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Updated: June 19, 2025
And who shall measure the consequence of this difference in the history of two great nations: that in France absolutism in church and state fell before the sinewy genius of stark reason, while in England it fell before a respect for social convenience, protesting against monopolies, benevolences, ship-money? that in France speculation had penetrated over the whole field of social inquiry, before a single step had been taken toward application, while in England social principles were applied before they received any kind of speculative vindication? that in France the first effective enemy of the principles of despotism was Voltaire, poet, philosopher, historian, critic; in England, a band of homely squires?
They might perhaps find an indirect confirmation of their remark in the numerous lives and portraitures of Christ which have appeared of late years, each entirely different from the rest, and each stamped clearly enough with the impress of an individual mind. But where has Hampden spoken of himself as "seeking the Lord about militia or ship-money?"
The books however were backed by a royal injunction, and Laud flattered himself that the revolution had been wrought. But the patience of Scotland found an end at last. In the summer of 1637, while England was waiting for the opening of the great cause of ship-money, peremptory orders from the king forced the clergy of Edinburgh to introduce the new service into their churches. Giles.
The same great stirring of the human mind which produced the Reformation produced also the follies and crimes of the Anabaptists. The same spirit which resisted the Ship-money, and abolished the Star Chamber, produced the Levellers and the Fifth Monarchy men.
We are startled at the precision with which More describes the processes by which the law-courts were to lend themselves to the advance of tyranny till their crowning judgement in the case of ship-money.
It was a revolution small in size; but great politically; it was a strike for liberty, a struggle for a principle, a stand against injustice and oppression. It was the Barons and John, over again; it was Hampden and Ship-Money; it was Concord and Lexington; small beginnings, all of them, but all of them great in political results, all of them epoch-making.
This was the King of ship-money, the heart's-brother of Buckingham, the betrayer of Strafford, the doer to death of Eliot, the would-be baffler of free speech, the baffled hunter after the five members.
This ship-money meant that if you didn't pay so much twenty shillings or ten pounds, according to the needs of the exchequer you could be drafted into His Majesty's service and sent to sea. The money you paid was nominally to hire a substitute, but no one but King Charles and Attorney-General Noy, who fished out the precious precedent from the rag-bag of the past, knew what became of the money.
But they were seized as a means of equipping a permanent navy without cost to the Exchequer; the first demand of ships was soon commuted into a demand of money for the provision of ships; and the writs for the payment of ship-money which were issued to London and other coast-towns were enforced by fine and imprisonment. The money was paid, and in 1635 a fleet put to sea.
Was he to levy ship-money? If so, this boasted reform must commence in all probability by civil war, and, if consummated, must be consummated by the establishment of absolute monarchy. Or was the patriot King to carry the House of Commons with him in his upright designs? By what means?
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