156 TAXATION AND FINANCE. 



Bill, and customs were not granted legally to the king during 

 his whole reign. Charles therefore levied it by order of 

 Council, and declined, even after the Petition of Right, to 

 relinquish what ' he never meant to give away, and could not 

 possibly do without.' Nay, he issued a new Book of Rates in 

 1635, to the advantage of the Exchequer. When the Long 

 Parliament met, the customs had reached nearly .500,000. 



Three subsidies of 4s. in the were granted by the clergy, 

 in the first year of Charles, and two by the Commons. 

 After the concession of the Petition of Right, the Commons 

 granted five subsidies and the clergy five. In 1629, Parlia- 

 mentary government was suspended for eleven years, and the 

 king had to resort to extraordinary expedients. He strained 

 the feudal dues to the uttermost, enforced fines for knighthood, 

 recovered large tracts of land from private owners, granted 

 monopolies, and built up an exceedingly strenuous and per- 

 sistent opposition against himself. Perhaps one of the 

 bitterest of his enemies was the son of Salisbury, his father's 

 old minister and adviser. Now Salisbury had suffered much 

 loss by the new interpretation given to the king's forestal 

 rights. The fines imposed by the Star Chamber were probably 

 never enforced to the full, but the claim to impose them was 

 intensely irritating, and was exceedingly arbitrary. 



The device however which encountered the greatest oppo- 

 sition and led to the deepest discontent was the imposition of 

 ship-money. The first writs, those of 1634, were addressed to 

 the maritime towns only, and precedents for the naval service 

 of those ports were abundant. Indeed the liabilities of the 

 Cinque Ports were alleged as a reason why they should not 

 ^contribute to an ordinary subsidy. The plea which they put 

 forward was that Barbary pirates infested the narrow seas, and 

 that it was the interest and duty of the ports to attack them, 

 though the whole kingdom might with justice be called on to 

 contribute. It appears that no resistance was made on 

 grounds of principle to these first writs. 



Next year the writs were extended to the inland counties, 



