But a change took place, as we have seen, in the following year. Among the suggestions made by Pennington to the king, and repeated to the Admiralty, was one that any foreign ship attacked by another foreigner in the narrow seas might put herself under the protection of any of the king’s ships by coming under its lee, “in the same manner as under a castle on shore.”[479] It was certainly a proposal as bold as it was brilliant. Ships of war have long been regarded by certain writers on international law as being essentially an extension of the territory of the state to which they belong; but no writer ever suggested that the water around them on the high sea should be looked upon as partaking of the same character. The sea round a king’s ship, within range of the guns on board, was to be a sanctuary like the waters of the King’s Chambers,--a sort of territorial girdle which it carried about with it like an aureole round the head of a saint. Pennington’s suggestion was considered by the Admiralty early in April 1634, and Nicholas, the Secretary, was instructed to confer with Sir Henry Marten, the Judge of the Admiralty Court, with regard to it. Nicholas summed up his own views oracularly in the sentence, “If a merchant fly from men-of-war, it concerns the king’s ships to preserve trade.” Sir Henry Marten gave a clear opinion. “It is not fit,” he said, “nor honourable for the king’s ships appointed to guard the Narrow Seas to suffer any men-of-war to fight with each other, or men-of-war with merchants, or merchant with merchant, in the presence of the king’s ships within the Narrow Seas, for that the king’s ships are set forth to keep peace in those seas for the freer and better maintenance of trade and commerce through the same: and all men trading or sailing within the king’s seas do justly take themselves to be _in pace Domini Regis_; and since such are _in pace Domini Regis_, it doth concern the king in honour and justice to protect them from injury and violence.” The language of the first part of this statement is the same as in the regulation prepared a little before with respect to hostilities within the King’s Chambers (p. 251); but its purport went much further than the recommendation of Pennington, and in effect extended the protection afforded by the King’s Chambers, and the regulation applying to them, to the whole of the narrow seas.