But his machine could not soar.

What may be called the first patent on a flying machine was recorded in 1709 when Bartholomeo de Gusmao, a friar, appeared before the King of Portugal to announce that he had invented a flying machine and to request an order prohibiting other men from making anything of the sort.

The King decreed pain of death to all infringers; and to assist the enterprising monk in improving his machine, he appointed him first professor of mathematics in the University of Coimbra with a fat stipend.

Then the Inquisition stepped in.

The inventor's suave reply, to the effect that to show men how to soar to Heaven was an essentially religious act, availed him nothing.