In spite of so many declarations made to Parliament, monopolies of different kinds were again granted by the crown, especially to associations which were formed for the exclusive prosecution of some branch of trade, and which were regularly invested with the rights and constitution of companies with governor, assistants, and society. They were obliged to purchase their title by yearly payments, but in return were then supported in those vexatious regulations which they made to enforce it. Other sovereign rights furnished an opportunity of levying considerable taxes on separate articles[50]. It is calculated that up to the year 1635 Charles I had raised his income from £500,000 to £800,000. The King, says Correro the Venetian, moves among the rocks by which he is surrounded, slowly but surely. The judges explain the laws in his favour, as there are no Parliaments to contradict them: and his subjects do not then venture to withstand him. ‘With the key of the laws he seeks to open the entrance to absolute power[51].’ By far the most important and remarkable of all his claims was the demand for ship-money. Those were times in which he thought it necessary to oppose the resistance of a powerful navy to the maritime encroachments of the Dutch and French. We have seen that for this purpose he asked for subsidies from Spain, but was unable to obtain them. In the embarrassment into which he was thrown in consequence, a very welcome prospect of assistance was held out, when some of his supporters who were learned in the law maintained that he had the right to demand the aid of the country for this object even without the assent of Parliament. As by English usage the duty of defending the country and of guarding the sea [A.D. 1634.] was laid on him, this duty, it was said, carried with it also the right of making the necessary dispositions for that purpose. They adduced a series of precedents, according to which monarchs on their own authority, without the support of Parliament even when it was sitting, and only with the consent of the Privy Council, had issued the requisite proclamation for equipping naval armaments, and had met with obedience down to the end of the reign of Edward III. To the objection that this was more than two centuries and half ago, the King’s supporters replied, that the continuance of an opposite usage for any length of time could not cancel the right of the sovereign, and that even in the most recent times an instance had occurred, for that the whole warlike preparations by which the attack of the Spanish Armada had been repulsed in the year 1588, had been set on foot at the sole order of Queen Elizabeth[52]. At the present moment, when the old sovereignty of England over the seas was contested by the neighbouring powers, a similar proceeding appeared peculiarly justifiable. Not only were the seaport towns summoned to furnish the King with a specified number of ships of a certain tonnage for