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 A HISTORY OF HEREFORDSHIRE petition was presented setting forth that the county had for two years past been visited ' with the grievous contagion of the plague of pestilence,' which imposed a heavy financial burden on the shire, that the Lent corn and fruit of that year were generally failing, whereby famine was creeping upon them, and that the plague in Worcestershire was stopping commerce for the sale of their wool. In Ross alone one hundred persons were dead and one hundred families decayed, who paid ship money. They therefore implored that the present taxation of ship money might be forborne. This petition was signed, among others, by George Coke, the bishop of Hereford, and by Sir Robert Harley, who afterwards became the leader of the Parliamentary party on the outbreak of civil war. Harley, who held the ofHce of Master of the Mint in the Tower of London for life, with a salary of ,(^4,000 a year, was a stern and consistent Puritan. He was a man of good estate and ancient family, owning Wigmore Castle, the former seat of the Mortimers, and the stronghold of Brampton Bryan on the boundaries of Radnorshire. The work of collection went on slowly. In January, 1638—9, Lingen had been obliged to distrain for at least £1,000 out of a sum of ;^ 1,8 00, which he had obtained."^ By August he had realized ^^2,300, but the council had grown impatient, and on 7 August wrote ordering him to attend the board to give an account of his collecting.'^* But before this stage had been reached the fourth writ of ship money was issued, in January, 1638—9. It was accompanied by instructions to the sheriff. Sir Robert Whitney, to consult the inhabitants in regard to assess- ments. But Whitney found that his subordinates, the chief constables of the hundreds and the petty constables of the parishes, were no longer to be relied on for assistance. In many places they and the inhabitants alike refused to undertake the task of local assessment. From seven of the eleven hundreds he failed to receive complete lists of assessments. To some, whom he found most blameworthy, he directed particular warrants requiring their present repair unto him, with sureties for their personal appearance before the Lords of the Council, to answer their contempt."''^ Even these measures had little effect. In August he, like Lingen, was summoned to attend the Council Board, but asked to be excused on the ground that his absence would retard the collection.'^" The lords replied that they would excuse his attendance, but that he must not fail to levy and pay in all the ship money due by the last writ before the first day of the next term, adding that if he failed he must expect no further favour, ' this being a service not to be so trifled with and neglected as hitherto it has been by you more than by any other sheriff in the whole kingdom.''" By 10 December Whitney had paid in ^^610,'^* and by 9 May, 1640, only ^gy iSs. were in arrear.'" On 10 November the fifth writ of ship money was issued, in which Herefordshire was rated at ^^3,500. The task of the new sheriff, Thomas Alderne, was even more hopeless than Whitney's. He encountered the same obstacles from the constables and inhabitants as his predecessor. When he issued warrants for levying the money, the inhabitants replied that they had '" S.P. Dom. Chas. I, ccccx, 23 ; cf. ccccxvii, 89-90. "* Ibid, ccccxxvii, 105. '" Whitney to Nicholas, 6 April, 1639, ibid, ccccxvii, 44. ''* Same to same, 19 Aug. 1639, ibid, ccccxxvii, 68. '" 3 Sept. 1639, ibid, ccccxxviii, 18. "' Ibid, ccccxxxv, 62, I. '" Ibid, cccclii, 100, I. 384