s the sole judge of the
danger, and of the amount of the tax.[69]

[Footnote 69: 3 St. Tr. 825. See the opinion of the Judges with their
twelve names, 844, and note [dagger symbol].]

John Hampden was taxed twenty shillings--he refused to pay, though he
knew well the fate of Richard Chambers a few years before. The case
came to trial in 1637, in the Court of Exchequer before Lord
Chancellor Coventry, a base creature, mentioned before. It was "the
great case of Ship-money." The ablest lawyers in England showed that
the tax was contrary to Magna Charta, to the fundamental laws of the
realm, to the Petition of Right and to the practice of the kingdom.
Hampden was defeated. Ten out of the twelve Judges sided with the
King. Croke as the eleventh had made up his mind to do the same, but
his noble wife implored him not to sacrifice his conscience for fear
of danger, and the Woman, as it so often happens, saved the man.[70]
Attorney-General Banks thus set forth the opinion of the Government,
and the consequent "decision" of the Judges. He rested the right of
levying Ship-money on the "intrinsic, absolute authority of the King."
There was no Higher Law in Old England in 1634! Banks said, "this
power [of arbitrary and irresponsible taxation] is innate in the
person of an absolute King, and in the persons of the Kings of
England. All-magistracy it is of nature; and obedience and subjection
[to] it is of nature. This power is not anyways derived from the
people, but reserved unto the King when positive laws first began. For
the King of England, he is an absolute monarch; nothing can be given
to an absolute prince but what is inherent in his person. He can do no
wrong. He is the sole judge and we ought not to question him, whom the
law trusts we ought not to distrust." "The Acts of Parliament contain
no express words to take away so high a prerogative; and the King's
prerogative, even in lesser matters, is always saved, where express
words do not restrain it."[71]

[Footnote 70: Whitelocke, Memor. 25.]

[Footnote 71: 2 Hallam, 16.]

It required six months of judicial labor to bring forth this result,
which was of "infinite disservice to the crown." Thereupon Mr. Hallam
says:--

"Those who had trusted to the faith of the judges were
undeceived by the honest repentance of some, and looked with
indignation on so prostituted a crew. That respect for
courts of justice which the happy structure of our Judicial