POLITICAL HISTORY 



asked to provide a ship of 700 tons, with arms, ordnance, double-tackling, 

 and provisions for twenty-six weeks, from 21 March, with 250 men. In 

 March, 1635, this was amended. 1 The king would provide the ships if the 

 county would give the money, and in August the amount still unpaid out of 

 Suffolk and Essex amounted to £657. During the same month was issued 

 the second writ for ship-money, assessing this time the whole county and all 

 corporate towns therein at £8,000.- This was not without precedent, for 

 in 1628, as has been seen, the county refused to pay its share of the ships 

 assessed on Ipswich. The sheriff was personally responsible for the total 

 amount. The poor country towns cried out that the ports had forced them 

 to pay on the last writ, and that they ought at least now to be assessed merely 

 at the county rate. This led to endless disputes ; every town and hundred 

 had fifty good reasons why part of its assessment should be thrown on to its 

 neighbour. By January, 1636, Sir John Barker had managed to collect all 

 save £100, but his receipt for £7,615 is dated 31 July. The demand 

 became yearly now; each August saw its writ. In 1636 only half the 

 assessed amount was paid, but the decision of the judges in the king's favour 

 quickened Sir Philip Parker, so that next year the amount was brought up to 

 £7, 900/ The demands of 1638 and 1 639 * were simply not paid, many of 

 the defaulters having fled to New England and Holland, and Sir John Clench, 

 the sheriff, was practically ruined. By 1 640 the absolute impossibility of 

 collecting the ship-money was demonstrated, and Sir Symonds D'Ewes, the 

 sheriff, on 21 April, the day appointed for the high constables to bring in the 

 £8,000, did not receive £200/ Instead, the distracted constables sent him 

 certificates, saying that they could not get the money, and dared not distrain, 

 for the tenants threatened actions. Ipswich division backed up Beccles, and 

 the constables were powerless. The sheriff gave the true reasons for the 

 non-payment : deadness of trade, scarcity of money, low prices tor all com- 

 modities of plough and pail, great military charges of the past summer. 

 Daily groans and sighs were the only returns. In the Parliament of 1640 

 the king offered to take twelve subsidies instead, and these were granted. 



The trouble with Scotland in 1639 meant the calling out of the county 

 levy. The Covenanters had many sympathizers in Suffolk, and the Puritans 

 of Ipswich organized a transport strike, 6 so that the army contractors in the 

 north could get no shipmen to carry out their contracts. Many in the 

 county refused to pay coat and conduct money for the same reason, 7 and the 

 1640 levy of 600 men mutinied at Bungay. They attacked the deputy- 

 lieutenants there who had gone to see them delivered over to Lieut. -Colonel 

 Fielding, and held them up in their inn. Sir William Playter, however, 

 boldly arrested the two ringleaders. 8 The soldiers were Puritans and fanatical. 

 They held commissary courts among themselves and did justice on those of 

 their fellows who offended against their moral standard. They also proceeded 

 against witches. Sir Thomas Jermyn, the lord-lieutenant, got them on the 

 march with all possible speed, dreading the impossibility of harmonizing the 

 drums and bells. Suffolk was clearly a hot-bed for the new ideas. The 

 .new book of canons inculcating divine right and passive obedience was found 



1 Cal. S.P. Dom. 1634-5, P- 559- ' Ib 'd- l6 35> P- 3^3- 



s Ibid. 2 Mar. 1637-8, p. 200. * Ibid. 163S-9, pp. 64, 530. 



4 Ibid. 1640, p. 59. ' Ibid. 1639, p. 157. 



1 Ibid. 1640, p. 274. ' Ibid. 336. 



189 



