of his own, he should thenceforth be advanced to the dignity of a Thane and entitled to all the privileges attaching to his rank; and he, at the same time, established mints in such towns as enjoyed any considerable amount of foreign trade, with the necessary provisions to ensure the purity and just weight of the coins issued.[1] These salutary laws and other prudent regulations had the effect of considerably improving trade during his reign.
William of Malmesbury has preserved the record of a gift by Harold, king of Norway, to Athelstan, about the year 931, of a ship adorned with a golden prow, having a purple sail, and armed with a complete bulwark of shields. A similar arrangement of shields may be seen on many of the ships delineated on the Bayeux tapestry.[2]
Edgar's fleet, and his arrangements for suppressing piracy. From the death of Athelstan to the accession of Edgar, there are no incidents in connection with shipping or commerce worthy of record. Edgar, however, greatly increased the royal navy; nay, the monkish writers of the period assert that he had three or four thousand vessels, an exaggeration not requiring refutation.[3] Edgar, besides living in considerable splendour, spent large sums of money on
- ↑ Thorpe, "Ancient Laws of England," p. 31; and Macpherson, vol. i. pp. 266-268. There is another order of Ethelred, "that the ships of war should be ready every year at Easter."—Ancient Laws, p. 137.
- ↑ William of Malmesbury, i. p. 215.
- ↑ The Saxon Chronicle gives to his predecessor, Edward the Elder, a fleet of some hundreds of ships, but this number is evidently too indefinite for any historical purpose. (Sax. Chron. A.D. 911.) If the charter granted to Worcester by this king in A.D. 964 be genuine, which Kemble doubts (Cod. Diplom. Ævi Saxon. ii. 404), he would seem to have been the first English monarch who claimed the "sovereignty of the sea."
