am, 1898-1912.
HISTORY OF COMMERCE IN EUROPE, W. H. Gibbins, 1917.
THE SEA BEGGARS, Dingman Versteg, 1901.
SOME EXPLOITS OF THE OLD DUTCH NAVY, Lieut. H. H. Frost, U. S.
Naval Institute Proceedings, January, 1919.

CHAPTER VIII

ENGLAND AND THE ARMADA

By reason of England's insularity, it is an easy matter to find
instances from even her early history of the salutary or fatal
influence of sea power. Romans, Saxons, Danes swept down upon England
from the sea. By building a fleet, King Alfred, said to have been
the true father of the British navy, kept back the Danes. It was
the dispersion of the English fleet by reason of the lateness of
the season that enabled William the Conqueror, in the small open
vessels interestingly pictured in the Bayeux tapestry, to win a
footing on the English shore.

But during the next three centuries, with little shipping and little
trade save that carried on by the Hansa, with no enemy that dangerously
threatened her by sea, England had neither the motives nor the
national strength and unity to develop naval power. She claimed,
it is true, dominion over the narrow waters between her and her
possessions in France, and also over the "four seas" surrounding
her; and as early as 1201 an ordinance was passed requiring vessels
in these waters to lower sails ("vail the bonnet") and also to
"lie by the lee" when so ordered by King's ships. But though these
claims were revived in the 17th century against the Dutch, and
though the requirement that foreign vessels strike their topsails
to the British flag remained in the Admiralty Instructions until
after Trafalgar, they were at this time enforced chiefly to rid
the seas of pirates--the common enemies of nations. During this
period there were a few "king's ships," the sovereign's personal
property, forming a nucleus around which a naval force of fishing
and merchant vessels could be assembled in time of war. The Cinque
Ports, originally Dover, Sandwich, Hastings, Romney and Hythe, long
enjoyed certain trading privileges in return for the agreement
that when the king passed overseas they would "rigge up fiftie and
seven ships" (according to a charter of Edward I) with 20 armed
soldiers each, and maintain them for 15 days.

An attack in 1217 by such a fleet, under the Governor of Dover
Castle, affords perhaps the earliest instance of maneuvering for
the weather-gage. The English came down from the windward and, as
they scrambled aboard