Excerpt from One Hundred Years of Fire Insurance, Vol. 36: Being a History of the AEtna Insurance Company, Hartford, Connecticut, 1819-1919 But good ideas often move slowly, and for a quarter of a century the subject lay dormant. In 1635 a peti tion was presented to Charles I of England to ensure all your Majesty's subjects whomsoever for so much of their estates combustible as they themselves shall conceive in danger of Fire. This seems to have been pigeon-holed, for three years later a similar petition was favorably received; and on October 16, 1638, the King ordered the Attorney General to prepare a patent for such a company, to run for forty-one years, and to await his royal signature. But'the King soon became engrossed in taking care of his royal political fences, and the insurance project was forgotten. Other attempts, made later, also failed. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.