Note 51 — Chapter I · EARLY HISTORY.
Reading edition
Cunningham, op. cit., 361. In the Libelle it is asked—
“Wher ben our shippes, wher ben our swerdes become? Our enmyes bid for the ship set a sheep”;
and the rubric of an anonymous commentator states that the advice quoted was owing to the fact that while in the time of Edward III. the English were lords of the sea, they were now in these days mad (vecordes), vanquished, and for waging war and guarding the sea, like sheep. The jest is also alluded to by Capgrave, Liber de Illustribus Henricis, 135.