Further evidence as to this sort of jurisdiction in the so-called “Sea of England” is to be found in the reign of Edward I., at the end of the thirteenth century and the beginning of the next, in the reign of Edward III., and later, more particularly in the famous rolls, “On the Supremacy of the Sea of England and the Right of the Office of Admiralty in the same,” as well as in the _Black Book_. The rolls referred to show that England had the sovereign jurisdiction in regard to the maintenance of peace and security in the Sea of England, but there is no evidence to indicate that that Sea extended far from the coast, or that the rights exercised differed from those put in force by other maritime states in the waters adjoining their territory. A great deal was made later of these rolls and of the ordinance of John, as proving that the Angevin or Plantagenet kings possessed the sovereignty of the sea; but beyond the jurisdiction in question, which doubtless was exercised in the Straits of Dover and perhaps in the Channel when the coasts on each side were in the possession of the crown, there is a lack of evidence to prove that any claim of the kind was made. In those times the kings of England were not infrequently styled Lords of the Sea, but this appears to have been either because of the existence of this “sovereign lordship” in the neighbouring waters, or, more usually, because they held at the time the actual command and mastery of the seas in a military sense. There were long periods when nothing was heard of any pretension by England to a special sovereignty of the sea, and, in point of fact, the characteristic features of appropriation were always absent. No tribute was levied on foreign shipping passing through the Channel or the narrow seas, even when both coasts were held by the king, as was done by Denmark at the Sound and by Venice in the Adriatic. After the battle of Agincourt, when Henry V. had been recognised by the Treaty of Troyes as the future king of France and the power of England was predominant, the proposal of Parliament that such tribute should be levied was set aside. Foreign ships of war freely navigated the adjacent seas without asking or receiving permission to do so. The sea fisheries, moreover, were not appropriated. All people were at liberty to come and share in them, and this freedom to fish on the English coast was expressly provided for in a long series of treaties with foreign Powers. The so-called sovereignty of the seas exercised by England thus differed from the actual sovereignty enjoyed by Venice and the northern states of Europe, whose rights were, moreover, recognised in numerous treaties with other nations.