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From Hutton Webster's, Early European History (1917); edited for this on-line publication, by ELLOPOS
XXV. ABSOLUTISM IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND, 1603-1715 A.D.
» Contents of this Chapter
Page 19
PERSONAL RULE OF CHARLES I, 1629-1640 A.D.
Charles signed the Petition, as the only means of securing parliamentary consent to taxation; but he had no intention of observing it. For the next eleven years he managed to govern without calling Parliament in session. The conduct of affairs during this period lay largely in the hands of Sir Thomas Wentworth, afterwards earl of Strafford, and William Laud, who later became archbishop of Canterbury. The king made these two men his principal advisers and through them carried on his despotic rule. Arbitrary courts, which tried cases without a jury, punished those who resisted the royal will. A rigid censorship of the press prevented any expression of popular discontent. Public meetings were suppressed as seditious riots. Even private gatherings were dangerous, for the king had swarms of spies to report any disloyal acts or utterances.
JOHN HAMPDEN AND "SHIP-MONEY"
Since Charles ruled without a Parliament, he had to adopt all sorts of devices to fill his treasury. One of these was the levying of "ship- money." According to an old custom, seaboard towns and counties had been required to provide ships or money for the royal navy. Charles revived this custom and extended it to towns and counties lying inland. It seemed clear that the king meant to impose a permanent tax on all England without the assent of Parliament. The demand for "ship-money" aroused much opposition, and John Hampden, a wealthy squire of Buckinghamshire, refused to pay the twenty shillings levied on his estate. Hampden was tried before a court of the royal judges and was convicted by a bare majority. He became, however, the hero of the hour. The England people recognized in him one who had dared, for the sake of principle, to protest against the king's despotic rule.
THE MAKING OF EUROPE / EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY: Table of Contents
url: www.ellopos.net/politics/european-history/default.asp
Cf. The Ancient Greece * The Ancient Rome
Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) * Western Medieval Europe * Renaissance in Italy
