Benevolences

in English history, a system of forced loans exacted by royal authority without permission of Parliament. We hear of these "loans" in the reign of Edward IV. Prior to the Wars of the Roses Parliament made more progress in controlling the expenditures of king and ministers than was in all respects pleasing to the crown. Parliamentary grants of money, moreover, were conditioned on a redress of grievances too often to suit royal ideas of prerogative. The civil war between the houses of Lancaster and York gave the king an opportunity to fill the royal coffers with plunder and moneys from the sale of confiscated estates. Edward IV caused a bill of attainder to be passed stripping twelve great nobles and knights of their estates. An obsequious Parliament granted him the customs for life, and he made large sums of money by sending out trading vessels. Nevertheless, Edward desired more money, and he desired to raise it without reviving the proper and legal custom of calling Parliament together. He hit upon the plan of calling upon wealthy persons for "benevolences." A merchant invited to the royal presence, and received with great affability, could hardly refuse when told that his royal highness was in need of a "loan,"--a "benevolence"--of a certain sum. Green, the historian, says this exaction was resented bitterly, but resistance was fruitless.

An act passed during the reign of Richard III forbade the levying of benevolences, but, nevertheless, Wolsey and Henry VIII resumed the practice on a large scale. London merchants were asked to make up 20,000 pounds, and a commission was sent to every shire to exact loans. The amount collected was small in proportion to the demand made, but bad blood was stirred up. Even Henry and Wolsey were forced to give up.

James, the first of the Stuarts, the same during whose reign Jamestown and Plymouth were settled, tried to govern without Parliament. His council sent out letters, oriental fashion, demanding loans from the larger landholders. The sheriffs, as the judges were called, did their best, but succeeded in raising not to exceed 60,000 pounds in three years.

Charles I, in no wise deterred by the failure of his predecessors, was determined to raise money without the consent of Parliament. He held that a king who had to bargain for money with which to carry on the government, was not a king at all. He was willing to beg, to borrow from individuals, or to force loans; but he and his courtiers set themselves against the authority of Parliament. Rather than come to time and correct abuses demanded by Parliament, they made a systematic demand for benevolences. Many counties refused outright; some sheriffs evaded the demand; others sent in grudging contributions. The king ordered a forced loan,-- a general tax to be collected by the courts and tax gatherers. A tremendous outcry went up. Some clergymen preached the doctrine of "passive obedience," but the people were in an uproar. Peasants and squires alike were called before the tax gatherer and examined as to their ability to "aid the king." Troops were quartered in rebellious districts to awe the people into submission. Those who paid were hooted and jeered at by their neighbors. Those who did not pay were threatened and maltreated. Soldiers were quartered in their homes. Poor men who would not pay their little were torn from their families and hurried off to the army and the navy. Two hundred English gentlemen were confined in disgraceful prisons to subdue their obstinancy. Little revenue was raised. Charles was obliged finally to summon his Parliament.

The doctrine of benevolences died hard. It was a part of the larger doctrine of the divine right of kings. The exaction of benevolences did much to bring the courage of the English people to a sticking point. They taught kings that they had "necks like other people," and showed rulers that they had only such authority as the people might choose to give them. This abuse, so inconsistent with the maintenance of political liberty, was renounced formally by the king in the "Petition of Rights" (1628), and, though Charles afterward broke his plighted word in this matter, the great Civil War of 1642 marked its final disappearance.

An appeal was made to the nation to pay as a free gift the subsidies which the Parliament had refused to grant till their grievances were redressed. But the tide of public resistance was slowly rising. Refusals to give anything, "save by way of Parliament," came in from county after county. When the subsidy-men of Middlesex and Westminster were urged to comply, they answered with a tumultuous shout of "a Parliament! a Parliament! else no subsidies!" Kent stood out to a man. In Bucks the very justices neglected to ask for the "free gift." The freeholders of Cornwall only answered that, "if they had but two kine, they would sell one of them for supply to his Majesty--in a Parliamentary way." The failure of the voluntary gift forced Charles to an open defiance of the law. He met it by the levy of a forced loan. Commissioners were named to assess the amount which every landowner was bound to lend, and to examine on oath all who refused. Every means of persuasion, as of force, was resorted to. The pulpits of the Laudian clergy resounded with the cry of "passive obedience." Dr. Mainwaring preached before Charles himself, that the King needed no Parliamentary warrant for taxation, and that to resist his will was to incur eternal damnation. Poor men who refused to lend were pressed into the army or navy. Stubborn tradesmen were flung into prison. Buckingham himself undertook the task of overawing the nobles and the gentry. Charles met the opposition of the judges by instantly dismissing from his office the Chief Justice, Crew. But in the country at large resistance was universal. The northern counties in a mass set the Crown at defiance. The Lincolnshire farmers drove the Commissioners from the town. Shropshire, Devon, and Warwickshire "refused utterly." Eight peers, with Lord Essex and Lord Warwick at their head, declined to comply with the exaction as illegal. Two hundred country gentlemen, whose obstinacy had not been subdued by their transfer from prison to prison, were summoned before the Council; and John Hampden, as yet only a young Buckinghamshire squire, appeared at the board to begin that career of patriotism which has made his name dear to Englishmen. "I could be content to lend," he said, "but fear to draw on myself that curse in Magna Charta, which should be read twice a year against those who infringe it."--J. R. Green, History of the English People.