THE theory of divine right, by which the Stuarts laid claim to a sovereignty as irresponsible as it was far-reaching, in practice came into direct conflict with another theory which had been taking shape for some four centuries, the supremacy of Parliament. In the field of taxation the issue is scarcely less apparent. Parliament asserted the supremacy of its will over all kinds of taxes, indirect as well as direct. The crown, on the other hand, hesitating to close with the representatives of the people over a question of their authority in direct taxation, maintained that unchecked royal power extended to indirect taxes, including duties at the ports. Furthermore, the crown, whenever occasion arose, sought to elude the hold of Parliament upon direct taxation, by resorting to the familiar resources of benevolences and the sale of monopolies, and at last to the levy of ship money. With the issue so direct, the great question was that of strength. Should the crown with its array of adherents, upholding as their ideal the perfect exercise of the royal prerogative, prove itself stronger than the House of Commons? Or were the commons to prevail, standing for the principle that the representatives of the people sitting in Parliament should have complete control over the public purse? [James I, 1603-1625] James Stuart, swollen with intellectual pride, was, according to the Duc de Sully, “the wisest fool in Europe.” Worse than his vanity were his unsteadiness and his insincerity, traceable, perhaps, to the Italian-Gallic stock whence he was bred.[293] Divine right, a doctrine by its nature offensive to Englishmen, was in him doubly hateful because he was not born king, but was proclaimed by the Council, an act ratified, however, by popular voice, and subsequently acquiesced in by Parliament.[294] In the matter of religion, he was not more agreeable; suspected at times of plots to further Roman Catholicism, he assumed toward the Puritans especial animosity, they standing in his mind not so much as preachers of religion as propagandists of republicanism. [James I dictates the composition of the Commons, 1604]