was taken abroad of Charles’s troubles in Scotland. In the early part of 1638 Pennington reported that there were many Hollander, French, and Dunkirk ships at sea, and that they were pillaging English vessels;[589] but the king was unable to protect even the herring-busses of the Fishery Society that he had taken under his peculiar care. The Dunkirkers, emboldened by immunity, took four of them in 1639, and then daringly anchored in the Downs. The Dutch men-of-war became bold, and then insolent. They began by protecting a Calais vessel that had rifled an English ship, their Admiral refusing to surrender her. Soon their fleets visited the English coasts in menacing strength, and although they “performed their duty” in the matter of the flag, they insisted on their right to stop and search English vessels, even in the King’s Chambers. “The Hollanders’ ships,” wrote Northumberland’s secretary to Pennington in June 1639, “begin to be very bold in our seas, and lie about Portland with fifty sail, examining and searching all English ships and others which pass by them, so that in effect they command where the King challenges sovereignty.” The English merchants, he said, made great complaint that their trade was likely to be destroyed; they were “much perplexed, and called to mind tonnage and poundage, for which his Majesty was pleased to promise thirty sail of his ships to secure trade in the Narrow Sea.”[590]

The truth was that English ships had been engaged in transporting Spanish troops and bullion to Dunkirk, and that the Dutch were merely exercising their rights as belligerents. Their action was nevertheless a plain flouting of the high pretensions of the king, and it was the more disagreeable because Charles had now again veered round to the side of Spain. He was much moved at the “insolencies” of the Hollanders, which “concerned his honour” and “put his sovereignty in hazard”; and the Earl of Northumberland, who had been created Lord High Admiral in the preceding year, also expressed himself as much afflicted that such affronts were put on the nation in his time. It was, said Windebank, a very high disorder that any of the king’s neighbours should presume to lie with a fleet in his Majesty’s Channel, near his ports, and where he justly claimed sovereignty, and arrest and search English ships, taking out of them “such persons, being passengers, as they please”; “especially”--and this no doubt was a potent reason of the king’s displeasure--“since the merchants and others took occasion by such pretences of interruption of their trade to make difficulty to pay their ship-money, which his Majesty is resolved to maintain.” The king therefore commanded Pennington to put a stop to these affronts and to preserve the sovereignty of the narrow seas, so “that trade may be free and open, as well to his Majesty’s subjects as to others in league and amity with his Majesty, and that peace be kept and the merchants secured according to his Majesty’s proclamations and declarations published heretofore to that effect.”[591]

It was one thing to indite imperious commands in London as to the necessity of maintaining the king’s sovereignty of the seas; it was quite another thing to carry them out in the Channel in the presence of a powerful Dutch fleet under the new Admiral, Maarten Harpentz Tromp. Pennington, conscious of his impotency, tried at first to justify, or at least to extenuate, the action of the Dutch men-of-war. They only took out of the English ships the Spanish soldiers, he said, who were being carried to Flanders; they were most civil and courteous while doing so; in reality, it was the English captains who had committed the greater insolency. At all events, before attempting any reparation, it would be only prudent to have an overmastering force, lest greater loss and dishonour should happen, because, he said, the Dutch were in great strength, and it was reported that the French fleet was about to put to sea. Pennington was nevertheless ordered to prevent the affronts as best he could. He then said he would do his best; but he had only four ships available, and he asked for express orders how far he should proceed if he were resisted with overmastering strength.[592]

But the question of the right of search was for the moment relegated to diplomatic channels, and before anything could be done, either by peaceful agreement or by Pennington’s ships, another event put an end to it, and dissipated the king’s dreams of the dominion of the seas. The battle of the Downs was fought between the Dutch and the Spaniards on 11th October 1639, in spite of Charles’s express prohibition, and in spite of his helpless fleet. So glaring a violation of one of the King’s Chambers within three years of the appearance of Selden’s _Mare Clausum_--an injury which he was as unable to prevent as to redress--proclaimed to Europe that he was no longer sovereign over the sea that was incontestably his own.

At the end of August a large Spanish fleet, consisting of some thirty great galleons and thirty-six transports with troops for Flanders, set sail from Corunna. On 6th September it was attacked in the Channel by a Dutch squadron of seventeen ships, and a running fight was kept up, the Spaniards passing eastwards off the English coast. Tromp, engaged in blockading Dunkirk, heard the cannonading, and on the 8th he joined the Dutch squadron with fifteen sail, when a fierce battle took place in the Straits of Dover.[593] The Spanish Admiral, Don Antonio de Oquendo, having expended all his powder, took refuge with his shattered galleons in the Downs on 9th September, whither Tromp followed him. Great anxiety was felt in London, first of all lest the powerful foreign fleets should refuse to strike to the small English squadron under Sir John Pennington, and then lest they should begin hostilities in the King’s Chamber. On the former point doubts were soon set at rest. Tromp at once took in his flag in the presence of the English ships, a “civility” with which Charles was pleased. So also did the proud Spaniard, but only after preliminary refusal and demur; and Pennington’s insistence that the standard of Spain should be lowered was made a subject of complaint at Madrid.[594] Anxiety on the second point was protracted, and it was not diminished by the reports that were received that the French fleet was coming to reinforce their allies the Dutch. Pennington, in the most emphatic manner, had forbidden hostilities within the King’s Chambers, and he assigned the northern part of the anchorage to the Spaniards and the southern part to the Dutch. For several weeks the belligerent squadrons remained in the Downs facing one another. The Spanish Admiral, a few days after his arrival, succeeded under cover of night in despatching to Dunkirk some of his smaller vessels laden with soldiers. Tromp and Oquendo appealed to Charles through their respective ambassadors, “and then ensued an auction, the strangest in the annals of diplomacy, in which Charles’s protection was offered as a prize to the highest bidder.”[595] On the one hand, he demanded £150,000 from Spain, and better treatment in the business of the Palatinate, as the price of securing the safety of the Spanish fleet.[596] On the other hand, he declared himself ready to abandon the Spaniards to Tromp, if France would come under a binding promise to place Charles Louis at the head of the army which had been commanded by Bernard of Weimar--as a means, of course, to recover the Palatinate.[597]

While waiting the highest bid from one or the other, the king’s commands regarding the fleet were puzzling and contradictory. Smith, Northumberland’s secretary, who carried on a confidential correspondence with Pennington, wrote to him that the king, when the difficult situation of the English fleet was explained to him and he was asked for explicit instructions as to how the Admiral should act, “would not give any express declaration.” “I earnestly pressed his Lordship [the Earl of Northumberland] to prevail with his Majesty,” he said, “that you might have some justifiable instructions how you should demean yourself.... To all this he told me that he had often pressed his Majesty to declare his resolution, but never could get any.” Smith privately advised Pennington to make a show of assisting the Spaniards if there was a fight, but not to run himself or the king’s ships into danger where there was no hope of victory and “the only expectation was hard blows and hazard.”[598]

Desperate efforts were hurriedly made to strengthen the English fleet. Ten additional ships were being got ready, and Northumberland intended to take command himself as soon as they reached the Downs, but of the 3000 men which the Admiralty were “labouring” to procure for them, only 300 could be obtained; they did not join Pennington till some days after the battle. Pennington had been ordered to press into his service all English ships he could lay his hands on, and to employ them “in any warlike manner against any that shall presume to affront his Majesty, or derogate from his sovereignty in these parts.”[599] Ten vessels were thus pressed; but it was impossible to find seamen to man them properly, and by command of the king some of them were dispensed with. In presence of the powerful States’ fleet, to say nothing of the Spaniards, Pennington’s instructions to the masters of the merchantmen must have sounded somewhat ironical. If either of the “great fleets,” he said, should presume to attempt anything in the King’s Chambers “contrary to the laws and customs of nations and to the dishonour of our king and kingdom, you are to fall upon the assailants, and to do your best to take, sink, or destroy them.” Moreover, if any ships of the hostile fleets assembled, “or any others that may come,” should put out a flag, they were to cause them to be taken in; if refused, they were to do their best to sink the offending ship.[600] The “any others” meant the French, who were expected daily in the Downs, and whose arrival there was regarded with apprehension. The general opinion was that they would refuse to strike when they came, and, in that event, what would happen? “That,” said Smith, “will set us all in combustion, for then we must _strike_ them, although peradventure to our own prejudice. But this punctilio of honour,” added the secretary to the Lord High Admiral, with prophetic instinct, “will one day cause more blood to be drawn than ere it will bring profit or honour to our king.”[601]

Meanwhile Tromp and his resolute men were getting impatient. Since they had cooped up the hated Spaniard in the English roadstead, they had been reinforced from Holland, so that the Dutch fleet was soon in the overwhelming strength of a hundred sail. Tromp also knew that Charles had arranged (for a substantial consideration) to supply the Spanish Admiral with gunpowder, of which he stood in dire need, and that thirty Dunkirk sloops had succeeded in joining Oquendo. Above all, he had in his pocket the express orders, just issued by the States-General, “to destroy the Spanish fleet, without paying any regard to the harbours, roads, or bays of the kingdom where it might be found.”[602] He promptly seized an opportunity to carry out his orders. Information reached London on 8th and 9th October that the Dutch were preparing to attack. Commands were at once sent to warn them to desist, and they were informed that the king was going to fix a short period for the departure of both fleets; and this message was conveyed to the Dutch Admiral. On the evening of the 10th, the gunpowder for the Spanish fleet came alongside, and the accidental discharge of a gun on one of the Spanish ships killed a Dutch sailor. This was enough. Before the fog lifted next morning Tromp’s fleet was under sail; the roar of cannon announced that the attack had begun; and within a few hours the Spanish galleons were driven ashore, burnt, sunk, or in flight for Flanders, with Tromp in hot pursuit. The English Admiral acted on the prudent advice which had been given to him by Smith. He made a show of resenting the violation of the King’s Chambers by firing at the Dutch. In Madrid it was afterwards said he had fired his guns into the air, but Pennington himself tells us that (although he affected to believe the Spaniards had begun the combat) he “chased and shot at the Hollanders” until they were all beyond the South Foreland; but the Hollanders took no notice of him. On the morning of the battle Tromp sent a letter to Pennington which was more than tinged with irony. Since the Spaniards, he said, had infringed the conditions fixed by firing at him first, the English Admiral should assist him in fighting them, “according to his Majesty’s orders.” At all events he--Tromp--was resolved, by instructions from his masters, to fall upon his enemies, and to defend themselves “against those that shall resist them.” The Dutch would rather die as soldiers, he said, “with his Majesty’s leave in clearing his Majesty’s Road,” than fail to carry out their orders; and he hoped that this would be “acceptable to his Majesty, but if his Majesty should take any distaste we hope he will graciously forgive us.”

After pursuing the remnant of the Spanish fleet to Dunkirk, the Dutch Admiral returned triumphant to the Downs, and saluted the English squadron by striking his flag and firing nineteen guns,--“as a token,” says an ironical observer, “that his Majesty was Sovereign of these his seas!”[603] Tromp indeed, in those years, was most punctiliously respectful to this symbol of the king’s sovereignty. Even during the height of the battle, when he was violating not merely the sovereignty claimed by Charles but the well-understood Law of Nations, he kept his flag down until he was a good way off from the Downs,--a circumstance which Pennington reported with satisfaction. Had the Dutch Admiral shown the same willingness to strike to the flag of the Commonwealth when he encountered Blake thirteen years later, the war that followed might, perhaps, have been averted, or at least postponed.

Charles was very naturally highly incensed at this open flouting of his authority. It was an ugly blot on the lustre of his ancient prerogative, and a painful proof of the contempt in which his much-vaunted naval power was held by the Dutch Republic, and--what perhaps he felt quite as much at the time--it robbed him of all chance of blackmailing Spain. When that Power was asked to pay the great sum above mentioned, the Cardinal Infant put the proposal aside, considering that it was the king’s own interest to protect the Spanish fleet; and when Tromp’s precipitation broke in on the negotiations, it was decided to withhold any payment at all until it was seen how Charles would resent the injury done to Spain.[604] At first he resolved to punish the affront. Pennington was ordered to cause the Dutch fleet, which had returned to the Downs, and was suspected of meditating further “insolency” by falling upon the stranded galleons, to immediately quit the road. The king, he was told, had made up his mind not to allow them the liberty of his ports or roads “until he shall have received satisfaction for the insolency already committed.” If they refused to leave, Pennington, immediately the other ten ships had reinforced him, was to drive them out with all his power and strength, or answer the contrary at his uttermost peril. Before these orders could be executed, Tromp voluntarily departed.[605] Copies of the letter to Pennington were sent to Brussels and Madrid to show the Spaniards that the king was full of resolution. They were told he was very sensible of the affront and insolence of the Hollanders, and “would make such demonstration of it, and demand and expect such reparation as in honour he is obliged.” But he was quite unable to carry out his good intention. It was in vain that he was urged from Madrid to take strong measures against the Dutch; to seize their property; even to invade Normandy as a punishment to their ally.[606] He had no fleet and no money to enable him to cope with the Dutch Republic, even if the condition of home affairs had permitted the attempt. On the contrary, to such a level had he fallen by his stubborn ineptitude that the English Minister at The Hague was ordered to avoid even a remonstrance about Tromp’s high-handed action in the Downs. If the States-General mentioned the matter to him, he was to say that he had received no instructions, “and so to refuse any conference on that particular.”[607]

The Dutch Government had expected that Charles would raise loud complaints, and they decided to take a bold attitude. On the day that they received news of Tromp’s victory the proposal was made to send over an ambassador, and Aerssen Van Sommelsdijck, who was chosen for the mission, reached London early in November. There was to be no attempt made on this occasion to appease the king with soft phrases and show of submission. Aerssen was to complain of the action which England had for a long time taken in favouring the Spaniards. The violation of the King’s Chamber was to be passed over, and the battle in the Downs represented as having been merely a continuation of the first fight in the Channel, which forced the Spaniards to take refuge in the English roadstead. But the pains taken by the States-General were hardly necessary. Charles in his perplexity did not know to which side to lean. He received the Dutch ambassador in a very friendly way, and began to speak again of an alliance with the Republic.[608] In another direction he was flouted by the Dutch. On the 1st October, while the belligerent fleets were at anchor in the Downs, his representative at the conference at Hamburg proposed that if the Republic joined the projected alliance with France, Charles would grant them liberty to carry on their herring fishery in the narrow seas. At the very time that Tromp was battering the Spanish galleons in the King’s Chamber, the States-General were engaged in passing the resolution “that they did not intend to ask for the right of fishing in the North Sea from any one.”[609]

A year later, the Long Parliament began its sittings at Westminster, and Charles was rapidly stripped of sovereign power within his own kingdom. The Dutch, conscious that they and not the King of England were the real masters of the sea, became overbearing in their conduct. More than ever their fishermen indulged in the bad treatment of British subjects, which this country was unable to prevent. But their triumph was short-lived. A decade later they were smitten by the heavy hand of Cromwell, who resumed the sovereignty of the sea. It is to the period beginning about this time that the Dutch trace the decadence which set in in their great fisheries as well as the decline of their trade. It is, however, a satisfaction to think that the part played by this country in causing the misfortunes of Holland--a country to which civilisation is indebted for immense advances, both material and intellectual--was comparatively small. From about the middle of the seventeenth century to the peace of Utrecht, in 1713, the Dutch Republic was involved in almost constant wars with its Continental neighbours, and the herring-fishery and the trade in general suffered severely, and never afterwards regained the prosperity they formerly enjoyed.