CHAPTER IV

SLUYS

1340

The gold "nobles" of the coinage of King Edward III show in conventional
fashion the King standing in the waist of a ship with a high bow and poop,
the red-cross banner of St. George at the stern and the lions of England
and the lilies of France emblazoned on his shield. The device typifies his
claim to the sovereignty of the narrow seas between England and the
Continent, the prize won for him by the fleet that conquered at Sluys.

Sluys is often spoken of as the sea-fight that inaugurated the long
victorious career of the British Navy. It would be more correct to say that
it was the battle which, by giving King Edward the command of the Channel,
made his successful invasion of France possible, and secured for England
the possession of Calais. Holding both Dover and Calais the English for two
centuries were masters of the narrow sea-gate through which all the trade
between northern Europe and the rest of the world had to pass. They had the
power of bringing severe pressure to bear upon the German cities of the
Hansa League, the traders of the Low Countries, the merchants of Spain,
Genoa, and Venice, by their control of this all-important waterway. Hence
the claim upheld till the seventeenth century that the King of England was
"Sovereign of the Seas," and that in the Channel and the North Sea every
foreign ship had to lower her sails and salute any English "King's ship"
that she met.

Sluys, which had such far-reaching consequences, was not the first of
English naval victories. Alfred the Great maintained in the latter part of
his reign a fleet of small ships to guard the coasts against the Norse and
Danish pirates, and this won him the name of founder of the British Navy.
But for centuries after there was no attempt at forming or keeping up a
regular naval establishment. Alfred's navy must have been dispersed under
his weaker successors, for the Northmen never found any serious obstacles
to their raids. Harold had no navy, and the result was that in a single
twelvemonth England was twice invaded, first by Harold Hadrada and Tostig,
who were beaten at Stamford Bridge, and then by William the Norman, who
conquered at Hastings. But even the Conqueror had no fighting fleet. His
ships were used merely to ferry his army across the Channel, and he made no
attempt to use them against the Northmen who harried the east coast. The
record of victory begins with the reign of King John, when