The History of Parliamentary Taxation in England

by Shepard Ashman Morgan

[353] 2 Parl. Hist. 525.

[354] 2 Hallam, Const. Hist. Eng. 15.

The “parchments in the Tower” might readily have included the following, which exhibits an historical precedent for the ship money:

“1008. Rex Anglorum Aegelredus de ccc. x. cassatis unam trierem, de novem vero loricam et cassidem fieri, et per totam Angliam naves intente praecipit fabricari.” 1 Florentii Wigorniensis Monachi, Chronicon ex Chronicis, 160.

1 Freeman, Norman Conquest, 647, note LL., cites 3 Codex Diplomaticus, 351, to show that before 1008 a levy of ships was not unknown. Archbishops Aelfric upon his death gave to the people of Wiltshire and Kent a ship. Wiltshire is an inland county. It is justifiable, then, to believe that “per totam Angliam” may be taken literally, and that Ethelred really exacted a ship from every 310 hides throughout England.

[355] Gardiner, Const. Doc. 105-108.

[356] Taswell-Langmead, Eng. Const. Hist. 443; Trevelyan, England Under the Stuarts, 163.

[357] Clarendon, History of the Rebellion, i, 136.

[358] Gardiner, Const. Doc. 108, note 2.

[359] Gardiner, Const. Doc. 108, 109.