324 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEA 



at his employment. "No man," he wrote to Roe, "was 

 ever more desirous of a charge than I am to be quit of 

 mine, being in a condition where I see I can neither do 

 service nor gain credit." 1 



There is clear evidence indeed that by this time the naval 

 officers, as well as the people generally, were becoming tired 

 of the king's great pretensions and small performance. 

 Even Pennington, a simple, loyal, unimaginative man, always 

 ready to obey orders, had begun to joke, as we have seen, 

 at the king's seas, "as he is pleased to call them." Through- 

 out the country discontent was deepening. The opposition 

 to the collection of ship-money was growing formidable, and 

 the declaration of the Judges in favour of the king's right 

 to levy it only postponed the inevitable for a little. 2 In 

 his letter to the Judges, Charles based his case on the necessity 

 of maintaining his sovereignty of the sea. The honour and 

 safety of the realm of England, he said, "was and is now 

 more neerely concerned then in late former tyiries, as well 

 by divers councells and attempts to take from Us the dominion 

 of the seas (of which we are sole Lord, and rightfull owner 

 and proprietour, and the losse whereof would bee of greatest 

 danger and perill to this kingdome and other our Domynkms) 

 as many other waies." 3 



The king's dominion on the sea was rapidly waning. 

 Fielding's ignoble mission was the last attempt that fate 

 permitted Charles to make in actively asserting it. The 

 shadow of the coming revolution was already upon him. The 

 trial of Hampden for refusing to pay the ship-money focussed 

 the attention of England, and it was followed by complaints 

 of other grievances arising from the personal government of 

 the king. The popular tumult in Edinburgh in the summer 

 about the new Liturgy had as a sequence the National 



1 Aug. 6. State Papers, Dom., ccclxv. 28. 



2 An example of the feeling is to be found in an incident of this summer. One, 

 Richard Rose, a justice of the peace, on hearing that the fleet was going forth to 

 maintain the king's title of being Lord of the Narrow Seas, exclaimed : " What a 

 foolery is this ; that the country in general shall be thus much taxed with great 

 sums to maintain the king's titles and honours ! For my part, I am 10 the 

 worse for it already." When information of this remark was laid before the 

 Council, the Lords "thought it not fit to question these words." Ibid., ccclxx. 1. 



3 The king to the Twelve Judges, 2nd Feb. 1637. Ibid., ccclxvi. 11. 



