Economy did not suffice to secure for the government complete independence in administration: means had therefore to be adopted to increase the receipts. Tonnage and poundage, the amount of which had in a few years increased by £80,000, offered the principal resource for effecting this object. A.D. 1633. But when old records were searched, other crown rights of earlier date were discovered which had fallen into oblivion, and might be revived with advantage.
How many persons, it was said, had been bound by old usage to appear at the King’s coronation, in order to be knighted!
The government called to account all who had incurred the guilt of neglecting this duty, in order that a pecuniary fine might be levied on them[46]. Another feudal right of royalty had a still wider application. In April 1633 the Earl of Holland, who sometimes took part with the government although he did not love it, was seen driving through London in a royal carriage to Stratford in Essex, in order to hold his court there as Lord Forester in the fashion of the twelfth century. He cited all those who had built within the borders of the ancient royal forests to appear, that he might investigate their titles. The occupants in vain affirmed that the claims of the crown against them had long ago been redeemed by purchase: as they had no documentary proof of this, they were compelled to pay a sum in acquittance, which in Essex alone amounted to £300,000[47]. Lord Holland opened his court in August at Winchester, to try cases connected with the New Forest: in September, attended by five judges, he went into Northamptonshire to the site of those same woods, which had once served as a refuge for the Britons, and then as a hunting-ground for the Norman kings, that he might exact penalties for encroachments on the forest of Rockingham. Some of the leading nobles, the Earl of Westmorland, Lord Peterborough, Lord Newport, and the Earl of Salisbury, were condemned, the last-named on account of an estate which had been presented to his father, Robert Cecil, by Queen Elizabeth[48]. And these claims were constantly being stretched further: it appeared as if the greater part of England would soon be considered as having been forest-land in former days. Even the government A.D. 1634. now felt itself in a critical position from the agitation kindled by this conduct, and suspended proceedings for a moment[49].
In spite of so many declarations made to Parliament, monopolies of different kinds were again granted by the crown, especially to associations which were formed for the exclusive prosecution of some branch of trade, and which were regularly invested with the rights and constitution of companies with governor, assistants, and society. They were obliged to purchase their title by yearly payments, but in return were then supported in those vexatious regulations which they made to enforce it. Other sovereign rights furnished an opportunity of levying considerable taxes on separate articles[50]. It is calculated that up to the year 1635 Charles I had raised his income from £500,000 to £800,000.
The King, says Correro the Venetian, moves among the rocks by which he is surrounded, slowly but surely. The judges explain the laws in his favour, as there are no Parliaments to contradict them: and his subjects do not then venture to withstand him. ‘With the key of the laws he seeks to open the entrance to absolute power[51].’
By far the most important and remarkable of all his claims was the demand for ship-money.
Those were times in which he thought it necessary to oppose the resistance of a powerful navy to the maritime encroachments of the Dutch and French. We have seen that for this purpose he asked for subsidies from Spain, but was unable to obtain them. In the embarrassment into which he was thrown in consequence, a very welcome prospect of assistance was held out, when some of his supporters who were learned in the law maintained that he had the right to demand the aid of the country for this object even without the assent of Parliament. As by English usage the duty of defending the country and of guarding the sea was laid A.D. 1634. on him, this duty, it was said, carried with it also the right of making the necessary dispositions for that purpose. They adduced a series of precedents, according to which monarchs on their own authority, without the support of Parliament even when it was sitting, and only with the consent of the Privy Council, had issued the requisite proclamation for equipping naval armaments, and had met with obedience down to the end of the reign of Edward III. To the objection that this was more than two centuries and half ago, the King’s supporters replied, that the continuance of an opposite usage for any length of time could not cancel the right of the sovereign, and that even in the most recent times an instance had occurred, for that the whole warlike preparations by which the attack of the Spanish Armada had been repulsed in the year 1588, had been set on foot at the sole order of Queen Elizabeth[52]. At the present moment, when the old sovereignty of England over the seas was contested by the neighbouring powers, a similar proceeding appeared peculiarly justifiable. Not only were the seaport towns summoned to furnish the King with a specified number of ships of a certain tonnage for a period of six months, but the obligation was extended to the inland counties and towns, and in their case the ships were commuted for an assessment of money, which was to be raised in the same way as a subsidy. There was even a design entertained of having a number of men embodied for the defence of the coast.
Much agitation had been caused by the previous renewal of old claims; and it was naturally doubled by this last claim, because it was the most comprehensive, and might be renewed at pleasure. The loudest remonstrances were heard. The official interpreters of the laws however came forward on the side of the crown, and acknowledged its right. In November 1634 the Judges gave sentence that the inland as well as the seaboard towns might be called upon for the A.D. 1636. defence of the coasts. This judgment did not contain a declaration that Parliament need not be consulted in the matter; but in February 1636 a decision on this point also followed[53]. It was declared by a sentence of the Judges, that if the kingdom were in danger, and the king thought it necessary, he had the right of ordering his subjects under the Great Seal of England to equip as large a number of ships as seemed to him necessary; and that in case they should refuse to do so, the law gave him perfect right to compel them. The judges could not have delivered a more important decision: it is one of the great events of English history. The King commanded that it should be entered in the records of the Star Chamber, and of the Courts of Justice at Westminster, and that all possible publicity should be given to it, in order that every one who had doubted the King’s right might be taught to know better. But even the sentence of the Courts of Justice had no longer absolute authority in England, where they were now deemed subservient or even corrupt. A gentleman of Buckinghamshire, John Hampden, who had there a very old family estate, refused to pay the sum for which he had been assessed, twenty shillings, not because of the amount, which was only trifling, but in order to bring the matter once more publicly under discussion. When he was cited before the Star Chamber to answer for it, he requested to hear the writ. After it had been read, he denied that it had any legal authority over him. The King, who thought himself perfectly certain of his right, had no objection that the question should once more be publicly discussed. Nor did he order others also who refused payment to be visited with penalties of real severity: the sheriffs in each case merely seized possession of property to the amount which they had to raise from each according to the assessment. They met with no resistance in this; but men refused to acknowledge the claim by voluntary payment. ‘They stick to their laws,’ writes one of our A.D. 1637. Venetian informants, ‘and allow legal proceedings to be taken, solely to make it known that the laws are violated, and that they are compelled to pay by force[54].’
But what a state of affairs hereupon set in! The whole administration of the state depended on the receipt of tonnage and poundage, the payment of which Parliament declared illegal, while the government insisted on it, on the ground that it had been made to the earlier kings; and all refusals of payment were overridden by the coercive power of the state. All other fiscal measures as well were considered wanton attacks on the fully acknowledged rights of private property, or as illegal. People gave way, but only in the expectation of better times.
The opposition between what the government and what the nation or the Parliament thought legitimate, was presented in the sharpest outlines, when it led to acts of personal oppression. The members of Parliament, against whom the King had claims, refused to be brought to trial before the Courts of Justice before which they were summoned; for they affirmed that Parliament alone had the right to pronounce judgment on their conduct. They were condemned however, and the most resolute of them, Sir John Eliot, was treated with a severity bordering on cruelty: he died in the Tower[55].