Opposition
Charles I's demand for ship money aroused serious opposition when his requests to sheriffs were rejected by the overburdened inland populations. Sheriffs refused to assist in collecting the money, and Charles withdrew the writs. It will be seen, then, that the statement of Henry Hallam that in 1634 William Noy, the Attorney-General, unearthed in the Tower of London old records of ship money as a tax disused and forgotten for centuries has no real foundation. It is true that it was the suggestion of Noy that a further resort should be had to this expedient for raising money when, in 1634, Charles made a secret treaty with Philip IV of Spain to assist him against the Dutch; and Noy set himself to investigate such ancient legal learning as was in existence in support of the demand.
The King having obtained an opinion in favour of the legality of the writ from Lord Keeper Coventry and the Earl of Manchester, the writ was issued in October 1634 and directed to the justices of London and other seaports, requiring them to provide a certain number of ships of war of a prescribed tonnage and equipment, or their equivalent in money, and empowering them to assess the inhabitants for payment of the tax according to their substance.
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Famous quotes containing the word opposition:
“One may disavow and disclaim vices that surprise us, and whereto our passions transport us; but those which by long habits are rooted in a strong and ... powerful will are not subject to contradiction. Repentance is but a denying of our will, and an opposition of our fantasies.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“A man with your experience in affairs must have seen cause to appreciate the futility of opposition to the moral sentiment. However feeble the sufferer and however great the oppressor, it is in the nature of things that the blow should recoil upon the aggressor. For God is in the sentiment, and it cannot be withstood.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Except for poverty, incompatibility, opposition of parents, absence of love on one side and of desire to marry on both, nothing stands in the way of our happy union.”
—Cyril Connolly (1903–1974)