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Fresh Light on Bate's Case
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
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On the afternoon of 7 July 1610, two petitions of grievance, one temporal and one spiritual, were presented to James I. According to the French ambassador, he received them with ‘un assez mauvais visage’ and uncharacteristically few words, although later the king permitted himself the tart comment that the petition of temporal grievances was long enough to be his chamber tapestry. Although James exaggerated its size, politically it was a weighty document, for among its complaints it set out the Commons' view that the new impositions, already bringing in around £70,000 per annum, were illegal. ‘With all humility’, they presented ‘this most just and necessary petition unto your Majesty, that all impositions set without assent of parliament may be quite abolished and taken away.’ To answer the grievance, on 10 July James turned to his lord treasurer, Robert Cecil earl of Salisbury, for a full statement. The speech which he then gave formed the basis for all future defences of the royal power to impose on trade made by crown spokesmen up to 1640. Salisbury described how, early in 1607, his friend and predecessor, Lord Treasurer Dorset, had proposed new impositions to help fill the empty royal coffers. The privy council, after discussion, decided instead to raise money on loan; but in October 1607 renewed rebellion in Ireland rendered the situation more urgent, and by spring 1608 it was apparent that loans could not meet the king's necessities.
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References
1 Proceedings in parliament 1610, ed. Foster, E. R. (2 vols., New Haven, 1966), 1, 130–3Google Scholar; n, 253, 267, 273. Parliamentary debates in 1610, ed. Gardiner, S. R. (Camden Society, 1892, hereafter cited as Gardiner,1610 Debates), p. 123Google Scholar.
2 See the analysis of commodities in Dietz, F. C., English public finance 1558–1641 (London, 1964 edn), pp. 370–1Google Scholar. Hill, L. M., ‘Sir Julius Caesar's Journal of Salisbury's First Two Months and Twenty Days as Lord Treasurer, 1608’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, XLV (1972), 319Google Scholar. For Ireland, Gardiner, S. R., A history of England from the accession of James l to the outbreak of the civil war, 1603–1642 (London, 1884), 1, 421Google Scholar; for the great loans of 1607, Ashton, Robert, ‘Deficit finance in the reign of James I’, Economic History Review, 2nd series, X (1957–8), 26Google Scholar.
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5 The standard but inadequate authorities are Epstein, M., The early history of the Levant Company (London, 1908)Google Scholar, and Wood, A. C., A history of the Levant company (London, 1935)Google Scholar. Neither discusses Bate's case, and both should be used warily, as should the incorrect account in Dietz, , English public finance 1558–1641, pp. 326, 364–5Google Scholar.
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13 P.R.O., SP 14/4/46; C.S.P. Ven. 1603–7, P. 146; PRO., SP 38 (Docquets), 7, 23 July 1604, 28 Oct. 1604.
14 C.S.P. Ven. 1603–7, PP. 146, 184; PRO., SP 14/10/28.
15 The Venetian ambassador reported in June 1604 that everyone was trying to sell their great ships, and in Nov. 1604 the former lord mayor of London, Sir Henry Billingsley, warned the privy council of the dangers of ‘the decay of great ships in a time of amity with all princes’. C.S.P. Ven. 1603–7,p. 161 H.M.C. Salisbury, xi, 102, P.R.O., SP 14/10/11. The increase of piracy ended hopes of using cheap unarmed shipping; Hebb, D. D., ‘The English government and the problem of piracy 1616–1642’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of London, 1985), pp. 25–39Google Scholar.
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20 The suggested revival of the Levant monopoly on payment of an entrance fee of £50, made by a sub-committee of six members of the privy council, was a factor in precipitating the free trade debates. C.S.P. Ven. 1603–7, PP. 134, 146; Commons Journal, 1, 176, 220: P.R.O., SP 14/6/71.
21 P.R.O., SP 14/6/69; C.S.P. Ven. 1603–7, PP. 125. 184, 191–2, 217–18.
22 P.R.O., SP 14/6/69; SP 14/7/15; H.M.C. Salisbury, xvi, 380; C.S.P. Ven. 1603–7, PP. 192, 198, 217; The letters of John Chamberlain, ed. McClure, N. E. (American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, 1939), 1, 204Google Scholar; SP 38 (Docquets), 7, 27 Oct. 1604. Hammersley was dismissed in 1607 but Salisbury's involvement with the currant imposition continued; H.M.C. Salisbury, xxiv, 41; xvin, 16, 305; xxi, 252.
23 C.S.P. Ven. 1603–7, PP. 184, 198, 217; H.M.C. Salisbury, xvi, 16–17.
24 P.R.O., SP 38 (Docquets), 7, 16 Apr. 1605: P.R.O., SP 14/15/4 (i, ii). Epstein, pp. 54–6 wrongly attributes the enclosure to Staper.
25 On Salisbury and freer trade, see Croft, P., ‘Preparations for a parliament, September 1605’, forthcoming in Parliamentary History. See also below p. 532Google Scholar.
26 Hatfield House, Cecil MSS 112/65, italics mine.
27 P.R.O., SP 14/10/31, endorsed by Salisbury, ‘Concerning ye currants.’
28 For the tobacco imposition, P.R.O., SP 14/28/143; Dietz, English Public Finance, p. 330Google Scholarand Hall, G. D. H., ‘Impositions and the courts 1554–1606’, Law Quarterly Review, LXIX (1953), 216–17Google Scholar. Alderman Eldred's arrears on the currant imposition were cancelled early in 1605, by royal command, in view of his contributions to the ambassador's upkeep at Constantinople; he was granted the farm of the pre-emption of tin in 1608, and by 1612 was a substantial royal creditor. Possibly influence helped to shield him from the consequences of his refusal to pay the tobacco levy. P.R.O., SP 14/10/29; SP 14/13/46; Cal. S.P. Dom. 1603–10, p. 469; P.R.O., SP 38 (Docquets), 7, 10 Nov. 1604, 22 May 1605; H.M.C. Salisbury, XXI, 329–30.
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33 Guildhall Library London, Calandar and index to the court minute books of the Grocers company (typescript by W. LeHardy).
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35 Corporation of London R.O., Repertory 27 fo. 116. For a fuller account see Croft, P., ‘Parliament, purveyance and the City of London 1589–1608’, Parliamentary History, IV (1985)Google Scholar.
36 P.R.O., SP 14/20/25.
37 P.R.O., SP 14/10A/26: Cal. S.P. Dom. 1601–3, p. 144; B. L. Harley 1878, fos. 108, 134.
38 C.S.P. Ven. 1603–7, P. 198; Stone, Lawrence, Family and fortune: studies in aristocratic finance in the 16th and 17th centuries (Oxford, 1973), pp. 24–7Google Scholar.
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40 Hitchcock pointed to Wright, manager of the currant levy, client of Salisbury and M.P. for Queenborough, as responsible for Bate's imprisonment. Wright may well have informed Salisbury of the incident at the quayside. The parliamentary diary of Robert Bowyer 1606–1607, ed. Wilson, D. H. (Minneapolis, 1931), p. 119Google Scholar.
41 Beaven, A. B., The aldermen of the city of London (2 vols., London 1913)Google Scholar, under Thomas Cordall, John Eldred and Roger Owfield. Willan, , Studies in English foreign trade, pp. 193–6Google Scholar.
42 H.M.C. Salisbury, XVIII, 97, 125, 128–9; P.R.O., SP 14/41/15. The origin of the assumption that James had given specific permission is probably Baron Clark's rhetorical flourish in his final argument, ‘Such is the king's grace, that he had shewed his intent to be, that this matter shall be disputed and adjudged by us according to the ancient law and custom of the realm.’ A complete collection of state trials.… compiled by Howell, T. B. (London 1816), II, 382Google Scholar.
43 H.M.C. Salisbury, XVIII, 395–7.
44 Ibid. XVIII, 219; XIX, 284–5.
45 Hall, , ‘Impositions and the courts’, pp. 200, 203, 205Google Scholar. I hope to discuss the legal arguments put forward by Bate's lawyers, and the later debates in the Commons, elsewhere.
46 Bate appeared before the barons in May, during the course of the case, but it is not clear if he was still a prisoner. He was certainly free by December 1606, and was bankrupt before 1616. P.R.O., SP 14/32/2; P.R.O., SP 105/110 fos. 16v–21v; Corp. London R.O., Repertory 28, fo. 245; LeHardy, , Calendar to the court minute books of the Grocers company, IGoogle Scholar; 286; II, 112.
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52 See particularly Sharpe, Kevin, ‘Parliamentary history 1603–1629: in or out of perspective? Section v, The crisis of counsel?’, in Faction and parliament, ed. Sharpe, K. (Oxford, 1978), pp. 37–42Google Scholar. Wormald, Jenny, ‘James VI and I: two kings or one?’, History, LXVIII (1983)Google Scholar. Hirst, Derek, ‘Revisionism revised: the place of principle’, Past and Present, XCII (1981), 80–1Google Scholar. Commons Debates in 1628, eds. Johnson, Robert C., Keeler, Mary Frear, Cole, Maija Jannson and Bidwell, William C. (New Haven, 1977), II, 63Google Scholar.
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