In the following year was concluded the first of the great series of Burgundy treaties, about which so much was to be heard in the diplomatic negotiations with the Dutch in the seventeenth century. Flanders was then part of the dominions of the Duke of Burgundy, who held it as a fief of France, and freedom of commerce and fishery was of the highest importance to his Flemish subjects. A treaty or convention was therefore drawn up between Henry’s ambassadors and the Duke of Burgundy, dealing chiefly with commercial intercourse, in which the above-mentioned provisions for mutual liberty of fishing were embodied, in practically the same language, and comprising likewise the whole of France.[122] In 1408 the mutual freedom of fishing in the sea was twice confirmed,--in the prorogation of the truce with the Duke of Burgundy, and in the ratification by the King of France of the treaty between Henry and the Duke;[123] and it was again confirmed at Amiens by John, Duke of Burgundy, in 1417, in the reign of Henry V.[124]
The various fishery truces and conventions of Henry IV., which were made at a time when great insecurity prevailed on the sea and depredations were committed on all hands, reflect credit on that able monarch, and notwithstanding the naval weakness in the early part of his reign, they must have had a favourable influence in fostering the sea fisheries. The sort of treatment that fishermen in those times had frequently to undergo is indicated in a complaint made to the king in 1410 that, notwithstanding the fishery truce with France, the men of Harfleur had seized an English fishing vessel of twenty-four tons, _Le Cogge Johan de Briggewauter_, and had thrown the master and fourteen of the crew into prison, without food and water, and held them to ransom for a hundred pounds.[125] Such occurrences were by no means uncommon, and it was customary for fishing vessels to go to sea armed,[126]--a provision which also enabled them on occasion to do a little piracy on their own account. It was sometimes difficult for the authorities to decide whether a vessel provided with fishing-lines and armed, as some were, with “minions, falcons, and falconettes,” and having a good store of powder and bullets, had been equipped to catch fish or prey upon other vessels.