Personal Rule and Opposition (1629-40)

With the help of Attorney General Noy, CI revised long forgotten taxes and tightened gov spending. 

• Signed the Treaty of Madrid in 30, as a result his spendng on war reduced from £500,000 to less than £70,000. 
• Raised £358,000 from T&P. 
• Fines for building on royal forests raised £40,000. 
• 30, CI revived a medieval custom based on an Act from 1278 known as the distraint of knighthood, whereby all those with land worth more than £40 per annum were expected to be knighted by the monarch on their coronation. If they failed to present themselves they were fined. Roughly £175,000 was raised. 
• CI issued monoplies in return for a fee. (E.g. Soap given to Catholic courtiers) 
• Feudal device, wardship revenue, raised £55,000. 
• Ship Money, CI introduced it as an annual tax and charged all counties (not just those near the coast). Raised £200,000. 

• 29, Chambers refused to pay T&P, imprisoned and fined £2,000. 
• 34 Sir Foulis attempted an uprising against distraint of knighthood, gained little support. 
• Hampdenwas a Puritan who refused to pay Ship Money, in 36 and initiated a legal challenge. Lawyer was St John; both men were part of a Puritan gentry and nobility who had been active in the Providence Island Company (private shipping company). CI decided to use this challenge as a test case in 37. 7 judges ruled in favour of CI's collection of the tax (5 against). According to contemporaries the reaction of the gentry to the result was hostile and created issues for CI. Some historians suggest that Puritans would have inevitably resisted CI regardless of his actual financial policies. 
• Taxpayers' strike in 39, many who those expected to pay Ship Money refused and only 20% was collected. One of the key reasons CI recalled P in 1640. CI embarked on the 1st Bishops' War with Scot in 39; many taxpayers in England sympathised with the Scots as fellow Protestants and did not want to fund the war.