POLITICAL HISTORY 



Resistance by 1640 had come to a head. The goods distrained yielded 

 no money, for want of buyers. When there came buyers, the sale was a 

 farce, and could not be proceeded with. Offers of 'jd. and (^d. were made 

 for an ox worth ^8.^ The people also rescued their goods when distrained, 

 beating off the bailiffs with bills and stones. Of ^6,000 the sheriff could, 

 in half a year, get but >r300 from the entire county.^ One specimen of 

 procedure will suffice : sending his servants to levy ^<^ i 2j. \d. on the goods 

 of Lady Anne Ashley, on her farm at Martinstown, William Churchill, 

 the sheriff, found that her servants, William and Roger Samways, came with 

 violence and rescued two of her horses which had been seized. Two days 

 later. Lady Anne having horses at Dorchester, the sheriffs servants en- 

 deavoured to distrain them, but William Samways again violently rescued 

 them, saying that Denzil Holies (M.P. for the shire, and son-in-law to the 

 lady) would bear them out in what they had done, ' The places and 

 parishes adjacent take notice of these attempts, and by this evil example, 

 many will be drawn away and presume to do the like.'' 



At length even the civil authorities openly set their faces against 

 the levy of the money. In 1 640 none of the mayors of corporate 

 towns had paid in anything at all five months after the issue of the 

 writ,* and the constables and bailiffs themselves refused, in many cases, 

 to distrain. The Dorset troop in Yorkshire broke into something very 

 like mutiny, and Sir Jacob Astley was obliged to court-martial and shoot one 

 of th 



e men. 



Poole has been called the head quarters of the Parliamentary cause in 

 Dorset,* but Clarendon says that there was no place in England more 

 zealously Presbyterian than Dorchester.'' The citizens of the latter were 

 stirred by the teaching and example of John White,* rector of Holy Trinity 

 parish, a man of powerful mind and personality. From having been a 

 moderate Puritan, he became an ardent Covenanter, probably in consequence 

 of the petty persecution to which he was subjected by the Court of High 

 Commission. In 1632 a high churchman wrote of him, 'Good men are 

 shy of this man in places where he is most and best known.'* In 1635 

 his letters and papers were seized, probably in his study,^" and on 10 No- 

 vember, he appeared before the Court and took the oath to answer the 

 articles against him." He was several times remanded for the ' insufficiency 

 of his answers,' and incurred a rebuke for his non-observance of Good 

 Friday." He had already shown the tendency of his mind by promoting 

 and organizing the settlement of New Dorchester, near Boston, Mass. The 

 Calvin of Dorchester, in November, 1640, he took the Covenant himself, 

 and induced many of his fellow-townsmen to follow his example. In his 

 zeal for the Puritan cause he was emulated by his friend and rival, Ezra 

 Benn, who became with him during the Commonwealth one of the ' Triers ' 

 for examining^' the qualifications of candidates for the cure of souls. Sir Robert 



' Cal. S.P. Dom. 1639-40, p. 241, and ibid. 1640, p. 599. ' Ibid. 1640, pp. 599, 551. 



Mbid. p. 536. * Ibid. 'Ibid. p. 559. 



' Hutchins, Dorset, i, 8-10. ' Hist, of the Rebellion, iv, 201. 



' Hutchins, op. cit. ii, 375, 376 ; Athen. Oxon. ii, 1 14, 1 15. 



' Cat. S.P. Dom. 1 63 1-3, p. 402. '" Ibid. 163 5-6, p. 79. 



" Ibid. p. 108. " Ibid. pp. 1 16, 125, 470, 503, 512, 513. 



" Minute Bks. Dorset Standing Committee (ed. Mayo), p. xi. Dorch. Corp. MSS. 



149 



