Edward II. was given, in 1320, the title of "Lord of the Seas."[31] [31] Sir Harris Nicholas. Edward III., himself a sailor-king and commander of his fleets, was fully imbued with the force of the Alfred maxim, so that when invasion threatened England he said, "_he deemed it better with a strong hand to go seek the enemy in his own country than wait ignobly at home for the threatened danger_."[32] Putting his maxim into action he led his fleet across the Channel, and his victory over the French fleet at Sluys, off Flanders, on the 24th June, 1340, was the Trafalgar of its day, and the resulting supremacy of the English Jack on the narrow seas enabled him to land his forces on the foreign shores, when he subsequently invaded France to establish his claim to the French throne. The prowess of himself and of his seamen in their victory over the French and Spanish fleets won for Edward the proud title of "King of the Seas," in token of which he was represented upon his gold coinage standing in a ship "full royally apparelled."[33] [32] Rymer. [33] Aubrey: "Gold Noble, Ed. III." During the Wars of the Roses less attention was given by the nation to maritime matters, and while the English were so busily engaged in fighting amongst themselves, the Dutch of the Netherlands, under the Duke of Burgundy, developed a large carrying trade, and so increased their fleets that, in 1485, at the accession of Henry VII., they had become a formidable shipping rival of England, and were a thorn in the side of France. Over the ships of the French the Dutch so lorded it on the narrow seas that, to quote Philip de Commines, their "navy was so mighty and strong, that no man durst stir in these narrow seas for fear of it making war upon the King of France's subjects and threatening them everywhere." Two flags, the striped standard of the Dutch and the red cross Jack of the English, were now rivalling each other on the adjacent seas and on the Atlantic. The contest for the supremacy which had begun was continued for nearly two hundred years thereafter. In the time of Henry VII. more attention was given to merchant shipping and foreign adventure. Cabot carried the English flag across the Atlantic under the license which he and his associates received from Henry VII., empowering them "to seek out and find whatsoever isles, countries, regions, or provinces of the heathen and infidels, whatsoever they might be; and set up his banner on every isle or mainland by them newly found." With this authority for its exploits the red cross of St. George was planted, in 1497, on the shores of Newfoundland and Florida, and the English Jack thus first carried into America formed the foundation for the subsequent British claim to sovereignty over all the intervening coasts along the Atlantic.