Close following upon this came the Norman invasion, which of all the foolhardy enterprises ever embarked on by man was theoretically one of the most foolish. William’s intentions were perfectly well known. A certain “English fleet” existed, and there was nothing to prevent its expansion into a force easily able to annihilate the heterogeneous Norman flotilla. How many ships and men William actually got together is a matter upon which the old chroniclers vary considerably. But he is supposed to have had with him some 696 ships[3]; and since his largest ships were not over twenty tons and most of them a great deal smaller, it is clear that they must have been crowded to excess and in poor condition to give battle against anything of the nature of a determined attack from an organised fleet. No English fleet put in appearance, however. Harold had collected a large fleet at Sandwich, but after a while, for some unknown reason, it was dispersed, probably owing to the lateness of the season. The strength of the fleet collected, or why it was dispersed, are, however, immaterial issues; the fact of importance is that the fleet was “inadequate” because it failed to prevent the invasion. A neglected fleet entailed the destruction of the Saxon dominion. II. THE NORMAN AND PLANTAGENET ERAS. William the Conqueror’s first act on landing was to burn all his ships--a proceeding useful enough in the way of preventing any of his followers retiring with their spoils, but inconvenient to him shortly after he became King of England. Fleets from Denmark and Norway raided the coasts, and, though the raiders were easily defeated on shore, the pressure from them was sufficient to cause William to set about recreating a navy, of which he made some use in the year 1071. In 1078 the Cinque Ports were established, five ports being granted certain rights in return for policing the Channel and supplying ships to the King as required. But the amount of naval power maintained was very small, both in the reign of William the First and his successors. Not until the reign of Henry II was any appreciable attention paid to nautical matters. Larger ships than heretofore were built, as we assume from records of the loss of one alleged to carry 300 men. It was Henry II who first claimed the “Sovereignty of the British Seas” and enacted the Assize of Arms whereby no ship or timber for shipbuilding might be sold out of England.