seas, or parts of them, in a military sense. During their occupation of Britain they were also in possession of Gaul, and thus held both coasts of the narrow sea, and no doubt exercised authority over it, as the Norman and Angevin kings under similar circumstances did later. Throughout the Anglo-Saxon period of English history evidence of the existence of a sovereignty over the adjoining sea, or even of a pretension to it, is almost as unsatisfactory. Here again the authors who championed _mare clausum_ professed to find in very ordinary events arguments in favour of their case. The seafaring habits of the Teutonic invaders and their daring and valour--they were described by the Roman poet as sea-wolves, fierce and cunning, with the sea as their school of war and the storm their friend--were regarded as proof that they possessed maritime sovereignty after their conquest of Britain. The Danegeld, a tax which was originally levied as a means of buying off the Danes, or of providing a fleet to resist their attacks, was thought by Selden to show the same thing.[16] So also with the fleets collected by Alfred, Edgar, Ethelred, and other English kings to oppose the invasions of the Northmen,--they were believed to have secured and maintained dominion over the sea. Even the beautiful lesson in humility which Cnut desired to convey to his courtiers when, seated in regal pomp on the seashore, he vainly commanded the inflowing tide to stay its course at his behest, was seized on for the same end. “Thou, O sea,” said the great king, “art under my dominion, like the land on which I sit; nor is there any one who dares resist my commands. I therefore enjoin thee not to come up on my land, nor to presume to wet the feet or garments of thy lord.” In these words Selden professed to find clear proof that Cnut claimed the British seas as part of his dominions.[17]