great rate. Thus in the thirteenth century the French, the Scotch, Irish and Welsh fitted out ships, hung about the narrow seas till they were able to capture a well-laden merchantman as their fat reward. So, before long, the English Channel was swarming with pirates, and during the reign of Henry III. their numbers grew to an alarming extent. The net result was that it was a grave risk for commodities to be brought across the Channel, and so, therefore, the price of these goods rose. The only means of remedy was to increase the English fleet, and this at length was done in order to cope with the evil.
But matters were scarcely better in the North Sea, and English merchant ships sailed in perpetual fear of capture. During the Middle Ages pirates were always hovering about for any likely ship, and the wool trade especially was interfered with. Matters became somewhat complicated when, as happened in the reign of Edward II., peaceable English ships were arrested by Norway for having been suspected—erroneously—of slaughtering a Norwegian knight, whereas the latter had been actually put to death by pirates. "We marvell not a little," wrote Edward II. in complaint to Haquinus, King of Norway, "and are much disquieted in our cogitations, considering the greevances and oppressions, which (as wee have beene informed by pitifull complaints) are at this present, more than in times past, without any reasonable cause inflicted upon our subjects, which doe usually resort unto your kingdome for traffiques sake." For the fact was that one nation was as bad as the other, but that whenever the one had suffered then the other would lay violent hands on a ship that was merely suspected of having acted piratically. Angered at the loss to their own countrymen they were prompted by revenge on alien seamen found in their own waters and even
