FROM 1583 TO 1702. 73 



abolish wardship, and to levy a permanent assessment on the 

 counties in lieu of it. It is plain that the schedule was not 

 based on the liabilities of the several districts to the incidents 

 of military tenure, for if this were the basis of the calculation, 

 one cannot see how London could have been assessed at four 

 per cent, of the whole charge. The scheme, as every one 

 knows, did not take effect, the hereditary excise having been 

 substituted for it; but the distribution of the cost over all 

 tenements, and the theory that all tenures shall pay ransom, 

 in order to benefit one kind of tenure, is only in degree less 

 unfair than the expedient which was finally adopted. The 

 date of the valuation is just after the Restoration, when the 

 Parliament was discussing the means for settling the king's 

 revenues. This assessment was based on that for ship- 

 money. 



Now as I have elsewhere stated, a line drawn from Scar- 

 borough to Southampton would roughly indicate the division 

 of the country between Royalist and Parliamentarian during 

 the Civil War. Naturally those districts which lay along the 

 line of the contest would be expected to show the marks of 

 depression, those which were practically free from the war to 

 exhibit the signs of progress. And this is I think clear. 

 Suffolk, which was tenth in the counties twenty-four years 

 before, is second now, as it was when the war was over ; and 

 speaking generally, those counties which remained undisturbed 

 during the struggle, or were associated for defence, are the best 

 off. Beds remains in the same place which it occupied in 

 '>. But Kent is fourth in, the counties, having been 

 fourteenth in 1636. Bucks falls from fourth to ninth ; 

 Northants from fifth to eleventh; Berks from sixth to four- 

 teenth ; Leicester from seventh to eighteenth. On the other 

 hand, Essex was fifteenth, and is now sixth ] . 



The most remarkable rise is that of Sussex, from the twenty- 

 ninth to the eighth place. This, however, can easily be 



1 The comparative importance of the Suffolk and Essex ports may have not 

 a little to do with this growth. 



