Holy mackerel: 17th-century document offers post-Brexit hope

But help could be at hand in the shape of a document signed in 1666 by King Charles II, which Flemish minister-president Geert Bourgeois pulled out of his pocket on a recent appearance on the TV news show Terzake. The document, a so-called privilege, gives permission to 50 Bruges fishermen to fish in British waters in perpetuity.

Of course, no-one has fished out of Bruges since the harbour silted up, but the port of the city is now Zeebrugge, which does have a fishing fleet. The document was discovered in the city archives of Bruges in 1963, before the London convention allowing access to foreign boats was signed.

A Bruges city councillor took a boat into British waters and had himself arrested, in the hope of testing the privilege in court. The British declined to prosecute, apparently for fear the 1666 paper would be ruled to be still enforceable.

The chances of the privilege being brought up during Brexit negotiations are slim, a Bourgeois spokesperson admitted. “But it is not impossible that the Bruges fishermen still have some rights,” she said.