Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/426



The accession of William the Conqueror to the throne of England produced important changes in the maritime affairs of that country, and gave to its over-sea commerce greatly increased security and stability. In their anxiety to recover the throne of Canute, the Danes had prepared a fleet for the purpose of invasion, which obliged the Conqueror to summon to his aid the whole of the naval resources of the island. Dover, Sandwich, and Romney were each called upon to provide, at their own expense, twenty vessels, equipped for sea, with crews of twenty-one men and provisions for fifteen days. Rye and Winchelsea rendered similar assistance, and in return had conferred on them privileges similar to those which had been granted to the former places by Edward the Confessor. These ports were then for the first time styled the Cinque Ports, by which distinctive title they have ever since been known. Other ports had also to provide their quota. The fleet thus provided by the Conqueror was so fully maintained by Rufus, his second son and successor, that the learned Selden dates England's maritime supremacy from that very early period. Still, for more than a century after the Conquest, her ships seldom ventured beyond the Bay of Biscay on the one hand, or the entrance to the Baltic on the other; and there is no record of any long voyages by English ships until the time of the Crusades, which, whatever they may have done for the cause of the Cross, undoubtedly gave the first great impetus to the shipping of England. The number of rich and powerful princes and nobles, who embarked their fortunes in these