An incident which occurred early in the next century shows the temper in which the Parliament regarded the sovereignty of the narrow sea, as well as the caution of the king. By that time the English navy had recovered its strength and France lay prostrate at the feet of Henry V., and the Parliament petitioned the king to levy an impost on all foreign ships passing through the Channel, in emulation, no doubt, of the practice of the Danish kings at the Sound. It was a few years after the battle of Agincourt, and the Treaty of Troyes, by which Henry was recognised as the future king of France, had just been concluded. “The Commons pray,” ran the petition, “that seeing our Sovereign Lord the King and his noble progenitors have ever been Lords of the Sea, and now by the grace of God it has come to pass that our said Lord the King is Lord of the shores on both sides of the sea, such tribute should be imposed on all strangers passing through the said sea, as may appear reasonable to the King for safeguarding the said sea.”[45] The answer of the king was that he would consider it (_soit avise par le Roy_), the usual formula of refusal. In the following year Henry was again involved in war with France, and he died in 1422 and nothing more was heard of the proposal. But it is extremely doubtful if he or any other English king would have ventured to adopt the policy recommended by the Commons. The shipping that passed through the Channel was far more voluminous and important than that passing through the Sound, and the waterway could not be so easily commanded, as by guns from the shore. Any measure of the kind would doubtless have led to a combination of other maritime Powers against England, which would have been fatal to the attempt. It may be noted that the Parliament based their proposal on the king’s possession of both shores; and this, in accordance with the opinions of the Italian lawyers of the preceding century, whose authority was great, carried with it the right of sovereignty over the intervening sea.