ship money

English

Noun

ship money (countable and uncountable, plural ship moneys or ship monies)

1. (historical) A tax applied to coastal towns for their defence in wartime.

   The imposition of ship money without Parliamentary consent was one of the causes of the English Civil War.

   • 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, pages 30–31:

     When I stood by the side of Hampden, contending against a heavy oppression, and for an undeniable right, who could have thought that his refusal to pay that twenty shillings ship-money would be the first act of a resistance that was destined to arouse a whole nation, and kindle civil war from one end of our island to the other?