Note 156 — Chapter VIII · (continued 2)

Mem. de Motteville, i. 238-278; P. Orleans, Rev. de l'Angleterre, tome iii., says the same of Vane; but his testimony may resolve itself into the former. It is to be observed, that ship-money which the king offered to relinquish, brought in £200,000 a year, and that the proposed twelve subsidies would have amounted, at most, to £840,000, to be paid in three years. Is it surprising that, when the house displayed an intention not to grant the whole of this, as appears by Clarendon's own story, the king and his advisers should have thought it better to break off altogether? I see no reason for imputing treachery to Vane, even if he did not act merely by the king's direction. Clarendon says he and Herbert persuaded the king that the house "would pass such a vote against ship-money as would blast that revenue and other branches of the receipt; which others believed they would not have the confidence to have attempted, and very few that they would have had the credit to have compassed." P. 245. The word they is as inaccurate, as is commonly the case with this writer's language. But does he mean that the house would not have passed a vote against ship-money? They had already entered on the subject, and sent for records; and he admits himself, that they were resolute against granting subsidies as a consideration for the abandonment of that grievance. Besides, Hyde himself not only inveighs most severely in his History against ship-money, but was himself one of the managers of the impeachment against six judges for their conduct in regard to it; and his speech before the House of Lords on that occasion is extant. Rushw. Abr. ii. 477. But this is merely one instance of his eternal inconsistency.