discretion for any purpose.”(6) The resistance which followed, and which assisted the unfortunate monarch to his downfall, is too well known to need recapitulation here. Worthy Monson, who, although bluff and hearty enough as a sailor, was something of a courtier, defended the levy of the obnoxious tax. But then he believed that Charles really wanted the money for the navy alone, and for retaliation upon the Dutch, while the nation at large had not much faith in their king, or in the alleged purposes for which the tax was to be levied. This is not the place for any defence, partial or otherwise, of Charles’s policy. He did, however, show a considerable amount of energy in his attempts to improve the navy, and constructed one vessel, the _Sovereign of the Seas_, or _Royal Sovereign_, which was in every respect an advance on anything built before it. One Thomas Heywood wrote a very learned and flowery tract concerning it. “There is one thing” says he, “above all things for the world to take speciall notice of, that shee is beside tonnage so many tons in burden, as their have beene yeares since our blessed Saviour’s incarnation, namely, 1637, and not one under or over; a most happy omen, which, though it was not the first projected or intended, is now by true computation found so to happen.” A description of her ornamentation would occupy several pages of this work; gold and black were the colours alone employed. She was 232 feet long, had three flush decks, besides quarter-deck and raised forecastle. “Her lower tyre” had thirty ports; her middle tier the same; and the third, twenty-six ports for guns. Her forecastle, half-deck, stern, and bows were all pierced for heavy guns—that is, heavy for those days. On the stern was painted a Latin inscription, thus “Englisht,” as Heywood puts it:— “He who seas, windes, and navies doth protect, Great Charles, thy great ship in her course direct!” She was built of the best oak, and no more seaworthy ship had ever been turned out from Woolwich previously. _The Royal Prince_, built only nineteen years before, seems to have been a mere holiday ship, and was at the above-mentioned date laid up; the _Royal Sovereign_ was in active service for nearly sixty years, and would have been rebuilt but for an untoward accident. The history and fate of this fine ship are thus briefly described by a descendant of the architect, Phineas Pett, writing in January, 1696:—