About the soap monopoly presently.
The first writ was issued by the Lords of the Council "for the assessing and levying of the ship-money against this next spring," on the 20th October, 1634. It was signed by the King, and was addressed to the mayor, commonalty and citizens of London, and to the sheriffs and good men in the said city and in the liberties thereof. They were commanded by the 1st March to provide one ship of war of 900 tons with 350 men at the least, one other ship of war of 800 tons and 260 men at the least, four other ships of war of 500 tons with 200 men in each, and another ship of war of 300 tons with 150 men. They were further ordered to supply those ships with guns, powder, and all necessary arms, with double tackling, provisions, and stores; as also to defray at their charges the men's wages for twenty-six weeks. The Common Council remonstrated, declaring that by their ancient liberties they ought to be free from any such burden; but the Privy Council rejected the remonstrance, and compelled submission.
At the beginning of the following year, 1635, the writs, after having been served along the sea-board, were sent to the inland counties, but from them money was asked in lieu of ships at the rate of £3300 for every ship, and the local magistrates were empowered to assess all the inhabitants for a contribution.
In spite of the resistance offered to the exaction of this tax in 1635 and the following year a fleet was raised, the Dutch fishing vessels were driven from the coast, and a number of English slaves were rescued from Moorish pirates.
Howell wrote to Mr. Philip Warwick in Paris:[21] "The greatest news we have here is that we have a gallant Fleet Royal ready to set to sea for the security of our Coasts and Commerce, and for the sovereignty of our seas. Hans (the Hanseatic League) said the King of England was asleep all the while, but now he is awake. Nor, do I hear, doth your French Cardinal tamper any longer with our King's title and right to the dominion of the Narrow Seas. These are brave fruits of the Ship-Money."
The King was still in great straits for money, and he turned for help to Noye. The Parliament had insisted on the suppression of monopolies, but Charles revived them by Noye's advice; and for the sum of £10,000 which they paid for their patent, and for a duty of £8 upon every ton of soap they should make, he granted to a company a charter according to it the exclusive privilege to make and to sell soap. The patent had a proviso in it permitting every soap-boiler then exercising his trade in England to become a member of the chartered company; and that precious turncoat, Noye, who devised the project, considered that in this way he had evaded the letter of the law, as the Act of Parliament forbidding monopolies had been directed against individuals and against some two or three monopolists favoured by the Court. These incorporated soap-boilers, as part of their bargains, received powers to appoint searchers; and they exercised a sort of inquisition over the trade. Such dealers as resisted their interference, or tried to make soap on their own account, were handed over to the tender mercies of the Star Chamber.
This precedent was followed by the creation of a similar company of starch-makers.
The King and Laud, who had been promised the primacy on the death of Archbishop Abbot, were embarked together on an evil course. Laud believed in the Divine Right of Kings, and he was a man totally devoid of suavity of manner and of breadth of mind. He would compel all men to think as he thought, and act as he chose. That wheat and tares should grow together till the harvest was a doctrine of the Gospel he could not comprehend, and his energies and power were directed towards the forcible uprooting of the tares in the field of the Church, and the tares were the heterodox Puritans. Between him and the King they would allow no liberty to men either in their bodies and goods, or in their souls and consciences. That there should be crabbed and crooked sticks Laud would not allow; all must be clean and straight as willow wands. To the civil despotism alone as exercised by Charles, the English people might possibly have submitted for some time longer, for the ship-money had produced the desired effect; but the scourge of Laud lashed them to fury. And Noye was the scourge Laud employed in the Star Chamber. Hammon Le Strange, in his Life of King Charles I, says that Noye became so servilely addicted to the King's prerogative, by ferreting out old penal statutes and devising new exactions, that he was the most pestilential vexation of the subject that the age produced.
When William Prynne, a barrister of Lincoln's Inn, was brought (1634) before the Star Chamber to answer for his book Histrio-Mastix, or the Players' Scourge, it was Noye who filed information against him. Prynne attacked all plays, masques, and dances. The offence charged against him was this: "Although he knew that His Majesty's royal Queen, the Lords of the Council, etc. were in festivals oftentimes present spectators of some masques and dances, and many recreations that were tolerable and in themselves sinless, and so declared to be by a book printed in the time of His Majesty's royal father; yet Mr. Prynne, in his book, hath railed not only against stage-plays, comedies, dancings, and all other exercises of the people, and against all such as frequent or behold them; but further, in particular, against hunting, public festivals, Christmas-keeping, bond-fires, and May-poles; nay, even against the dressing up of houses with green ivy." He was further accused of directly casting aspersions upon the Queen, and of stirring up the people to discontent against the King, whom he had spoken of in "terms unfit for so sacred a person."