Governments and regulatory agencies make policy through a range of instruments from soft-law guidelines and executive orders to executive rules with the force of law. Based on her book, Democracy and Executive Power, Susan Rose-Ackerman’s essay highlights the link between cross-country differences in rulemaking practices and underlying constitutional frameworks. Based on the US, the UK, Germany, and France, the chapter illustrates how these countries’ disparate constitutional structures help to explain their divergent rulemaking practices. She stresses the existence of policymaking accountability under the rulemaking provisions of the US APA and its absence from the other cases. Nevertheless, whatever the legal framework, the author argues that bureaucrats should take account of outside input as they implement statutory language to make policy choices. The organization of the executive branch should encourage public input and promote bureaucratic competence. Contemporary pressures may indeed be moving all of these countries toward more accountable procedures – not just to protect individual rights but also to enhance the democratic legitimacy of executive rulemaking.

Like its immediate predecessor, this seventh Naval Miscellany clearly reveals how wide ranging and varied were the responsibilities of British seamen in the service of the Crown. The period covered extends from the late thirteenth century, when there was nothing in existence which could truly be called a navy, to the second half of the twentieth century when the Royal Navy faced all manner of new challenges, including the possibility of nuclear war.

Contributions dealing with the earliest periods are concerned only with what are now thought of as home waters [I and II both dealing with campaigns against Scotland]. We move on to voyages to Iceland [III], in the Baltic [IV], and thereafter to the high seas in general. Even more than the ever wider geographical spread of Naval activity, the topics covered show how deeply maritime affairs became woven into British life in time of peace as well as war. The ships of the Cinque Ports and the other harbours along the south and east coasts of England which transported Edward I's armies and their victuals and equipment to Scotland [I] were everyday merchantmen, many no larger than a modern yacht. Without their help the King's ambitious campaigns would have foundered. The documents printed also shed light on the shipping of the period, its design and construction and the number of vessels which could be pressed into royal service. Changes by the sixteenth century are made clear by comparing this contribution with that relating to Lord Lisle's expedition of 1544 [II]. The log of the voyage of the Marigold [III] just over a century later says much about contemporary seamanship and the way in which governments by then saw the fisheries as one of their legitimate concerns.

The voyages of the Raven and the Investigator [VI, VII] not only indicate the professionalism of the surveying and chart-making activities of the Hydrographic Office but also the value of those activities for the economic development of the areas concerned. The difficulties of organising such expeditions in areas little known at the time are vividly portrayed. However, the largest group of contributions is concerned with various aspects of the Royal Navy as a fighting force in the defence of the realm.

Two separate accounts have been transcribed and translated here. Both are preserved in The National Archives at Kew and come from the records of the Exchequer. Both date from the reign of Edward III and relate to the affairs of Thomas de Snetesham who was Clerk of the King's Ships in the early years of this office. He was first appointed in 1336 but at times shared the title and the duties of the office with William de Clewere and Matthew de Torksey whose accounts at times cover periods overlapping with those of Snetesham. Similarly towards the end of the reign of Edward III the office seems to have been shared to some extent between Robert Crull and John de Haytfield.

The duties of the office seem not to have been clearly defined until the end of the century with each clerk having a slightly different set of responsibilities. Generally, the duties of the Clerk of the King's Ships extended to the repair of royal ships, sometimes to the building of a new one, the provision of supplies like cordage and caulking materials and occasionally victuals, and the organisation of ship keepers to care for the vessels when they were in harbour or laid up in an anchorage. The Clerks were not concerned with operational matters although some mention is often made of the voyages for which a vessel was being prepared. A particular value of these accounts is to allow some conclusions to be drawn about the ships themselves, their design and their equipment. They also allow us to understand how a medieval monarchy approached the expensive and onerous task of keeping a royal fleet in a seaworthy condition and the way in which this had become of much greater concern than previously in the reign of Edward III.

The first account edited comes from the Accounts Various class of the Exchequer (TNA E101) and consists of the particulars of account kept by Snetesham for the year 18 Edward III, that is 25 January 1344–25 January 1345. He is described as Clerk of the ship George, not as Clerk of the King's Ships in this particular instance. From the account it is not clear whether this refers to the ship called George , formerly in French ownership, which was captured at the battle of Sluys by the English and which sank in Winchelsea harbour in 1346.

Froissart's vivid descriptions of the discomforts of campaigning in Scotland and the absolute necessity of ensuring that the armies were properly supplied with victuals and all the other things needed provide the background to Edward I's concern with using the Naval resources of his kingdom to supply his forces in Scotland. In 1327 Froissart wrote:

In 1298, at the siege of Falkirk, the English army had almost starved for lack of supplies; clearly an army could not expect to live off the country in Scotland but must rely on all supplies being brought up from the south with transport by water being the most practical method.

The documents printed here illustrate two aspects of the need to provide shipping to support campaigns in Scotland in the later years of Edward I's reign. First there are four accounts which give details of the building of vessels, usually called barges, for the king [1–4], and secondly there is a selection of writs and accounts which provide examples of the way in which shipping was arrested by the Crown for these campaigns and the kind of problems which could arise [5–7]. All the documents come from the class of Exchequer Accounts Various (E101) at the National Archives at Kew.

Edward I had become involved in the affairs of Scotland after the death of Alexander III in a riding accident in 1286, leaving no direct heir except a young girl, Margaret, the Maid of Norway, his granddaughter. Her mother, also Margaret, who had been sent from Scotland to Norway to marry King Eric II, had died, probably in childbirth, leaving this little daughter as the only surviving direct descendant of Alexander, whose two sons had predeceased him.