Ship money was a tax of

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

origin levied intermittently in the

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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

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s could levy by

prerogative In law, a prerogative is an exclusive right bestowed by a government or state and invested in an individual or group, the content of which is separate from the body of rights enjoyed under the general law. It was a common facet of feudal law. Th ...

without the approval of

Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. Th ...

. 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 The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I (" Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of r ...

Traditional practice

The

Plantagenet The House of Plantagenet () was a royal house which originated from the lands of Anjou in France. The family held the English throne from 1154 (with the accession of Henry II at the end of the Anarchy) to 1485, when Richard III died in b ...

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 (17/18 June 1239 – 7 July 1307), also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1272 to 1307. Concurrently, he ruled the duchies of Aquitaine and Gascony as a vas ...

and

Edward III Edward III (13 November 1312 – 21 June 1377), also known as Edward of Windsor before his accession, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from January 1327 until his death in 1377. He is noted for his military success and for restoring r ...

, notably their confirmations of

Magna Carta (Medieval Latin for "Great Charter of Freedoms"), commonly called (also ''Magna Charta''; "Great Charter"), is a royal charter of rights agreed to by King John of England at Runnymede, near Windsor, on 15 June 1215. First drafted by t ...

, had made it illegal for

the Crown The Crown is the state in all its aspects within the jurisprudence of the Commonwealth realms and their subdivisions (such as the Crown Dependencies, overseas territories, provinces, or states). Legally ill-defined, the term has differ ...

to exact any taxes without the consent of

, the prerogative of levying ship money in time of war had never fallen wholly into abeyance. In 1619

James I James I may refer to: People *James I of Aragon (1208–1276) *James I of Sicily or James II of Aragon (1267–1327) *James I, Count of La Marche (1319–1362), Count of Ponthieu *James I, Count of Urgell (1321–1347) *James I of Cyprus (1334–13 ...

aroused no popular opposition by levying £40,000 of ship money on London and £8,550 on other seaport towns.

Opposition

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

ur 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 A sheriff is a government official, with varying duties, existing in some countries with historical ties to England where the office originated. There is an analogous, although independently developed, office in Iceland that is commonly trans ...

were rejected by the overburdened inland populations; Lord Northampton,

Lord-Lieutenant A lord-lieutenant ( ) is the British monarch's personal representative in each lieutenancy area of the United Kingdom. Historically, each lieutenant was responsible for organising the county's militia. In 1871, the lieutenant's responsibilit ...

of Warwickshire, and the

Earl of Banbury Earl of Banbury was a title in the Peerage of England. It was created in 1626 for William Knollys. He had already been created Baron Knollys in 1603 and Viscount Wallingford in 1616, both in the Peerage of England. However, the paternity of hi ...

in Berkshire, refused to assist in collecting the money; and Charles withdrew the writs. In 1634, Charles made a secret treaty with

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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 The Tower of London, officially His Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress of the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, which is sep ...

; 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

Coventry Coventry ( or ) is a city in the West Midlands, England. It is on the River Sherbourne. Coventry has been a large settlement for centuries, although it was not founded and given its city status until the Middle Ages. The city is governed b ...

and the

Earl of Manchester Duke of Manchester is a title in the Peerage of Great Britain, and the current senior title of the House of Montagu. It was created in 1719 for the politician Charles Montagu, 4th Earl of Manchester. Manchester Parish in Jamaica was named afte ...

, 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

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 £208,000 which was to be obtained by assessment on personal as well as

real property In English common law, real property, real estate, immovable property or, solely in the US and Canada, realty, is land which is the property of some person and all structures (also called improvements or fixtures) integrated with or aff ...

, payment to be enforced by

distraint Distraint or distress is "the seizure of someone’s property in order to obtain payment of rent or other money owed", especially in common law countries. Distraint is the act or process "whereby a person (the ''distrainor''), traditionally ev ...

. 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 The Star Chamber (Latin: ''Camera stellata'') was an English court that sat at the royal Palace of Westminster, from the late to the mid-17th century (c. 1641), and was composed of Privy Counsellors and common-law judges, to supplement the ju ...

and by the judges on

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Refusal, then repeal

John Hampden - Project Gutenberg eText 19609

Ship money was enough of a financial success to help Charles to meet peacetime government expenditures in the 1630s. Payment was, however, refused by

John Hampden John Hampden (24 June 1643) was an English landowner and politician whose opposition to arbitrary taxes imposed by Charles I made him a national figure. An ally of Parliamentarian leader John Pym, and cousin to Oliver Cromwell, he was one of t ...

, a wealthy

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gentleman landowner. The case against the latter (''

R v Hampden R, or r, is the eighteenth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''ar'' (pronounced ), plural ''ars'', or in Irela ...

'') was finally heard before all 12 judges in the Court of Exchequer Chamber in 1637, after Denham had expressed his doubts to

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, who was wary of the four judge panel which would have sat in a less unusual case. Hampden was defended by Oliver St John and Robert Holborne. The Solicitor-General, Sir Edward Littleton, and the Attorney-General, Sir John Banks, prosecuted. Hampden's lawyers argued that the taxation was the king going around Parliament and attempting to squeeze money out from the people of England while defenders of the king suggested that these taxes were necessary for the defense and safety of England. Hampden lost the case, seven judges to five: * For the King: ** Sir Richard Weston ** Sir Francis Crawley ** Sir Robert Berkley ** Sir George Vernon ** Sir Thomas Trevor **

Sir William Jones Sir William Jones (28 September 1746 – 27 April 1794) was a British philologist, a puisne judge on the Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William in Bengal, and a scholar of ancient India. He is particularly known for his proposition of th ...

Sir John Finch John Finch, 1st Baron Finch (17 September 1584 – 27 November 1660) was an English judge, and politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1621 and 1629. He was Speaker of the House of Commons. Early life Finch was t ...

* For Hampden: ** Sir George Crooke ** Sir Richard Hutton ** Sir John Denham ** Sir John Brampston ** Sir Humphrey Davenport

Aftermath

Despite the trial case being won by Charles the opposition to ship money continued. In 1640 a group of citizens of London petitioned Charles directly and at the top of their grievances was against the tax:

The petition starts off by attacking the tax: The pressing and unusual Impositions upon Merchandize, Importing and Exporting, and the urging and Levying of Ship-money, notwithstanding both which, Merchants Ships and Goods have been taken and destroyed both by Turkish and other Pirates.

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 Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to ...

starting with the

Bishops' War The 1639 and 1640 Bishops' Wars () were the first of the conflicts known collectively as the 1639 to 1653 Wars of the Three Kingdoms, which took place in Scotland, England and Ireland. Others include the Irish Confederate Wars, the First and ...

, ship money would prove insufficient to finance the king's military needs. It would later be stopped by the

Long Parliament The Long Parliament was an English Parliament which lasted from 1640 until 1660. It followed the fiasco of the Short Parliament, which had convened for only three weeks during the spring of 1640 after an 11-year parliamentary absence. In Septe ...

when they voted the

Ship Money Act 1640 The Ship Money Act 1640 (16 Car 1 c 14) was an Act of the Parliament of England. It outlawed the medieval tax called ship money, a tax the sovereign could levy (on coastal towns) without parliamentary approval. Ship money was intended for use in ...

. Hampden went on to Parliamentary and

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government polici ...

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 Glorious Revolution; gd, Rèabhlaid Ghlòrmhor; cy, Chwyldro Gogoneddus , also known as the ''Glorieuze Overtocht'' or ''Glorious Crossing'' in the Netherlands, is the sequence of events leading to the deposition of King James II and ...

, the Bill of Rights 1689 prohibited all forms of extra-Parliamentary taxation.

Traditional practice

Opposition

Three writs

Refusal, then repeal

Aftermath

References

Further reading