There appears to be only one instance before the Norman Conquest in regard to which _prima facie_ evidence was produced that an English king expressly claimed the sovereignty of the sea, and as it is constantly quoted by later writers it may be worth while examining it. The chronicles agree that the naval power of England was specially manifested by King Edgar (A.D. 959-975), who is said to have possessed a fleet of several thousand vessels, with which he cruised every year along the English coasts. In the words of the Saxon Chronicle, “no fleet was so daring, nor army so strong, that mid the English nation took from him aught, the while that the noble king ruled on his throne.”[18] According to William of Malmesbury, who wrote in the twelfth century, Edgar usually styled himself the sovereign lord of all Albion and of the maritime or insular kings dwelling round about,[19] the assumption being that he also exercised sovereignty over the intervening and surrounding seas. In a charter by which Edgar, in 964, granted large revenues to the Cathedral Church at Worcester, the claim to the ocean around Britain is more definite, and it is this version that is usually quoted by the writers maintaining the antiquity of the English rights.[20] The title thus said to have been used by Edgar is expressive enough, but an important difference in the wording of this part of the charter is to be found in the transcript printed by Coke in the Epistle to the Fourth Book of Reports, by Spelman,[21] Wilkins,[22] and by the more recent authorities on Anglo-Saxon charters, Kemble,[23] Thorpe,[24] and Birch,[25] from which it appears that Edgar claimed to be, not lord of the sea, but of the islands in the sea.[26] This is the version given by Sir John Boroughs in his _Sovereignty of the British Seas_, and it is also mentioned by Selden. But, after all, the authenticity of the preamble of this charter is not well established. Kemble marks it as doubtful, a view supported by intrinsic evidence as to an imaginary conquest of Ireland. Thorpe is of opinion that the preamble was fabricated about 1155, when Henry II., in concert with Pope Adrian IV., was meditating the conquest of that island. It may therefore be concluded that King Edgar’s assumption of maritime sovereignty had its source in a monkish fable, although he may have possessed the actual command of the sea in his time. Later on, the supposed _rôle_ of Edgar among the Anglo-Saxon kings was a common argument for the English claims. He was looked upon as a sort of patron saint of the doctrine that the kings of England were lords of the sea. Charles I. put his effigy on the beak of his great ship, the _Sovereign of the Sea_, and inscribed his name in a motto on her guns. Oliver Cromwell, too, quoted his exploits to the Dutch ambassador in the course of the negotiations after the first war with Holland.