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Civil Disobedience: Lady Godiva’s – Tax Protest

Civil Disobedience: Lady Godiva’s – Tax Protest . By: Alexandria Causey 4 th period 10 th Literature and Composition. Lady Godiva’s Ride. Lady Godiva took pity on the people of Conventry as her husband, Leofric, Earl of Mercia placed heavy taxes on them.

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Civil Disobedience: Lady Godiva’s – Tax Protest

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  1. Civil Disobedience:Lady Godiva’s – Tax Protest By: Alexandria Causey 4th period 10th Literature and Composition

  2. Lady Godiva’s Ride • Lady Godiva took pity on the people of Conventry as her husband, Leofric, Earl of Mercia placed heavy taxes on them. • She went against what he said and she often complained about how he was treating the people of Conventry. • Leofric was fed up with the people and his wife’s constant arguing, he decided to make a deal. • The deal was this: if Lady Godiva was to ride through Conventry nude on horseback he would lift the taxes. • Leofric thought that his wife would not go that far for the people of Conventry.

  3. Lady Godiva’s Ride • However, Lady Godiva accepted the deal but on her own conditions. She ordered the people of Conventry to bar their doors and their windows. • Not all the people of Conventry agreed with this proposition, a well known tailor by the name of Tom decided to take a peek at Lady Godiva when she passed by but it proved unsuccessful as he was suddenly blinded by a light. • That is where the term for Peeping Tom comes from. • After completing the ride, Leofric had no other choice but to lift the taxes on everything but the horses since they were there before he took office.

  4. Conventry’s Injustice • The people of Conventry was under a ruler who felt like taxing any and every little product. • The people did not complain to when it came to the toll on the horses or on the food but when the taxes began to rise they felt the pressure of their government. • Yet the people were afraid to validate their feelings about the heavy tolls on paintings, housing, and even manure. • Leofric could not tax the church at the time state and religion were a separate entities during that time.

  5. Lady Godiva:Taking Action • Lady Godvia’s husband presented in the deal that she was to ride nude throughout Conventry. • Godiva took the initiative and sent out a mandate that the citizens of Conventry bar their doors and boarded up doors. • She wore her royal robe to one part of the forest along with two of her female companions before disrobing and let her hair down so that it covered her breasts. • After completing that she made her way though Conventry on horseback.

  6. Was it a Success?OrWas it a Failure? • Lady Godiva’s Ride was a success as her husband Leofric, stuck to his side of the deal and lifted all the heavy tariffs that he had placed on the citizens of Conventry, all except the one for the horse. Since it was already put in place before he took power. • The citizens of Conventry were forever in debt to their Lady and received with gratitude and were forever in her debt because she really did not have to ride nude horseback through their country just so that the taxes could be lifted. • Lady Godiva’s ride is still famous till this day and that it was reenacted in Surrey, London to promote an upcoming holiday known as Ladies Day.

  7. Civil Disobedience? • In order to know whether or not Lady Godiva’s ride was and example of civil disobedience, you would have to know the meaning of it. • Civil Disobedience is the refusal to obey civil laws in an effort to change a governmental policy or legislation by using passive resistance or nonviolent means. • Lady Godiva showed nonviolence by riding through the town nude on a horseback so she could change her husband, Leofric, law of heavy tariffs on the people of Conventry so that they can live unburden with paying taxes. • So I think that Lady Godiva’s is the prime example of Civil Disobedience.

  8. Work Cited • Ani. "Naked beauties on horsebacks recreate Lady Godiva's epic ride in Surrey." 22 Aug. 2009. Newsgroup. 19 May 2010. <http://blog.taragana.com/n/naked-beauties-on-horsebacks-recreate-lady-godivas-epic-ride-in-surrey-146869/>. • "An Anglo-Saxon Tale: Lady Godiva." BBC-History- Ancient History in depth. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 May 2010. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/anglo_saxons/godiva_01.shtml> • "Civil disobedience." Dictionary.com. n.d. Civil disobedience. Dictionary.com. Web. 19 May 2010. <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/civil+disobedience?fromAsk=true>. • LADY GODIVA (Godgifu)." Lady Godiva. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 May 2010. <http://www.abacom.com/~jkrause/godiva.html,>. • "Lady Godiva's Conventry >>HistoryNet." Lady Godiva's Conventry. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 May 2010. <http://www.historynet.com/lady-godivas-conventry.htm>.

  9. Civil DisobedienceHenry David Thoreau By: Alexandria Causey 4th period 10th Literature and Composition

  10. Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau was born in 1817 and was very close to his older brother John. • He attended Concord Academy and then went on to Harvard to study. • Thoreau worked as a surveyor and was a pencil maker and was an Abolitionists that aided slaves to freedom. • He was known for not paying his poll tax to vote and that he opposed the government for waging war. • Thoreau died of tuberculosis in 1862 at the age of 44.

  11. Thoreau’s Injustice • Thoreau argues in his paper about the injustice of slavery and the Mexican War. • Thoreau claims that no government is the best way that human beings can judge themselves and see better government as a temporary feature. • Not only that but he claims that government is another tool that is being used to place fear on the people it governs. • Thoreau goes on to argue that government is just there to tell what they can and can not do as well as tax the people for their own needs.

  12. Connection Between Thoreau and Lady Godiva • Besides the fact that Thoreau and Lady Godiva used nonviolent ways to show what they wanted to change for the betterment of mankind. However that is not the only thing the two argue with their different forms of protest. • In both protest they identify the problem that the both face deals with the government and how the government tries to control its people through its control. • Thoreau’s first point in his Civil Disobedience was that he peferred to have no government at all since government only enforces itself through fear. With Lady Godiva’s Ride, the people of Conventry, were scared to have an uprising about the heavy taxes on them. • The next point that Thoreau made was that the men who serve the government are nothing but machines that does not think about the moral judgment of their service. Lady Godiva’s husband, Leofric Earl of Mercia, can be the machine as he place a tariff on everything including manure.

  13. Connection Between Thoreau and Lady Godiva • Thoreau also states “It is man’s duty to wash his hands of wrong.” Lady Godiva took it upon herself to place relief on her people and even challenged her husband to think about what he was doing when he created the heavy tariffs. • Even though democracy, order, and civil government is a good thing it prevents people from doing the right thing. Lady Godiva felt that if she rode nude through Conventry then she would be able to uplift the taxes on her people, some of the taxes could have been put in place to maximize growth for the people of Conventry’s economy. • Lady Godiva emphasizes the point that Thoreau make in his writing, “One honest man can make a change to the state by standing up to it.” Lady Godiva did not have to stand up to her husband for the sake of her people underneath their rule. • “A man can change an unjust system by refusing to be unjust and be willing to be the scarifice.” Lady Godiva scarificed her right as a woman to be cloth just to ride around naked so that her hubsand ban the taxes on their people.

  14. Connection Between Thoreau and Lady Godiva • The last thing that I want to mention is when Thoreau brought up “There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly.” • Lady Godiva’s ride was to show that the people had a voice too, and that they held power as well, it just took a naked political figure to give up her sacrifice of humility to have the people of Conventry realize that. Not only that but they learned that if they are ever displeased with the government that they can pressurized them to change for their good with nonviolent ways.

  15. Works Cited • "Civil Disobedience." Civil Disobedience: Henry David Thoreau. SparkNotes, n.d. Web. 19 May 2010. <http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/civildisobedience/summary.html • "Henry David Thoreau." American Transcendentalism Web. English Department, Virginia Commonwealth University, n.d. Web. 19 May 2010. <http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/thoreau/>. • "Quotes on Civil Disobedience." Transcendental Philosophy: Henry David Thoreau. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 May 2010. <http://www.spaceandmotion.com/Philosophy-Henry-David Thoreau.htm#Quotations.Civil.Disobedience>. • "Resistance to Civil Government." Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau. eBooks, n.d. Web. 19 May 2010. <http://www.literatureproject.com/civil-disobedience/civil-disobedience.htm>.

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