England and the Narrow Seas
I
In English records of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries there is a phrase which often recurs — “the Narrow Seas.” Historians treat it as a name, and tell us, rightly enough, that it refers to the seas which lie just north and south of the Straits of Dover. But what they do not tell us adequately is how greatly the fate of the world has been affected by the peculiarities of these narrow seas. The marked character of these seas has impressed itself upon the populations on its shores: in England these are the East Kent folk and East Anglians from Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, and Lincolnshire; and on the continent across the water they are the people of the Low Countries — namely, Holland, Belgium, and the north-western coast of France. There are two characteristics impressed on all these populations, with the possible exception of the French section, which has for its hinterland the Latin influence of France. These characteristics are obstinacy and a tendency to lonely thought. There are some things which cannot be learned from State documents in record offices; and one of these facts, which is thus apt to escape notice, is how the Narrow Seas impressed their character on these coastal populations. The Narrow Seas are the parents of all the free governments in the world — Holland, England, the United States. The Pilgrim Fathers were their offspring.
The Straits of Dover from the southern apex of the small triangle in which the North Sea ends; and they form the north-eastern apex of the triangle where the English Channel narrows down to the twenty miles separating England from the civilized world of Latin influence. On the map it looks the simplest job in the world to sail up the Channel, pass through the Straits, and thence up the estuary of the Thames to London. Alternatively there is the short voyage from Antwerp to London. Philip of Spain saw that. Yet there are only four records of a successful invasion across the Narrow Seas: the Romans, the Saxons, William the Conqueror, and the Dutch William the Third. The list suggests high-class efficiency; and it is all wanted for the task. I always suspect that Julius Cæsar and his Roman successors had colossal luck in getting across and in getting back. A fog and a gale, with a Roman fleet wrecked on the treacherous sunken sands or blown on to some dangerous headland — Beachy Head, or the South Foreland, or the North Foreland — might have left England barbarous for another four hundred years and have altered the history of the world. The chances were heavily against those fair-weather Mediterranean sailors, used to tideless, fogless seas. Perhaps Providence sometimes takes a hand in the game of history.
