Ship money

Ship money was a tax of medieval origin levied intermittently in the
Kingdom of England

Kingdom of England until the middle of the 17th century. Assessed
typically on the inhabitants of coastal areas of England, it was one
of several taxes that English monarchs could levy by prerogative
without the approval of Parliament. The attempt of King Charles I from
1634 onwards to levy ship money during peacetime and extend it to the
inland counties of England without Parliamentary approval provoked
fierce resistance, and was one of the grievances of the English
propertied class in the lead-up to the English Civil War.
Contents
1 Traditional practice
2 Opposition
2.1 Three writs
2.2 Refusal, then repeal
3 See also
4 References
5 Further reading
Traditional practice[edit]
The
Plantagenet

Plantagenet kings of England had exercised the right of requiring
the maritime towns and counties to furnish ships in time of war, and
this duty was sometimes commuted for a money payment.
Although several statutes of
Edward I

Edward I and Edward III, notably their
confirmations of Magna Carta, had made it illegal for the Crown to
exact any taxes without the consent of Parliament, the prerogative of
levying ship money in time of war had never fallen wholly into
abeyance. In 1619
James I

James I aroused no popular opposition by levying
£40,000 of ship money on London and on other seaport towns.
Opposition[edit]
Petition of Right
The Petition of Right
Created
8 May 1628
Ratified
7 June 1628
Location
Parliamentary Archives, London
Author(s)
Sir Edward Coke
Purpose
The protection of civil liberties
In 1628, Charles I, having prorogued Parliament in early summer and
after his assent to the Petition of Right, proceeded to levy ship
money on every county in England without Parliament, issuing writs
requiring £173,000 to be returned to the exchequer. This was the
first occasion when the demand for ship-money aroused serious
opposition, in view of the declaration in the petition that
[Y]our subjects have inherited this freedom, that they should not be
compelled to contribute to any tax, tallage, aid, or other like charge
not set by common consent, in parliament.
Charles' requests to sheriffs were rejected by the overburdened inland
populations; Lord Northampton, Lord-Lieutenant of Warwickshire, and
the Earl of Banbury in Berkshire, refused to assist in collecting the
money; and Charles withdrew the writs.
In 1634, Charles made a secret treaty with
Philip IV of Spain

Philip IV of Spain to
assist him against the Dutch. To raise funds for this assistance
William Noy, the Attorney-General, suggested that a further resort
should be had to ship money. Noy set himself to investigate such
ancient legal learning as was in existence in support of the demand,
and unearthed old records of ship money in the Tower of London; some
historians, such as Hallam, have seen Noy's investigations as evidence
that before Charles' levying of ship money the tax had been disused
and forgotten for centuries.
The King obtained an opinion in favour of the legality of the writ
from
Lord Keeper

Lord Keeper Coventry and the Earl of Manchester, whereupon the
writ was issued in October 1634 and directed to the justices of London
and other seaports, requiring them to provide a certain number of
ships of war of a prescribed tonnage and equipment, or their
equivalent in money, and empowering them to assess the inhabitants for
payment of the tax according to their substance.
Three writs[edit]
The distinctive feature of the writ of 1634 was that it was issued,
contrary to all precedent, in time of peace. Charles desired to
conceal the true aim of his policy, which he knew would be detested by
the country, and he accordingly alleged as a pretext for the impost
the danger to commerce from pirates, and the general condition of
unrest in Europe.
The citizens of London immediately claimed exemption under their
charter, while other towns argued as to the amount of their
assessment; but no resistance on constitutional grounds appears to
have been offered to the validity of the writ, and a sum of £104,000
was collected.
On October 9, 1635, a second writ of ship tax was issued, directed on
this occasion, as in the revoked writ of 1628, to the sheriffs and
justices of inland as well as of maritime counties and towns,
demanding the sum of £207,000[citation needed] which was to be
obtained by assessment on personal as well as real property, payment
to be enforced by distraint.
This demand excited growing popular discontent, which now began to see
in it a determination on the part of the King to dispense altogether
with parliamentary government. Charles, therefore, obtained a written
opinion, signed by ten out of twelve judges consulted, to the effect
that in time of national danger, of which the Crown was the sole
judge, ship money might legally be levied on all parts of the country
by writ under the Great Seal.
The issue of a third writ of ship money on 9 October 1636 made it
evident that the ancient restrictions that limited the levying of the
tax to the maritime parts of the Kingdom and to times of war (or
imminent national danger) had been finally swept away, and that the
King intended to convert it into a permanent and general form of
taxation without parliamentary sanction. The judges again, at
Charles's request, gave an opinion favourable to the prerogative,
which was read by Lord Coventry in the
Star Chamber
_(14598096217).jpg/600px-Old_and_new_London_-_a_narrative_of_its_history,_its_people,_and_its_places_(1873)_(14598096217).jpg)
Star Chamber and by the judges
on assize.
Refusal, then repeal[edit]
John Hampden
Ship money

Ship money was enough of a financial success to help Charles to meet
peacetime government expenditures in the 1630s.[1] Payment was,
however, refused by John Hampden, a wealthy
Buckinghamshire

Buckinghamshire gentleman
landowner. The case against the latter (R v Hampden, 3 Howell State
Trials, 825) was finally heard before all 12 judges in the Court of
Exchequer Chamber, after Denham had expressed his doubts to Davenport,
who was wary of the four judge panel which would have sat in a less
unusual case.[2] Hampden was defended by
Oliver St John

Oliver St John and Robert
Holborne. The Solicitor-General, Sir Edward Littleton, and the
Attorney-General, Sir John Banks, prosecuted. Hampden lost the case,
seven judges to five.:[3]
For the King:
Sir Richard Weston
Sir Francis Crawley
Sir Robert Berkley
Sir George Vernon
Sir Thomas Trevor
Sir William Jones
Sir John Finch
For Hampden:
Sir George Crooke
Sir Richard Hutton
Sir John Denham
Sir John Brampston
Sir Humphrey Davenport
Charles and his ministers continued to levy Ship Money despite
increasingly widespread opposition. The narrowness of the case
encouraged others to refuse the tax, and by 1639, less than 20% of the
money demanded was raised. As matters deteriorated in England and
Scotland starting with the Bishops' War, ship money would prove
insufficient to finance the king's military needs. It would later be
stopped by the
Long Parliament
.svg/300px-Coat_of_Arms_of_England_(1603-1649).svg.png)
Long Parliament when they voted the Ship Money Act
1640. Hampden went on to Parliamentary and Civil War leadership, only
to die early on at the Battle of Chalgrove Field. Finally, half a
century later, in the aftermath of the Glorious Revolution, the Bill
of Rights 1689 prohibited all forms of extra-Parliamentary taxation.
See also[edit]
The Ship Money Act 1640
References[edit]
^ Gross, David (ed.) We Won’t Pay!: A
Tax

Tax Resistance Reader
ISBN 1-4348-9825-3 pp. 9-16
^ C.V. Wedgwood The King's Peace Collins (1955)
^ Salmon's State Trials, vol 1, p.698
This article incorporates text from a publication now in
the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "article name
needed". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University
Press.
Further reading[edit]
Gordon, M. D. "The Collection of Ship-money in the Reign of Charles
I." Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 4 (1910): 141-162.
online
Keir, D.L. "The Case of the Ship-Money". Law Quarterly Review 52,
(1936) p. 546.
Langelüddecke, Henrik. "'I finde all men & my officers all soe
unwilling' The Collection of Ship Money, 1635–1640." Journal of
British Studies 46.3 (2007): 509-542. online
Mendle, Michael. "The Ship Money Case, The Case of Shipmony, and the
Development of Henry Parker's Parliamentary Absolutism". The
Historical Journal, Vol. 32, No. 3 (Sept. 1989), p