The Compass Rose - Map of China: Decoding the Secrets of a Vanished Cartographer - page 101

ileges and erect their own on the other. A token of how close they may have be-
come can be seen today in the History of Science Museum in Oxford. John Selden
somehow came to own two Persian astrolabes for measuring the angles of the sun
andstarstodeterminelocation,bothofthembeautifullyworkedinmetal.Theirex-
actprovenanceisunknown,althoughtheywereprobablyacquiredinNorthAfrica.
One of these he presented to Laud as a gift. Both bequeathed them to the Bodleian
Library, albeit separately. The Bodleian later lent them to the Ashmolean Museum
asamoresuitableplacetohouseculturalartefacts.TheAshmoleanhasmoved,but
the astrolabes are still ondisplay in the original Ashmolean building, which is now
Oxford's History of Science Museum. **
The friendship between Selden and Laud, if it was ever that, did not hold. Laud
wastooextreme inhisvigilance onbehalf oftheChurchandofhimself asitschief
representative, and too unwilling to ease away from controversial positions that a
more politically flexible archbishop might have gently abandoned. Selden admired
him for his work as Chancellor of Oxford, and especially for his support for Ori-
ental studies. They agreed about the intellectual poverty and moral vacuity of Pur-
itanism.LaudwouldhavefoundamusingSelden'ssnidecommentthat'thePuritan
would be judged by the word of God: if he would speak clearly, he means him-
self.' But Laud could not have accepted Selden's rejection of appeals to divinity in
purely human affairs. And he surely must have been uncomfortable with Selden's
puncturing of legal arguments for the divine right of bishops in his Historie of
Tithes .
By the 1630s, Selden also faulted Laud on more practical issues. He felt that
Laud went out of his way to support unpopular policies, notably the tax known as
ship money. Charles I imposed this tax without the consent of Parliament, which
would never have given it, in order to pay for an increased naval presence in the
NorthSeaandtheEnglishChannel.HiscriticssuspectedCharlesofwantinganavy
hecouldusetointerveneinthethenongoingsuccessionstrugglesinEuropeknown
as the Thirty Years War. If Laud assumed that Selden's arguments in The Closed
Sea would strengthen Charles's right to levy taxes in defence of his dominion over
the seas around Britain, he was mistaken. Selden held that the power to tax lay en-
tirely with the people; kings and bishops enjoyed that power only to the extent that
the people gave it to them.
BythetimeLaudwrotehislastlettertoSeldeninNovember1640,assuringhim
that he would persuade Charles to drop the ship money tax, the issue was beyond
hispowertoreverse.SeldenwasappointedtotheParliamentarycommitteein1641