POLITICAL HISTORY 



The great work required from the sheriffs was the assessment of the 

 king's arbitrary loans and taxes, particularly of that known as ship money, 

 first imposed on the county in 1635 during the shrievalty of Humphrey 

 Chetham/* Lancashire being a maritime county bore the tax very patiently 

 at first, and to give a semblance of reality to the demand the earl of Derby 

 was appointed vice-admiral of the Lancashire and Cheshire coasts.*' The 

 tax, which amounted to the sum of ^^3, 5 00, was levied on every hundred 

 and on every corporate town," and appears to have been willingly paid if we 

 may judge from a letter sent to the sheriff of Lancashire ' taking notice of 

 his forwardness and of the people's good affection.' " In June, 1636, Mr. 

 Farington, a prominent gentleman of the Stanley household,'" was pricked as 

 sheriff for Lancashire, and the sum of assessment was now raised to ^4,000, 

 Both under William Farington's shrievalty and that of Richard Shuttleworth, 

 who succeeded him in the ofRce next year, this sum appears to have been 

 raised without any great difficulty. 



In December of this year the earl of Derby forwarded to the council 

 his son Lord Strange's certificate of the services of the deputy lieutenants in 

 mustering the trained forces of the county. The deputies calculated that the 

 total number of men of all arms under review was 7,468." In 1638 a levy 

 of 600 men was raised for the king's service,'' and the usual demand of ship 

 money was made by the sheriff Roger Kirkby. For the first time recorded, 

 the county appears to have resented the tax. It was only collected with 

 difficulty. The corporation of Wigan ' was all behind,' we read, the inhabi- 

 tants having denied the payment." Several other townships were also behind, 

 and in some cases their goods were distrained for the payment. Still the 

 sheriff hoped to make the account good by next term.'" The trouble reached 

 a climax in Lancashire in 1640 under the shrievalty of Robert Holt, who 

 wrote to the council that in reply to the assessments required of the hundreds 

 by their head constables, only the constable of one hundred, and that the 

 least in the county, brought an assessment, the rest excusing themselves upon 

 some pretext or other. The sheriff goes on to say that ' the county in 

 general is very averse to the payment of this money, and that it will be great 

 trouble and much difficulty to levy the same.' " Again in May he writes to 

 the council that by reason that the country in general ' bends itself against 

 the tax ' he has not been able to collect the whole ^4,000 assessed on the 

 county. ' With much ado, however, in several parts of three hundreds I 

 have levied so much as amounts to ^^1,319 3j-. which I have returned to the 

 Treasurer of the Navy according to your instructions. Two of our largest 

 hundreds, Amounderness and Lonsdale, altogether stand out and will neither 

 assess nor pay.' This evidence is important as helping to contravene the notion 

 afterwards circulated, namely that it was only the Puritan hundreds of 

 Salford and Blackburn that resisted the royal will. In the matter of oppo- 

 sition to the king's arbitrary taxation it will thus be seen that the Preston 

 and Lancaster hundreds, as they might be called, actually led the way. 



The king was now in open strife with the Puritan party in Parliament, 

 and more and more the differences between them began to assume a strongly 



«• Cal. S.P. Dom. 1635, p. 579. " Ibid. p. 55. ^ Ibid. 1635-6, p. 290. ^ Ibid. 1635, P- S^o. 



^ See Stanley Papers (Chet. Soc. Ixvi), pt. iii, vol. i, p. Ivi. *' Cal. S.P. Dom. 1636-7, p. 24.0. 



*« Ibid. 1638-9, p. 387. " Ibid. p. 104. '° Ibid. '' Ibid. 1639-40, p. 449. 



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