The granting of monopolies was an interference with trade which would now cause a revolution. There were many complaints. Parliament declared that all monopolies were void. That was under James. Charles began, notwithstanding, to sell monopolies to whomsoever would pay him most for them. Thus the importation of alum was prohibited, for the protection of the alum works of Whitby; also brick-making, the manufacture of saltpetre, of tapestry, the coining of farthings, the making of steel, the making of stone pots and jugs, making guns, melting iron ore, and many other things. More than this, Charles made the sale of tobacco a royal monopoly; he forbade the infant colony of Virginia to sell tobacco to any foreign state; he levied a duty of four shillings a chaldron on all coal exported to foreign parts; and he actually endeavoured to establish a malting and a brewing monopoly. When we read the historian on the despotic acts of Charles and his attempts on the liberties of his people, let us bear in mind the constant exasperations of these interferences with trade—that is, with the livelihood of the people. When at last he became awakened to the danger of the position, he revoked all their “grants, licences, and privileges”; but it was then too late—revolution had already arisen. Shops which had been open stalls confined to one or two markets in London, such as East and West Chepe, began, towards the end of the sixteenth century and early in the seventeenth, to appear along Fleet Street, the Strand, and in King Street, Westminster. Haberdashers, milliners, woollen drapers, cutlers, upholsterers, glassmen, perfumers, and others established themselves everywhere, making so brave a show every day, that, as Stow complains, “the people of London began to expend extravagantly.” There were offered, among other wares, “French and Spanish gloves, and French cloth or frigarde (frieze), Flanders-dyed kersies, daggers, swords, knives, Spanish girdles, painted cruses, dials, tables, cards, balls, glasses, fine earthen pots, salt-cellars, spoons, tin dishes, puppets, pennons, ink-horns, toothpicks, silk, and silver buttons. All which ‘made such a show in passengers’ eyes, that they could not help gazing on and buying these knicknacks.’ This great offence a contemporary writer, quoted by Stow, bitterly apostrophises. He ‘marvels’ that ‘no man taketh heed to it what number of trifles cometh hither from beyond the seas, that we might either clean spare, or else make them within our own realm; for the which we either pay inestimable treasure every year, or else exchange substantial wares and necessaries for them, for the which we might receive great treasure.”