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By Root 1016 0

promoted as a test case, with the co-operation of William Fiennes, Viscount Saye and Sele. A man of firm and godly religious conviction, Say and Sele became prominent in the parliamentary cause in the 1640s. During the 1630s he was an important member of the Providence Island Company, founded to fund settlement in the New World. This colonization scheme attracted the support of others who became prominent parliamentarians, including John Pym and the Lord Brooke. Say and Sele was a supporter of the international Calvinist cause and no friend to the policies of the Personal Rule. He had intended to bring his own case against ship money, but instead seems to have co-operated with his nephew, Sir Peter Temple, who issued a writ against John Hampden. The King, probably fortified by the judges” ruling, allowed the case to be heard in the Court of Exchequer, even though to lose would be to lose the whole revenue.96

The Earl of Clarendon later recalled that Hampden ‘grew the argument of all tongues, every man enquiring who and what he was that durst at his own charge support the liberty and property of the kingdom, and rescue his kingdom from being made prey to the court’. The hearings were well attended, even by some relatively humble observers, and provincial newsletters reported the arguments widely. As should be expected, with expensive lawyers involved, the issues were not straightforward. Charles’s case rested on the fact that ship money was not a tax – something regulated by common law and statute – but an aspect of his prerogative power. Ship money could be justified as an emergency measure and therefore as one relating to areas not covered by the common law. Oliver St John, representing Hampden, did not challenge the King’s prerogative powers in general terms, arguing instead on a more narrow point: the writ had been issued six months prior to the collection. If there had been an emergency the writ should have mentioned it, and six months clearly permitted the summoning of a parliament to deal with the emergency. Holborne, Hampden’s other lawyer, argued more broadly about the prerogative, and the subsequent hearings ranged over both broad principles and narrow technicalities. Each judge found slightly differently on each issue, so that the count in favour of the King, normally rendered as 7–5, was actually reckoned differently by different observers. Crucial judgements by Bramston and Davenport made it appear closer, but their view was based on a technicality. The writ had demanded a service, which Hampden could not in practice provide (the provision of a portion of a ship). He was being prosecuted for a debt, however. The crown could not have this both ways: if he owed a debt, then this was an unparliamentary tax, and therefore illegal; if it was a service to be performed in emergency conditions he could not be sued for a debt. On the broad principles the King’s victory was clearer.97

This public debate about the legality of the levy had resonances at the lowest levels of the administration because constables were being required by sheriffs to assess their neighbours. Debate about whether they had such a power, or about whether it was enforceable, was clearly relevant to local politics and administration. Reluctance to pay was almost universally expressed in technical or bureaucratic complaints – disputes about the details of ratings or the conduct of distraint and so on. For those unwilling to presume much about the political consciousness of ordinary people, this form of expression is often accepted at face value: that there was no larger political or legal principle involved. However, given the level of administrative participation and the elaborated consciousness of legal matters which is evident across the country, it seems difficult to believe that in every case reluctance was only the product of administrative detail. Local officeholders seem to have been increasingly reluctant to take up office, something attributed to the unpopularity of ship money which was surely not simply a matter of rating difficulties.