Ship money refers to a tax that Charles I of England tried to levy without the consent of Parliament. This tax, which was applied only to coastal towns during a time of war, was intended to offset the cost of defending that part of the coast, and could be paid in actual ships or the equivalent value. The collection of the tax inland during peacetime started in 1634 and provoked increasing resistance by 1636. This conflict was one of the causes of the English Civil War.
Read more about Ship Money: Opposition
Famous quotes containing the words ship and/or money:
“A ship is a bit of terra firma cut off from the main; it is a state in itself; and the captain is its king.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“If you would get money as a writer or lecturer, you must be popular, which is to go down perpendicularly.... You are paid for being something less than a man. The state does not commonly reward a genius any more wisely. Even the poet laureate would rather not have to celebrate the accidents of royalty. He must be bribed with a pipe of wine; and perhaps another poet is called away from his muse to gauge that very pipe.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)