The Sovereignty of the Sea: An Historical Account of the Claims of England to the Dominion of the British Seas, and of the Evolution of the Territorial WatersFulton, Thomas Wemyss
History
The Sovereignty of the Sea: An Historical Account of the Claims of England to the Dominion of the British Seas, and of the Evolution of the Territorial Waters
Fulton, Thomas Wemyss
Fisheries -- Great Britain; Great Britain. Royal Navy -- History; Sea-power; Territorial waters -- Great Britain -- History
The limits of the British seas, and the sovereignty pertaining to
them, were more fully described by Dr Dee some years later in a long
unpublished letter or treatise addressed to Sir Edward Dyer,[187]
who had apparently asked him for a fuller statement of his views on
the subject. In his book Dee said little about the boundaries in the
Channel, where the principle of the mid-line was complicated by two
circumstances--the claim of Elizabeth to the French crown, and the
possession by England of the Channel Islands. In his later treatise he
says that presupposing “for doctrine’s sake” that Calais was in the
hands of Spain, and the northern coasts of Picardy and Normandy were
appropriated by France (which was the case), then the boundary must
be drawn in the very middle of the Channel between Dover and Calais,
and then westwards in the middle line between the opposite coasts of
England and of Picardy and Normandy, until it touched the middle of a
straight line drawn between Portland and the island of Alderney. In
this region, west of the line, inasmuch as the coasts of the Channel
Islands and the opposite coast of England belonged to the Queen, her
Majesty had “absolute, peculiar, and appropriate Sea Sovereignty and
Jurisdiction Royall.” The western boundary of this area of absolute
sovereignty in the narrow seas coincided with a line drawn from Start
Point to an “island” that Dee calls “Rocktow,” which is unrepresented
on charts, but which is probably a phonetic synonym for “Roches
Douvres,” a group of islets off the north coast of Brittany.[188] From
the middle of this line the boundary passed westwards, again midway
between the coasts of England and Brittany, until it touched the middle
of a third straight line drawn from the north-west part of Ushant
to about the Lizard. These were the limits on the supposition above
referred to; but, “speaking more boldly in her Majesty’s right,” Dee
declared that the whole sea between the south coast of England and
the north coast of France--Picardy, Normandy, and Brittany--was under
the Queen’s “sea-jurisdiction and sovereignty absolute,” inasmuch
as she was a real monarch of France by direct inheritance and prior
conquest, and therefore had right to the French coasts; and this
“absolute sovereignty” served to “enlarge and warrant” the Queen’s
“Jurisdiction Respective” in the ocean to the west of France. So also
the jurisdiction of the crown of England extended into the main ocean
to the west of England and Ireland by reason of the possession of the
shores; while the ocean around Scotland, inasmuch as that country was
(he said) in olden times tributary to the English kings, yielded to
her Majesty “a mightie portion of Sea Sovereignty,” as it stretched
away westwards to “that famous and very ancient Platonicall or
Solonicall Atlantis.” For the same reasons Dee claimed prerogative and
jurisdiction for the Queen in the northern ocean, and between Scotland
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