Page:VCH Herefordshire 1.djvu/453

 POLITICAL HISTORY the bailiffs were required to collect.'*" The first levy was got in without serious difficulty, for Herefordshire was too backward a county to concern itself with abstract questions concerning rights of taxation. Almost the whole of the sum at which the county had been assessed was paid by June, 1636,^" and by January, 1637, only _£84 3J. ^d. remained in arrear.^"** The payments from the city were not quite so satisfactory.'"' By the second writs of ship money issued on 12 August, 1636, the county was assessed at the slightly lower rate of ^(^3,3 15, and the city at difficulties. On i February, 1636—7, the sheriff, Roger Vaughan, informed the council that so great a sum could not be raised in so poor and small a shire but with much difficulty. He believed that for so small a circuit as this shire contained there was not in the kingdom a greater number of poor people. He added further that they had no commodity among them for raising money but some small quantity of fine wools, and that the market value of these had been seriously impaired of late by Spanish competition. '°° By 24 April he had raised £2,j^o.^^^ In August he informed the council that the collection of arrears was hard work, and that little was paid but what was forced by distraining.'" By October the city had paid £1^0 of its assessment and Leominster was less than ^2 in arrear.'"' The county at this time was crippled by visitations of the plague, which raged in Ross and its neighbourhood. The heavy incidence of the tax may be judged by the return of a chief constable of the hundred of Radlow, who stated in explana- tion of arrears that some of the persons from whom small sums were due were dead of the plague, and that others were day labourers or persons without anything that could be distrained. By November, 1637, the arrears were reduced to ^^60 6^. 4^.'*^ The third writ of ship money was issued in the autumn of 1637, and by it Herefordshire was assessed at ^(^3,500. The sheriff and the justices of the peace of the county presented a strong petition to the council against it, drawn up at the quarter sessions. The petition is remarkable for the absence of any objections to the right of the council to impose the tax. It is entirely concerned with practical considerations. The justices represented that they found the burden very heavy by reason of the unequal distribution of the charge as compared with other counties. The county, they said, was small, and the sickness so much dispersed that they were charged with £^^ a week to relieve one town alone.'" It had also lately broken out in Hereford and other places. They therefore prayed the lords of the council to reduce the rate to a proportion suitable with other counties.'^^ In con- sequence of this petition the new sheriff, Henry Lingen of Sutton Frene, who entered office on 30 September, found the people very loath to contribute until an answer had been received.'" In 1638 a new and more importunate =«° S.P. Dom. Chas. I, cccxxv, 45 ; ccciv, 6. '" Ibid, cccxxv, 45; cccliv, 23. ^' Ibid, cccxliii, 56 ; ccclvii, 77 ; see also ccclxxi, iii; ccccvii, 49; ccccxii, 28. '"^ Ibid, ccclxiii, 19; cf. ccclxxiii, 58. '" Ibid, cccliv, 83 ; ccclxvi, 43 ; ccclxix, 2 ; ccclxxi, 87. Ibid, ccclxvi, 6. 3« Ibid, ccclxviii, 56 ; cccli, 16 ; cccliv, 71, 83. Ibid, ccclxvi, 43. 365 j|^ij_ ccclxix, 2 ; ccclxx, 60. Ibid, ccclxxi, 87 ; cf. ccclxxii, 49 ; ccclxxxi, 35 ; ccccli, 7. Probably Ross. '" S.P. Dom. Chas. I, ccclxxvi, 133. ''^ Ibid, ccccx, 23. 383 367 369 3?0
 * ri85.'*^ The collection of this second contribution presented much greater