Ship Money
In 1629 King Charles I disbanded Parliament and tried to exercise Personal Rule. Lack of parliamentary support left Charles' treasury short of revenue, so in 1634 Charles revived the feudal tax of Ship Money which the Plantaganet kings had levied in the Middle Ages without recourse to Parliament. Ship Money was meant to be levied only in wartime and only in coastal counties and maritime towns, but in 1634 England was not at war and in 1635 Charles issued a second writ extending the tax to all inland counties.
South Newington was assessed to pay £12 Ship Money, but Francis French, one of South Newington's parish constables, objected to the levy and ignored the writ. The Sheriff of Oxford issued a warrant requiring that the £12 be paid, but the Calendar of State Papers Domestic records that French and Thomas Roberts, a very vocal opponent of the tax, replied "No money has been or can be gathered in the parish till the sheriff makes known to them a law or statute binding them unto". The sheriff then tried to enforce the tax by seizing £12 worth of livestock from the village. Roberts discouraged any residents of the hundreds of Bloxham and Banbury from buying the animals, and thereby still prevented the sheriff from realising the £12.
In October 1636 Charles I issued a third writ for Ship Money, provoking the more famous resistance of John Hampden, the Member of Parliament for Wendover in Buckinghamshire. Meanwhile the South Newington case dragged on, and in May 1638 Roberts and another non-payer, Thomas Hall of Bodicote, were arrested and brought before the Privy Council charged with "undutiful speeches against the Board in general and Mr Comptroller in particular". Both men were discharged on condition that they behave themselves as "good subjects and civil men", but Roberts thereafter continued to call the Comptroller an "ugly rogue" with apparent impunity. Charles I's attempt to raise a tax without seeking parliament's approval continued to divide the Kingdom and was one of the factors that led to the outbreak of the English Civil War in January 1642.
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