 Later, Catholic sympathiser Charles I of England made a number of secret agreements with Spain, directed against Dutch sea power.He also embarked on a major programme of naval reconstruction, enforcing ship money to finance the building of such prestige vessels as .But fearful of endangering his relations with the powerful Dutch stadtholder Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange, his assistance to Spain was limited in practice to allowing Habsburg troops on their way to Dunkirk to make use of English shipping.