Parliamentary Taxation in England

VII The Stuarts: 1603-1689

Divine right as against Parliamentary supremacy

The theory of divine right, by which the Stuarts laid claim to a sovereignty as irresponsible as it was far-reaching, in practice came into direct conflict with another theory which had been taking shape for some four centuries, the supremacy of Parliament. In the field of taxation the issue is scarcely less apparent. Parliament asserted the supremacy of its will over all kinds of taxes, indirect as well as direct. The crown, on the other hand, hesitating to close with the representatives of the people over a question of their authority in direct taxation, maintained that unchecked royal power extended to indirect taxes, including duties at the ports. Furthermore, the crown, whenever occasion arose, sought to elude the hold of Parliament upon direct taxation, by resorting to the familiar resources of benevolences and the sale of monopolies, and at last to the levy of ship money.

With the issue so direct, the great question was that of strength. Should the crown with its array of adherents, upholding as their ideal the perfect exercise of the royal prerogative, prove itself stronger than the House of Commons? Or were the commons to prevail, standing for the principle that the representatives of the people sitting in Parliament should have complete control over the public purse?

James I, 1603-1625

James Stuart, swollen with intellectual pride, was, according to the Duc de Sully, “the wisest fool in Europe.” Worse than his vanity were his unsteadiness and his insincerity, traceable, perhaps, to the Italian-Gallic stock whence he was bred.293 Divine right, a doctrine by its nature offensive to Englishmen, was in him doubly hateful because he was not born king, but was proclaimed by the Council, an act ratified, however, by popular voice, and subsequently acquiesced in by Parliament.294 In the matter of religion, he was not more agreeable; suspected at times of plots to further Roman Catholicism, he assumed toward the Puritans especial animosity, they standing in his mind not so much as preachers of religion as propagandists of republicanism.

James I dictates the composition of the Commons, 1604

He wasted no time in getting things started. In the proclamation by which he summoned his first Parliament, he assumed the power of dictating what manner of men should compose it, and directed that his Court of Chancery should decide whether or not the certificates of election fulfilled the royal conditions, “and if any shall be found to be made contrarie to this proclamation, the same is to be rejected as unlawful and insufficient.”295 The commons, however, shortly after their convening, vindicated their privilege in the case of Goodwin and Fortescue, and succeeded in maintaining thereafter their right to decide upon the legality of returns.296 In their “Apology of the House of Commons, made to the king, touching their Privileges,” nearly at the close of this session, the commons complained against the monopolies possessed by the great trading companies in the face of many statutes to the contrary, and the oppressive exercise of the ancient prerogative of purveyance.297

James receives tunnage and poundage for life

In the department of regular taxation, however, James at first adopted a conciliatory attitude. On the 26th June, 1604, James sent to the commons a letter “written with his own hand but corrected as to the spelling,” in which he expressed his pleasure as to a subsidy.298 He stated his confidence in their good-will, assuring them “in the word of a King” that he would “be so far from taking it unkindly, their not offering” to him a subsidy, and that he would “only interpret it to proceed from the care they have, that our people should not have any occasion of distaste.” James’s letter accomplished for him what may well have been his purpose; the commons immediately granted to him tunnage and poundage for the space of his life.299

Royal poverty

At the two subsequent sessions of 1605-6 and 1606-7 there was constant friction between king and commons, yet there were no very remarkable assertions of royal prerogative or of parliamentary privilege. At the session of 1605, Parliament granted the king three entire subsidies and six fifteenths, designed principally to meet the royal indebtedness, some of which held over since the time of Elizabeth.300 After the prorogation, James called no session of Parliament until the 9th February, 1609-10.

But James could not meet his obligations with the ordinary revenues of the crown. He was spending between £500,000 and £600,000 a year, and his income was in the neighborhood of £400,000; his annual deficit, therefore, was not far from £150,000.301 James was obliged to turn elsewhere, and the consequence of his action was the famous Bate Case, the decision in which was a step toward freeing the king from parliamentary control over his revenues.

The Bate Case

In 1603, in answer to the agitation against the great monopolies, an Eastern trading company, known as the Levant Company, surrendered its charter. This company, amongst other privileges, had enjoyed the right of collecting a duty on currants from other merchants trading in them, and paid to the crown in return for the franchise £4,000 a year. When, therefore, the company yielded up its charter, the crown was the loser by £4,000 annually. In order to make up for the loss, the crown itself proceeded to lay a duty on currants.302 In 1605, the Levant Company again received a charter, but James levied upon it, nevertheless, his duty on currants, the rate being five shillings on the hundred-weight over and above that granted to him by Parliament in its tunnage and poundage bill. It was a merchant of the Levant Company, John Bate, who raised the question of the legality of the imposition. The case was taken to the Court of Exchequer for decision. Had the barons confined themselves to the strict laws of the matter, there would not have been great ground for objection to their decision. Precedent drawn from the time of the Tudors and statutes of the same period, were capable of being brought forward in a fair adjudication of the case, and would have substantiated the contention of the crown, thus returning customs exactions, nearly to the situation of 1300.303 The fact that the four barons decided the case unanimously against John Bate could not, therefore, be reasonably reprehended. But they permitted themselves to slip off into philosophical generalizations which struck the people as absolutist in tenor.

Opinions of the Barons in the Bate Case

“It seemeth to me strange,” says Baron Clarke in his opinion, “that any subjects would contend with the King in this high point of prerogative.... As it is not a kingdom without subjects and government, so he is not a king without revenues.... The revenue of the Crown is the very essential part of the Crown, and he who rendeth that from the king pulleth also his crown from his head, for it cannot be separated from the crown.” He proceeded to advance the opinion that the Statute of Edward III304 which prohibited to the crown the right of levying new impositions on wool, woolfells, and leather, and which provided that there be only imposed “the custom and subsidy granted to the king,” had no effect in the present instance, because it extended to Edward III alone, “and shall not bind his successors, for it is a principal part of the Crown of England which the King cannot diminish.”

The opinion of Chief Baron Fleming was scarcely less sweeping. “The King’s power is double,” he said, “ordinary and absolute.... That of the ordinary is for the profit of particular subjects, for the execution of civil justice... in the ordinary courts, and nominated... with us the common law; and these laws cannot be changed without Parliament.... The absolute power of the king is not that which is converted or executed to private use,... but is only that which is applied to the general benefit of the people.... This power is not guided by the rules which direct only at the common law, and is most properly named policy and government.... The matter in question is material matter of state, and ought to be ruled by the rules of policy, and if it be so, the king hath done well to execute his extraordinary power. All customs, be they old or new, are no other but the effects and issues of trades and commerce with foreign nations; but all commerce and affairs with foreigners... are made by the absolute power of the king; and he who hath power of causes hath power also of effects.”305

The position of Parliament

Parliament took its stand on the subject of the impositions even before the decision was published. In the Petition of Grievances sent up by the commons at the end of the session of 1606, a list which contained so many complaints that James remarked that “they had sent an oyes through the nation to find them,” the plea was made that no such duty could be demanded legally without the consent of Parliament. The decision was announced to them when they reassembled in November 1606, but they took no action and for a time the matter rested.

The Book of Rates published under decision in the Bate Case, 1608

But it was James himself who, in his characteristic tactless obstinacy, forced the issue. On the 29th July, 1608, taking advantage of the Bate decision, he published under the authority of the Great Seal his Book of Rates, which laid heavy duties upon almost all articles of merchandise, “to be forever hereafter paid to the king and his successors on pain of his displeasure.”306 The statement of James’s own views on the subject could not be more clearly put than he himself expressed them in the commission for the levy of the impositions addressed to the Earl of Salisbury, Treasurer of England. “This special power and prerogative,” he asserted, “(amongst many others) hath both by men of understanding in all ages and by the laws of all nations been yielded and acknowledged to be proper and inherent in the persons of princes, that they may according to their several occasions raise to themselves such fit and competent means by levying of customs and impositions upon merchandise transported out of their kingdom or brought into their dominions... as to their wisdoms and discretions may seem convenient.”307

Remonstrance from the Commons, 1609-10

Even with the money thus obtained, James was obliged at last after a lapse of nearly two years and a half to turn to Parliament. He summoned it for the 9th February 1609-10. The commons, almost unanimously opposed to the exercise of the royal prerogative in the matter of the imposition, came prepared to dispute the decision in the Bate Case. The discussion, carried on in the face of a royal prohibition, was managed by Hakewill, Yelverton, and Whitelocke.308 The upshot was a remonstrance in which the commons reminded the king that “the policy and constitution of this your kingdom appropriates unto the kings of this realm, with the assent of the Parliament, as well the sovereign power of making laws as that of taxing or imposing upon the subjects’ goods or merchandises wherein they have justly such a property as may not without their consent, be altered or changed.” Further, they pointed to the former occasions when the commons had complained in Parliament of similar impositions, and upon which redress was forthcoming. Reference was made to the action of “famous kings,” who “agreed that this old fundamental right should be further declared and established by act of Parliament, wherein it is provided that no such charges should ever be laid upon the people without their common consent, as may appear by sundry records of former times.” They went on to say, “We, therefore, your Majesty’s most humble Commons assembled in Parliament, following the examples of this worthy case of our ancestors, and out of a duty to those for whom we serve, finding that your Majesty, without advice or consent of Parliament, hath lately, in time of peace, set both greater impositions, and far more in number than any of your noble ancestors did in time of war, have with all humility presumed to present this most just and necessary petition unto your Majesty: That all impositions set without the assent of Parliament may be quite abolished and taken away; and that your Majesty, in imitation likewise of your noble progenitors, will be pleased that a law may be made during this session of Parliament to declare that all impositions set or to be set, upon your people, their goods and merchandises, save only by common assent in the Parliament, are and shall be void.”309 The outcome was unsatisfactory. A bill framed to prohibit further impositions than those already in existence, was passed by the House of Commons, but was cast out in the upper chamber. The king was still able to cover himself with the decision in the Bate Case.

Cowel’s “Interpreter”

The attitude of James toward a book “lately published by one Doctor Cowel” and esteemed to “contain certain matters of scandal and offence toward the high court of Parliament,”310 all but brought him into active conflict with the commons. This publication called “The Interpreter” contained a defense of the royal prerogative in such terms as greatly to offend the power of Parliament. Doctor Cowel had this to say under the head of “Subsidy:”

“... A tax or tribute assessed by Parliament, and granted by the Commons to be levied of every subject according to the value of his lands or goods, after the rate of 4s. in the pound for land and 2s. 8d. for goods, as it is not commonly used at this day. Some hold opinion that this subsidy is granted by the subject to the Prince, in recompense or consideration, that whereas the Prince of his absolute power might make laws of himself, he doth of favor admit the consent of his subjects therein, that all things in their own confession may be done with the greater indifferency.”311

King James had been thoughtless enough to let fall words of commendation for the book, and his approval was followed by a request from the commons for a conference with the lords. James, however, wisely withdrew from his position and issued a proclamation prohibiting the further circulation of the work and recalling the copies already issued. Thus did the storm blow over.

The “Great Contract,” 1610

At this same session of Parliament, James, through the Lord Treasurer, offered to accept a composition for the incidents of feudal tenure, including the right of purveyance. By this so-called Great Contract, Parliament was to provide for an annual payment to the king of £200,000. But the idea, which at first was distasteful to the commons, shortly became equally out of favor with the king. The amount of money required seemed excessive, and the commons feared that it might make the king independent of them. The king, on the other hand, arrived ultimately at the conclusion that by careful manipulation he could readily increase his income to a sum larger than that stated in the Great Contract. Final consideration was put over to the session of Parliament called for the 16th October following. At the last moment, however, when an agreement seemed by no means hopeless, a religious misunderstanding intervened, and the negotiations fell through.

The matter of a subsidy was treated with somewhat greater favor, though with small generosity. Parliament granted the king one entire subsidy and one fifteenth and tenth.312 Parliament was dissolved 9th February, 1611, and for three years James tried to carry on his government without it.

Petty extortion after the dissolution of Parliament

James’s attempt at absolutism was not a financial success; a court which was as extravagant as it was dissolute helped him increase his deficit; he ran behind about £200,000 a year, notwithstanding the fact that he set in motion all the machinery of petty extortion that he dared. He tried to force loans on the security of his privy seal but frequently met with refusal from which there was no appeal. The jurisdiction of the Star Chamber was used as a means to lay fines which were usually unjust and always excessive. He sold peerages and raised money on the crown lands, and induced the French king and the Dutch to pay up old debts owing to England.

James’s second Parliament, 1614, known as the “Addled Parliament”

His enormous annual deficit forced him in 1614 to summon his second Parliament. It came with a great and active majority lined up against the king. It speedily passed by a unanimous vote a resolution against the king’s right of imposing taxes without the consent of Parliament, and demanded a conference on that subject with the House of Lords;313 the lords, however, turned to the judges hoping to obtain from them enlightenment on the legal points involved, but the judges, by the words of Chief Justice Coke, refused to render an extra-judicial opinion. The conference was then refused. The king, becoming impatient at the delay of the commons in accomplishing the purpose for which he had summoned them to Parliament, with his usual failure to adapt himself to circumstances, sent a message to the House threatening a dissolution of Parliament unless procedure were immediately taken in the direction of granting supplies.314 The commons met the issue squarely; they said that they were determined to conclude the matter of the impositions before granting a supply. On the 7th of June, two months and two days after the date upon which it had been convened, James redeemed his word and dissolved Parliament. It had not passed a single bill and thus earned the title by which it is known to history,—the “Addled” Parliament. But it had succeeded in maintaining its principle of making supply wait upon redress of grievances, and some of its members had shot barbed shafts at the king, wherefore James locked up those who had aimed most surely.

Resort to extortion

With the hope gone of securing a grant, James had to return to his old courses of obtaining income. Forced loans, monopolies, heavy fines, feudal payments rigorously exacted, and the systematic extortion of benevolences, figured in his programme. The Council sent out orders to all the sheriffs and magistrates to send in contributions from all men of ability to pay; to those who refused, suggestions were made of impending evil. The judges of assize were especially urged to recommend payments. The benevolences netted less than £43,000 for the three years during which they were made.315

Case of Oliver St. John

But the nation did not submit tamely. Several counties sent up protests against the demand, recalling in defense of their position the Statute of Richard III which forbade the levying of “exactions, called benevolences.” The refusal of Oliver St. John to the request for a benevolence by the mayor of Marlborough, brought him into immediate conflict with the king. His written reply to the mayor maintained the illegality of the demand on the ground that it was contrary to Magna Carta and to the Statute of Richard III. He further charged the king with breaking his coronation oath, and declared that all who paid the benevolence were incriminated with him. He was haled before the Star Chamber and sentenced by it to pay a fine of £5,000 and to imprisonment during the king’s pleasure. Thus it was that James tried to rule without a Parliament.

James’s third Parliament, 1620-21

But the rule could not long continue. James summoned his third Parliament for the 30th January, 1620-21. He addressed both Houses in a conciliatory manner, hopefully and with many promises. “For you to hunt after grievances,” he said, “to the prejudice of your king and yourselves, is not the errand: deal with me as I deserve at your hands; I will leave nothing undone that becomes a just king, if you deal with me accordingly.”316 The commons were in a good temper and a reconciliation seemed far more likely to eventuate than a struggle.

Supply waits upon redress of grievances

As for the royal advice about grievances, the commons were slow to take it. When, shortly after the beginning of the session, it was moved that the House proceed to the consideration of a supply, it was stated that supply and redress of grievances should go “hand in hand together,” that they were “as twins; to go together and have no precedency.”317 It was resolved that the business of the supply be not decided independently of a consideration of grievances and of a petition to the king for freedom of speech, thus recalling the imprisonment of members in 1614 at the time of the dissolution of the Addled Parliament.

Revival of impeachment by the Commons

High in the list of grievances was the granting of monopolies. Patents of monopoly subserved a number of diverse purposes, some of which were entirely legitimate. Objection could not be made to restrictions in the sale of certain commodities such as liquors and explosives, nor to the assurance given to an inventor that he had an exclusive right to profits accruing from his invention. But James was free with his grants of monopoly for the enrichment of his courtiers and himself. Parliament laid by the heels the monopolists who had most abused their privileges, and impeached and condemned Sir Giles Mompesson and Sir Francis Mitchell.318

Granting of a supply

Before the judgment was given, however, but not before it was clearly discernible what was to be the trend of events, the commons set themselves to the consideration of a supply bill and on the 18th March passed it unanimously. It provided for two entire subsidies. “In the midst of their inquiries into public grievances, the commons had thought fit to consider the necessities of the State and grant the king a supply.”319

James in a temper adjourns Parliament

The major part of the session was spent in reforming abuses, both by impeaching the officials responsible for them, and by framing legislation for their correction. Chief amongst those who fell under condemnation at the bar of the House of Lords was Lord Francis Bacon, Lord Chancellor of England, convicted of bribery. King James in the early part of the session seemed not out of sympathy with these efforts to reform the administration, but as time wore on and the commons still busied themselves with investigations of official misconduct, he wearied, and on the 28th May, the Lord Treasurer declared to the lords the king’s determination to adjourn Parliament. Two of the five reasons assigned for the adjournment were these: “For that the profits of his Majesty’s revenues are, as it were, at a stand;” and “The omission of the State.”320 A week later, after great complaint by the commons, the session was adjourned to reassemble on the 14th November. Throughout the four months during which it had sat, no complaint had been registered against the impositions at the outports. Apparently the commons were willing for the moment to let them rest, or else, as is more likely, were quite unmindful of them.

Dilatory action on a subsidy

Parliament met on the 20th November for its final session. Lord Treasurer Cranfield reported that the exchequer was depleted, that the two subsidies which had been granted the previous March had been spent in furthering the interests of James’s son-in-law, Frederic, Elector Palatine, and “that the business now in hand required a great and speedy supply.”321 It was understood that the cost of maintaining an army in the Palatinate would be not far from £900,000 a year. The Lord Treasurer wished “that the Commons would so handle this business as to make his Majesty in love with the Parliaments.”

But they took some time to consider it. At the end of the first week, the commons resolved in committee of the whole house upon a single subsidy, which, since it was to be levied doubly upon papists, would provide some £100,000 for the prosecution of war in the Palatine.322 That was as near an actual grant as the commons came during the session. On the 1st December, they fell into a conflict with the king over matters of privilege, which had its rise in the imprisonment of Sir Edwin Sandys during the last recess of Parliament, presumably for utterances made in the House. There were petitions to James and replies from him, culminating in a remarkable Protestation asserting the right of free speech in the House.323 On the day of the presentation of this Protestation, the 18th December, James adjourned Parliament to the 8th February; he then sent for the Journal of the House of Commons and tore from it the objectionable entry with his own hand. In the stress of these events, the proposed subsidy was allowed to slip out of mind; only did the lords propose a meeting with the commons to consider a supply, and this came to naught. On the 6th January, 1621-22, James saw fit not to await the reassembling of Parliament, but issued a proclamation of dissolution in which he denounced those who had questioned his prerogatives in the House of Commons as “ill-tempered spirits.” Then he committed to prison such of them as he regarded as being most hostile, amongst whom were Sir Edward Coke, Pym, Selden, and Mallory.324

James’s last Parliament, 1623-24

Supply granted for the Palatine war

James convened his last Parliament on the 19th February, 1623-24. In the interval which had elapsed since the dissolution, James recovered his conciliatory attitude toward the commons. The plan of marrying the Prince of Wales, the young Prince Charles, to the Infanta of Spain, had been given up, and thus Englishmen were relieved of what to them had been a pro-popish plot, and had been deprecated again and again as the odious Spanish Match. The programme with respect to the Palatinate favored by the king was that favored by the commons, and the reign of James seemed to be approaching a happy conclusion. The commons came forward with a grant of three subsidies and three fifteenths and tenths, providing a somewhat greater sum than £300,000.325 The money was voted on the condition that, in order to insure its application to the naval and military establishments, it be paid into the hands of commissioners appointed by the commons, and be expended by them upon direction of the council of war. The sympathy existing between king and Parliament was further exhibited in the successful passage of an act forbidding monopolies in the sale of any merchandise or in practicing any trade, the only legislative act of constructive importance in his reign.326 Parliament was dissolved on the 29th May, 1624.

Death of James I, 27th March, 1625

Less than a year later King James died. Apparently at the end of his reign he was learning wisdom for he was beginning to understand Parliament. He left his crown to the keeping of a son who had in no wise profited by the father’s experience. Charles I, brought up in an atmosphere of divine right, was predisposed to pursue that theory to the end. But worse than that, in arguing his melancholy destiny, was his faithlessness. An odious policy executed without respect for truth brought him at last to death outside his palace of Whitehall.

First Parliament of Charles

Worry about the supply

The first Parliament of Charles I recalls vividly the mid-reign experiences of James. It convened on the 18th June, 1625, and was met with a request for a large and unconditional grant with which to prosecute the war which Charles had inherited from his father. The commons, however, were careful; they looked rather for a solid establishment of government at home than for a war abroad. Breaking the habit of two centuries, they offered Charles tunnage and poundage for a year instead of the term of his life, a measure which, because of lack of precedent, was rejected in the House of Lords; and granted only two subsidies.327 On the 10th August, the chancellor delivered a message to the commons from the king. He desired “a present answer about his supply: If not, he will take care of their healths more than they themselves, and make as good a shift for his present occasions as he could.”328 The House spent the rest of the day debating the matter, and on the next proceeded in the consideration of grievances, postponing the supply. Delay the king would not brook; perceiving that the commons were bent upon a redress of grievances before the granting of further aid, and because in the debates they had presumed “to reflect upon some great persons near himself,” on the 12th August he dissolved Parliament,329 and looked to his privy seal as a means of revenue.

His second Parliament. Buckingham

A grant with hard conditions

Six months later, on the 6th February, 1625-26, Charles opened his second Parliament and met with no better success. The commons did not consider immediately the question of a supply, but to the immense irritation of the king, proceeded to inquire into the conduct of the Duke of Buckingham, the favorite of Charles. He sent a message to the commons saying that he would “not allow any of his servants to be questioned amongst them, much less such as are of eminent place and near unto him.” But the chief significance of his message was in its conclusion. “I wish you would hasten my supply,” so it ran, “or else it will be worse for yourselves; for if any ill happen, I think I shall be the last that shall feel it.”330 The commons replied with a grant of three subsidies and three fifteenths, but the conditions were such as to make it almost worse for Charles than no grant at all. The bill was not to be brought in until the king should have given answer to their list of grievances, and among the grievances the Duke of Buckingham was chief.331 Later a fourth subsidy was added and a movement was put on foot to give Charles tunnage and poundage for life; but in the bill it was specified that a remonstrance should be drawn up against his taking those duties without the previous consent of Parliament.332 Then the commons went on with their formal impeachment of Buckingham. But before the matter was settled, and consequently before the Commons had made final grants of the promised subsidies, Charles, in the hope of relieving the desperate plight of his favorite, dissolved Parliament, on the 15th June.

Forced loans at the rating of a subsidy

The dissolution left Charles without the means with which to carry on the proposed war with Spain. He turned again to old expedients; he forced loans, exacted benevolences, and suspended penal laws for a consideration. The loans took the form of a general levy according to the well-known rate of the subsidy and were thus in effect assessments of a general tax by the arbitrary power of the crown. Of great importance in the light of subsequent history, was the requisition made upon the seaport towns for ships armed and equipped, the precursor of the demand for ship money. Imprisonment, impressment into the royal navy, the quartering of soldiers upon the inhabitants, the dismissal from offices held of the crown, were the several rewards of those sufficiently courageous to stand by the principle that taxes be laid only by the assent of Parliament.333 By an order in Council it was declared, “that all customs, duties, and imposts on all goods and merchandizes exported and imported, which, for many ages had been continued, and esteemed a principal and necessary part of the revenue of the crown, should be levied and paid.” The hope was expressed that these levies “might receive an absolute settlement by Parliament,” when that body should again assemble.334

Charles’s third Parliament, 1627-28

Threats of non- Parliamentary exaction

Not being content with the financial difficulties incident to the war with Spain, Charles, at the suggestion of Buckingham, slipped into a war with France. Buckingham led an expedition to the Isle of Rhé, met with disaster and ignominy, and succeeded in using up the ready money of the king. Charles had to call his third Parliament in order to obtain supplies. It met 17th March, 1627-28. The king attempted to propitiate the commons by releasing the prisoners whom he still held for refusing to meet the demand for the general loan. In his opening speech, Charles took the wrong tack. “There is none here,” he said, “but knows that common danger is the cause of this Parliament, and that supply at this time is the chief end of it.... If you, (which God forbid) should not do your duties in contributing what the State at this time needs, I must in discharge of my conscience, use those other means which God hath put into my hands, to save that which the follies of some particular men may otherwise hazard to lose.”335 Nor was this bold assertion of the divine right of a king to put his hand in the pockets of his subjects enough. The lord keeper said in addition, “This way (of obtaining a supply), as his Majesty hath told you, he hath chosen, not as the only way, but as the fittest; not as destitute of others, but as most agreeable to the goodness of his own most gracious disposition, and to the desire and weal of his people. If this be deferred, necessity and the sword of the enemy will make way to others. Remember his Majesty’s admonition: I say, remember it.”336

Grievances have precedence

Denunciation of extortions

The House immediately set itself to the consideration of grievances, chief amongst which were “raising money by loans, by benevolences, and privy seals: and what was too fresh in memory, the imprisonment of certain gentlemen who refused to lend.”337 The matter of a supply was debated, but passed by in favor of the grievances. On the 3rd April, the commons agreed unanimously to certain highly significant resolutions against the powers assumed by the king. “No freeman ought to be committed, or detained in prison, or otherwise restrained,” they said, “by command of the king, or the Privy Council, or any other,” except for lawful cause expressed in a lawful warrant; and “that the ancient and undoubted right of every freeman is, that he hath a full and absolute property in his goods and estate; and that no tax, tallage, loan, benevolence, or other like charge, ought to be commanded or levied by the king or his ministers, without common assent of Parliament.”338

For the space of two months the commons and the House of Lords engaged themselves in conference and separately in the consideration of a petition defining, the rights asserted in the resolutions. On the part of the commons the chief advocates were Selden, Littleton, and Digges; Sir Edward Coke, whose unwillingness to bend the judicial knee to King James had procured his dismissal long since from the chief-justiceship; and Noy, the genius who was shortly to turn against the Commons and in his invention of ship money furnish a means whereby to lay taxes without parliamentary assent. The interest of the crown was defended by attorney-general Heath and Sergent Ashley. The king was in a dilemma; he could not permit the petition to be brought in, in parliamentary form, and he could not dissolve Parliament without losing five subsidies which the commons had signified their willingness to grant him.339 He therefore tried to steer a middle course; he offered to Parliament his royal word not to imprison unjustly and expressed his willingness to confirm the charters. Coke, however, insisted upon a specific statement of issues; any such hazy settlement of difficulties as the king proposed was unlikely to be permanent; definiteness was essential. To that end he proposed the drawing up of a Petition of Right.

The Petition of Right

When the instrument was at last drawn up, it was sent to the House of Lords. The lords attempted to introduce an amendment designed “to leave entire that sovereign power,” as the proposed change itself ran, “wherewith your Majesty is trusted for the protection, safety and happiness of your people;”340 but the commons would have none of it, and at last the lords yielded their assent. The king at first gave a cumbersome, evasive answer to the petition which was in reality no answer at all,341 and roused thereby a storm of indignation, which exhibited itself in a movement to censure Buckingham. This the king averted by signing the Petition of Right in the usual manner, and received in consequence his five subsidies.342

The statutes cited in the Petition

The Petition which thus became a regularly passed Act of Parliament, is of transcendent importance in the development of the control of the people over the public purse. In terms absolutely unequivocal, it asserts that “your subjects have inherited this freedom, that they should not be compelled to contribute to any tax, tallage, aid, or other like charge, not set by common consent in Parliament.” The statutory sources whence that freedom was inherited are cited in detail. The citations, are, however, ill-taken. Statutum de tallagio non concedendo was in all likelihood no statute at all, but a chronicler’s abstract of Edward I’s Confirmatio Cartarum, or perhaps an unauthoritative copy of the pardon which was granted to Humfrey Bohun and Roger Bigod at approximately the same time with the Confirmation of the Charters. It is not unlikely that the citation of the statute of the 25th of Edward III was an error; at any rate, the text of the statute has not been discovered,343 and the date at which it was said to be enacted was at the height of the great plague, a time scarcely adapted to the assertion of a great constitutional principle. But the precise historical foundation upon which Sir Edward Coke and his associates based their charges against the king, is of quite secondary importance. The true value of the Petition of Right lies in this, that Charles I had been obliged to subscribe to a statutory provision by which no man thereafter was to “be compelled to make or yield any gift, loan, benevolence, tax, or such like charge, without common consent by Act of Parliament.” That was indeed supremely important.

The Petition of Right and customs duties

But the language of the Petition of Right might reasonably be taken to refer only to internal taxes and that the matter of customs duties, the charges upon merchandise at the outports, was left still in the air. Protests had indeed been made against the exaction of these duties by the crown, especially during the reign of James in the great agitation over the Book of Rates, but no statute had been passed providing definitely for parliamentary control. To that end, the commons delayed the passage of a bill which gave the king tunnage and poundage for life, pending the acceptance by him of a remonstrance against impositions. The remonstrance as framed by the commons declared that “there ought not any imposition to be laid upon the goods of merchants, exported or imported, without the common consent by Act of Parliament.”344 It further made assertion that the laying of impositions at the outports was contrary to the Petition of Right. The king’s attitude was decisive; before the remonstrance was handed to him, he evaded the issue by proroguing Parliament. Never, so he said, would he give away tunnage and poundage; he must needs retain them for himself. The session ended 26th June, 1628.345

Tunnage and poundage

During the six months which elapsed before the reassembling of Parliament, Charles continued to levy tunnage and poundage upon his own authority, relying still upon the decision in the Bate Case for his justification. Several merchants who refused to pay were promptly clapped into prison; among those whose goods were seized for the same reason was Henry Rolles, a member of the House of Commons. The second session of Parliament was called for the 20th January, 1628-29; the commons came together with no pretense of smothering their indignation against the conduct of the king. A number of plans were brought forward as means of rectifying the abuses. The evident determination of the commons to conclude the matter, daunted the king. Summoning both Houses to Whitehall, he renounced the right of levying tunnage and poundage. “It ever was, and still is my meaning,” so were his words, “by the gift of my people to enjoy it, and my intention in my speech at the end of the last session was not to challenge tunnage and poundage as of right, but de bene esse, showing you the necessity, not the right, by which I was to take it until you had granted it to me, assuring myself according to your general professions that you wanted time and not good-will to give it me.”346 For a moment it appeared as though this abandonment of position by the king would end the conflict. Three days after his reception of the Houses at Whitehall, Mr. Secretary Cooke moved the reading of a bill granting him tunnage and poundage for life. But it never passed. The commons were distracted by a question of religious innovation, talked at great length over their religious grievances, and allowed their momentary flush of cordial feeling toward the king to cool. Mr. Secretary Cooke on the two days following that upon which he made his motion regarding tunnage and poundage, delivered messages from Charles urging haste in the consideration of the measure.347 On the 2nd February, the commons acknowledged the receipt of the messages, but rather than pass a bill satisfactory to the king in this particular, they stated their intent to “proceed with religion.”348

On the 19th February they began a lengthy consideration of the breach of privilege committed against the House of Commons in the seizure of the goods of Henry Rolles, the merchant member of the House, who had refused payment of tunnage and poundage during the recent recess. The officers who had participated in the seizure of his goods were summoned before the commons that they might answer for contempt. The stand was taken against the king on this ground of privilege, instead, as Pym advised, of objecting on the broad constitutional ground that Parliament had not granted the tax. This hostility was too much for the conciliatory spirit which Charles had evinced at the opening of the session. Through Mr. Secretary Cooke, he announced his unwillingness to have his officers questioned, since “what they did was by his own direct command, or by order of the council-board, his Majesty himself being present, and therefore, would not have it divided from his act.”349

Tumult in the Commons

The question was fought out on the 2nd March, when the commons reassembled after a brief recess. The king, hoping to arrange the difficulty privately with the leaders of the House, ordered the recess to be continued until the 10th March. To this the commons entered vigorous protest; at the putting of the question, the vote was overwhelmingly against adjournment. The speaker, Sir John Finch, in obedience to the royal will, attempted to leave his chair, and thus break up the session; but Holles and Valentine, two members most eager for the consideration of the matters pressing for attention, pushed him back into his seat. Sir John Eliot, who had drawn up three resolutions expressing the mind of the commons on the questions of religion and taxation, read them above the uproar. The speaker and the clerk refused to put the vote and the king’s guard was already on its way to make a forcible end to the proceedings. At the moment when the guardsmen were at the door, Holles read the resolutions and they were carried by acclamation. The House then adjourned in a tumult until the 10th March.350

The resolutions were most explicit. The two which concerned the impositions said: “Whosoever shall counsel or advise the taking and levying of the subsidies of tunnage and poundage, not being granted by Parliament, or shall be an actor and instrument therein, shall be likewise reputed an innovator in the government and a capital enemy to this kingdom and commonwealth.” And: “If any merchant or other person whatsoever shall voluntarily yield or pay the said subsidies of tunnage and poundage not being granted by Parliament, he shall likewise be reputed a betrayer of the liberty of England, and an enemy to the same.”351

When the House reconvened on the 10th March, the king dissolved Parliament without further ado. With respect to such of the commons as merited his displeasure he remarked that the vipers amongst them would meet with their rewards.

Charles’s eleven years without Parliament, 1629-40

With the dissolution of his third Parliament, Charles entered upon a new epoch in his reign; and at the conclusion of it, he found that his game had been for too heavy stakes, and that he had lost. For eleven years he did without a Parliament. He began by issuing a Declaration addressed to his “loving subjects” in which he told the history of the late session from his own point of view,—that he was in extreme need of money with which to meet the necessities of England and relieve the “miserable afflicted state” of Protestants abroad, that Parliament had proved itself intractable, and had greatly delayed, contrary to all precedent, in the matter of tunnage and poundage; not only that, but upon his graciously yielding to Parliament the power of granting him tunnage and poundage, it had raised up still another cause for delay in the case of Henry Holles.352 In a proclamation issued two weeks later he plainly exhibited his intention to rule without a Parliament; “the calling, continuing, and dissolving of them,” he said, “being always in the King’s own power. And his Majesty shall be more inclinable to meet in Parliament again when his people shall see more clearly into his intents and actions, when such as have bred this interruption shall receive their condign punishment.”353

His financial expedients

He imprisoned accordingly Holles, Strode, Sir John Eliot and others whom he included amongst the vipers of the commons, and removed such of them to the Tower as were able to sue out their writs of habeas corpus, in order that he might thus elude the service of the writs. But imprisonment was scarcely a means of relief to the king’s financial exigencies. He turned to expedients which were exceedingly oppressive, and most of them clearly illegal. He rigorously extorted tunnage and poundage by the arbitrary authority of the crown; he reëstablished the monopolies abolished under James I, and applied them to nearly every article in common use; he revived laws long since dead and applied them stringently for the sake of their fines; he revived forest legislation and increased the limits of the royal woodlands, mulcting the owners of adjoining property for encroachment; he searched titles of estates for defects which would make them liable to reversion to the crown; he went back to the old practice of compulsory knighthood for those who had £40 or more in lands or rents.

Ship money, first writ, 20th October, 1634

But the supreme grievance was the extortion of ship money. Sir William Noy, lately leader in the commons in defense of popular power against royal prerogative, now become by the grace of the king attorney-general and a chief supporter of that same royal prerogative, shut himself up in the Tower for some days that he might better consult the ancient authorities. “Shaking off the dust of ages from parchments in the Tower,” says Hallam, “this man of venal diligence and prostituted learning discovered that the seaports and even maritime counties had in early times been sometimes called upon to furnish ships for the public service; nay there were instances for a similar demand upon some inland places.”354 The first writ of ship money was directed to the magistrates of London and other seaport towns, and was issued on the 20th October, 1634. It recited the depredations of pirates, “Turks, enemies of the Christian name,” and the prevalence of war upon the continent. It enjoined upon the magistrates the furnishing of ships of specific tonnage and equipage by the 1st of the following March. They were empowered to assess all the inhabitants according to their substance, both for the fitting out of the ships and the maintenance of their crews for the space of six months. Refusals to pay were punishable by imprisonment. The writ was issued by the king with the advice of the Privy Council.355

The true occasion for the levy

The show of precedent was barely an extenuation, not a justification of the demand. As a matter of fact, it was virtually an extortion of a tax, and as such was a distinct violation of the Petition of Right. London, being the only port in the kingdom capable of constructing and equipping ships of the character designated in the writs, was the only town able to make literal compliance with the demand. The rest were obliged to make money payments. But the matter was to come up later in the courts, and the legality or illegality of the writs was there to be decided. As for the occasion of the requisition denominated in the ordinance, that was false. The design was not against “Turks, enemies of the Christian name,” but against the Dutch Republic. Charles had proposed a secret treaty with Spain whereby the government of the Lowlanders should be overthrown and its territory be divided between England and Spain.356 Not only was this act of Charles a breach of his recent great compact with the nation, but it had for its purpose an act of aggression against the people who stood for the highest political ideals then known in Europe, and was based on a lie.

Second writ, 4th August, 1635. Its general application

Sir John Finch, the chief justice of common pleas, the same who, as speaker of the commons, had been forcibly held in his chair in order to keep the House in session at the close of the last Parliament, undertook the levying of ship money upon the death of Noy; he advanced the fortunes of the writs by making them applicable to the entire kingdom. On the 4th August, 1635, the demand made its second appearance; it was to cover not only the needs of a navy, but to furnish “a spring and magazine that should have no bottom, and for an everlasting supply for all occasions.”357 Instructions were included in the writs to the sheriffs, by which the ships could be compounded for by the counties, and the amount transmitted to the treasurer of the navy for his Majesty’s uses. Payment was to be enforced.

Third writ, 9th October, 1636

A year later, the 9th October, 1636, the third assessment was laid. Murmuring against the writs, which was common enough amongst the lower classes in 1635, now spread to men of great position. The earls of Danby and Warwick and other peers protested to the king, not so much against the amount of the tax, as against the unconstitutional manner of its levy. But Charles found it too profitable a means of income to let go; he was the richer each year by some £200,000.

Extra-judicial opinions

The courts, however, seemed of contrary mind to the rest of the nation. In November, 1635, at the instance of Sir John Finch, the following extra-judicial opinion was delivered by the judges:—“I am of the opinion that, as when the benefit doth more particularly redound to the ports or maritime parts, as in case of piracy or depredations upon the seas, that the charge hath been, and may be lawfully imposed upon them according to precedents of former times; so when the good and safety of the kingdom in general is concerned, and the whole kingdom in danger (of which his Majesty is the only judge), then the charge of the defence ought to be borne by all the realm in general. This I hold agreeably both to law and reason.”358

On the 7th February, 1637, Charles laid the case before the judges of the Exchequer extra-judicially in much the same terms as the opinion of 1635. He requested an answer to the following question:—“When the good and safety of the Kingdom in general is concerned, and the whole Kingdom in danger, whether may not the King, by writ under the Great Seal of England, command all the subjects of our Kingdom at their charge to provide and furnish such a number of ships, with men, victuals, and munition, and for such time as we shall think fit for the defence and safeguard of the kingdom from such danger and peril, and by law compel the doing thereof, in case of refusal or refractoriness: and whether in such a case is not the King the sole judge both of the danger, and when and how the same is to be prevented and avoided?”359 The opinion of the judges was ostensibly unanimous in favor of the crown; Coke and Hutton as a matter of fact dissented, but subscribed on the principle that the opinion of the majority should be that of the whole body.

Hampden’s Case, 1637

In the face of this sweeping and conclusive opinion delivered privately to the king, there was apparently no hope for any one who should have to answer in that court for refusal. Shortly thereafter, however, such a case came up. John Hampden, a gentleman of Buckinghamshire, had refused to pay the assessment of 20s. which was laid upon some of his lands, and by reason of his refusal was summoned to the Exchequer. He appeared and answered to the charge in November, 1637. He was defended by the brilliant Oliver St. John and Mr. Holborne. Solicitor General Littleton and Attorney General Bankes conducted the case for the crown.

The question upon which the case was argued may be phrased as follows: “Whether the king had a right on his own allegation of public danger to require an inland county to furnish ships, or a prescribed sum of money by way of commutation, for the defense of the kingdom?”360 The argument for Hampden can be summed up under five heads:

The case for the defendant

I. The law and constitution of England provide certain ordinary revenues for the defense of the realm. These comprehend the military forces provided by those holding lands by military tenure; the liability of the Cinque Ports and others holding similarly to provide a quota of ships, by reason of their tenure; the feudal and other revenues inherent in the crown; the customs on wool and leather, and tunnage and poundage, and other special dues which were wont to be granted to the king in time of danger.361

II. The law and constitution of England provide certain extraordinary revenues when the ordinary revenues should prove insufficient, and for the defense of the realm. Chief among these were the subsidies and aids which were granted in Parliament. That Parliament was the only body capable of levying these charges was exhibited by the fact that the kings of England were wont to denominate their arbitrary exactions as “loans” and “benevolences.”

III. The statutes of the realm provided in most emphatic language that no tax should be levied on the subject without the consent of Parliament. The charter of the Conqueror, Magna Carta, especially Confirmatio Cartarum and De Tallagio non Concedendo, the statutes passed subsequently under Edward III, and more than all the others, the Petition of Right, showed the utter illegality of the ship money.

IV. The citations by the crown of exactions similar to the ship money did not demonstrate the lawfulness of the demand; they merely showed precedents of such a general levy. The case must be decided by law, not by precedents,—“judicandum est legibus non exemplis.”

V. In the present instance, the perils which the king cited were insufficient to justify an unusual demand for money. The precedent of the arbitrary actions of Queen Elizabeth at the time of the Armada could in no wise be taken as a justification for so great an exercise of the prerogative when the nation was at peace with the world; the piratical acts of Turkish corsairs or even the insolence of rival neighbors could not be reckoned amongst those imminent perils for which a Parliament could provide too tardily.362

A judgment for the crown

The judgment was in favor of the crown seven to five. Three of the minority based their decision upon the particular rather than on general grounds; Croke and Hutton, however, denied the general contention of the crown absolutely. Croke maintained that taxation save by authority of Parliament is contrary to the common law and to the statutes; that the exaction could not be defended upon the plea of imminent danger; and that the extension to inland counties was not legal or warranted by any legal precedent. The seven judges whose opinions were favorable to the king, upheld the prerogative of the crown as against the legislative power of Parliament. Sir John Finch, chief justice of the common pleas, stated their attitude clearly. “No act of Parliament,” he said, “can bar a king of his regality, as that no lands should hold of him, or bar him of the allegiance of his subjects or the relative on his part, as trust and power to defend his people; therefore acts of Parliament to take away his royal power in the defense of his kingdom are void; they are void acts of Parliament to bind the king not to command the subjects, their persons, and goods, and I say their money too; for no acts of Parliament make any difference.”363

The effect of this decision upon the minds of the people was immediate; it changed the payment of the ship money from a semi-voluntary gift to the king into an extortion enforced by him. Previously they had supposed that the ship money was paid out of sufferance, that if it became too heavy, an appeal to the courts would be sufficient to remove it; now they felt that the king had them by the throat and could force them to do as he willed. Never was there a clearer issue; the king and his prerogative against the commons and their long-developing rights; the power of the king to levy taxes upon his own arbitrary authority against taxation by the will of the taxed as expressed in Parliament.

The Short Parliament, 1640

The Scottish rebellion of 1638 which was waged for the defense of religious freedom, and the interval of peace, beginning the 18th June, 1639, which was used by Scots and English alike as a period of armament, proved too much for Charles’s irregular financial supply. Reluctantly he called his Fourth Parliament, commonly known as the Short Parliament, for the 13th April, 1640. The assembly was, strange to say, most moderate and loyal to the king. Charles through the ex-Speaker Sir John Finch, now Lord Keeper, asked for a large supply immediately, saying that he would listen to grievances afterwards.364

Clash between the Houses

The commons recalled instances wherein the royal word had been broken, and preferred to withhold supply until the end of the session, according to their familiar habit. They proceeded to inquire into the Hampden case, and considered in detail the various occasions upon which the law had been broken during their eleven years’ recess. They appointed a committee to confer with the lords over a long list of grievances, divided into the three departments of innovations in religion, invasions of private property, and breaches of parliamentary privilege.365 At this Charles came forward with a gigantic piece of tactlessness; thinking he saw a hole through which he could escape, he tried to win the lords to his standard. Applying to them, they voted and communicated to the House of Commons that “his Majesty’s supply should have the precedency, and be resolved on before any other matter whatsoever.”366 To the commons this appeared an arrant breach of privilege, it being their right that money bills should originate in their House. The lords immediately adopted a conciliatory tone; they renounced any intention of offending the commons. “The bill of subsidies,” they admitted, “ought to have its inception and beginning in your House; and that when it comes up to their lordships, and is by them agreed unto, it must be returned back to you and be by your House presented.”367

The king had reason to regret his intrusion since the dispute which he had caused delayed a supply from the commons so much the more. He now had recourse to a compromise. He offered the withdrawal of his claim to ship money in consideration of a grant of twelve subsidies,368 payable in three years. The commons, perceiving that the proposition, if acceded to, involved the tacit admission that the ship money had been justly laid, insomuch as its removal was obtainable only by purchase, refused to enter into the agreement. But the effect of the message was not quite lost; on the contrary it seemed as though the king would shortly receive his grant. At the moment when the commons were on the point of deciding upon a supply, the amount to be determined subsequently, Sir Henry Vane, secretary of state, precipitated a crisis. He asserted that the supply would not be accepted unless it were to the amount and in the manner designated in the king’s message.369 The next day, the 5th May, the king dissolved his three-weeks-old Parliament, to his own great distress and the trepidation of the nation.

Dissolution of Parliament

Charles employed the six months which intervened between the dissolution of Parliament and the summons of the Long Parliament in his usual occupations. He locked up several members of the House. He exacted forced loans, created new monopolies, and levied ship money. Prosecutions followed swiftly upon refusals to pay. “Coat and conduct money,” a new exaction from the counties, was demanded to cover the traveling expenses of recruits on their way to fight against the Scots. He obtained six subsidies from the clergy whom he illegally kept in convocation after the dissolution of Parliament.

Sitting of the Long Parliament, 3rd November, 1640

The wind of opposition was rising to a gale. With the sitting of the Long Parliament, which convened on the 3rd November, 1640, the tempest broke. The immediate occasion of the summons was the universal demand of the people and the peers for a session of Parliament, coupled with emptiness of the treasury which came with the commencement of the disastrous Scottish war. The composition of the commons was overwhelmingly anti-regal;370 the popular leaders had been at work in the counties ever since the dissolution of the Short Parliament looking to the return of a strong majority in opposition to the king. The assembly convened full of the idea that “they had now had an opportunity to make their country happy by removing all grievances and pulling up the causes of them by the roots, if all men would do their duties.”371

Parliament lost no time in setting about its work. Proceedings were immediately instituted looking to the impeachment of the Earl of Strafford, Archbishop Laud, Finch, and six of the judges who had figured in the ship money case. Various victims of the tyrannical jurisdiction of the Star Chamber were set at liberty. The commons exhibited their uncompromising hostility to the king by voting assistance to their “brethren” the Scots, whose army was in possession of much territory on the English side of the border. They granted them £25,000 a month as long as their stay in England should be needful, and in addition £300,000 as an indemnity.

Royal exaction of tunnage and poundage declared illegal

With such acts of open opposition to the king in process, it was natural that Parliament should set itself to clean up all the abuses which of recent times had crept into the government. Its actions were not subversive of the constitution; on the contrary it left unassailed many prerogatives of the king. On the 22nd June, 1641, Parliament granted to the king tunnage and poundage for a length of time somewhat less than two months372 and in the same bill declared, “that it is and hath been the ancient right of the subjects of this realm, that no subsidy, custom, impost, or other charge whatsoever ought or may be laid or imposed upon any merchandise exported or imported by subjects, denizens, or aliens without common consent in Parliament.”373 The Act prescribed also the punishment which should be inflicted upon officers who in time to come should exact payments not sanctioned by Parliament. They were to “incur and sustain the pains, penalties, and forfeitures ordained and provided by the Statute of Provision and Premunire made in the sixteenth year of King Richard II, and shall also from thenceforth be disabled during his life to see or implead any person in any action real, mixed, or personal, or in any court whatsoever.” Thus was it enacted that tunnage and poundage exacted by authority of the crown was illegal, and protected merchants from being sued by the customs officers in case of refusal to pay the unlawful imposition. The king received tunnage and poundage by six subsequent acts for short terms down to the 2nd July, 1642.

The Ship Money Act, 7th August, 1641

Six weeks later, on the 7th August, 1641, Parliament turned its attention toward the matter of ship money. On that date it passed an “Act for the declaring unlawful and void the late proceedings touching Ship-Money, and for the vacating of all records and process concerning the same.”374 The act cites the Hampden Case and others of a similar nature and outlines the plea of the royal prerogative as given in the extra-judicial opinion of the judges. It condemns “all which writs and proceedings” as being “utterly against the law of the land.” In greater detail it enacts “that the said charge imposed upon the subject for the providing and furnishing of ships commonly called ship money, and the said extra-judicial opinion of the said justices... and the said judgment against John Hampden, were and are contrary to and against the laws and statutes of this realm, the right of property, the liberty of the subjects, former resolutions in Parliament and the Petition of Right.” The act also provided that all particulars desired in the Petition of Right should be “strictly holden and observed as in the same Petition they are prayed and expressed.” The ship writs and the Hampden judgment are specifically annulled.375

Thus came to an end the long chain of statutes which Parliament from its inception had been forging to fetter the arms of the king straining toward the prize of arbitrary taxation. The virtue of the Long Parliament is thus commented upon by Hallam: “In the first place,” he says, “it will appear... that they made scarce any material change in our constitution, such as it had been established and recognized under the house of Plantagenet.... Thus in by far the greater part of the enactments of 1641, the monarchy lost nothing that it anciently possessed; and the balance of our constitution might seem rather to have been restored to its former equipoise, than to have undergone any change.... It is to be observed in the second place, that by these salutary restrictions, and some new retrenchments of pernicious or abused prerogative the Long Parliament formed our constitution such nearly as it now exists.”376 The legislation of 1641 in effect restored to Parliament what power it nominally held two centuries before.

The Grand Remonstrance, 1st December, 1641

A current of reaction now set in favorable to the king. The leaders in the commons discovered that the popular support to their measures was becoming weak, that the royalist party was recruiting adherents from the former supporters of the opposition, that their own backing was by a party, not by the nation. With the hope of winning back full national adherence to Parliament, the Grand Remonstrance was framed by the House of Commons and presented to the king, on the 1st December 1641.377 It purported to show the present state of the kingdom, the evil conditions which Parliament had succeeded in bettering, and the darkness of the future, if support were withdrawn from Parliament. With respect to taxation, the Remonstrance recites the various illegalities and abuses which the crown had practiced and the steps which the commons had taken to provide for their correction. For future safeguard against their return it suggests “that for the better preservation of the liberties and laws, all illegal grievances and exactions should be presented and punished at the sessions and assizes; and that judges and justices should be sworn to the due execution of the Petition of Right and other laws.”

The Puritan Revolution

With the delivery of the Grand Remonstrance, the contest for Parliamentary taxation became of relatively small moment in the great conflicts of the Puritan Revolution. The struggle over the impeachment of Pym and the popular leaders in the House, the attempt of the king to secure absolute command of the militia, the battles on the field and in the House of Commons during the Civil War, the events which led up to the execution of Charles—these were neither immediately caused by the conflict over taxation nor did they have immediate effect upon it. Taxation up to 1641 was a prime cause of opposition to the crown; thereafter it ceased to be of so great importance.

Accession of Charles II, 1660

Charles II came to the throne in 1660 after the English people had made an eleven years’ trial of a military despotism under a good and moderate despot. His first Parliament, that of 1660, granted him the proceeds of the customs for life. During the period of the Commonwealth, the freedom from the feudal charges had been most agreeable to those holding of the crown. Consequently, this Parliament set itself to regulate the confused system of military tenure by the simple expedient of abolition. The Great Contract which had been proposed under James I for the same purpose, had been advocated in vain. Now, however, the effort was successful. The feudal incidents, such as wardships, marriages, knight’s service, as well as the three feudal aids, knighting the king’s son, ransoming the king, and furnishing dowry for his eldest daughter, were done away with. By this great deprivation, the royal revenue was naturally much prejudiced. Parliament made up the loss by granting to the crown an hereditary excise on beer and some other liquors, increasing the royal revenue to the annual value of £1,200,000.378

Appropriation of supplies, 1665

In 1665 the expenses incident to the Dutch War made it possible to establish a principle which had been touched upon from time to time since the days of Henry III. Sir George Downing, in the subsidy bill of that year, introduced the provision that the money raised in accordance with the bill, £1,250,000, be applicable solely to the prosecution of the war, and that the money could not be paid out by the Exchequer save by special warrant stating that as the purpose of the payment. Clarendon opposed the measure as an encroachment upon the honor of the crown, but Charles himself was not averse to it, mainly by reason of his belief that the promised revenue would be thus more acceptable to bankers as the security for loans. The appointment in the following year of a commission to examine the public accounts in order to determine the faithfulness with which the provision was carried out, clinched the principle underlying its original passage. The bill was the natural consequence of the liberty of appropriation enjoyed under the Commonwealth. The exercise of the principle of appropriating supplies in detail was not carried to its full extent until after 1689. Its importance is difficult to overestimate. It placed the executive power in a position of perfect dependence upon the will of Parliament, for the money requisite for any administrative act was to be forthcoming only in accordance with the previously expressed intent of Parliament.

Reign of James II, 1685-88

The reign of James II, who came to the throne in 1685 at the death of Charles, was retrogressive. He assumed the crown with the full intention of exercising arbitrary authority, and if he had not tried to substitute Catholicism for the Established Church, there is little to show that he would not at least for a time have succeeded. Before the summons of his Parliament, which he called reluctantly notwithstanding a lapse of five years under Charles without one, he continued to himself the payment of the customs duties by proclamation. This illegal act met with no serious objection from Parliament when it met. Nor was this all; Parliament raised the permanent revenue of the king to the annual amount of £2,000,000, and on the suppression of Monmouth’s rebellion, gave him £700,000 more wherewith to support a standing army. Thus did Parliament make James financially independent, provided he was content to live within reason, and gave him an army in addition. This was a combination of powers which on the Continent had sufficed to create despotisms.

William and Mary

That it did not create a despotism in England is not greatly to be wondered at. James set himself to fighting the battle of the Roman Catholic church in England. The result was almost immediate disaster. On the 5th November, 1688, William, Prince of Orange, and Stadtholder of the United Provinces, landed at Torbay in Devonshire. He was requested by seventy of the lords spiritual and temporal (all who were then in London), by the members of the House of Commons which met in the last Parliament of Charles II, and the corporation of the City of London, to assume the provisional government of the kingdom pending a session of Parliament. This was called for the 22nd January, 1688-89. On the 13th February following, a tender of the crown was made to William, on the conditions denominated in the recently framed Declaration of Right. In it the illegal acts of King James were recited and the announcement was made that the throne had been abdicated; it was asserted also that certain specified acts of King James were illegal, and a resolution was appended settling the crown on William and Mary. William, speaking for himself and for the Princess Mary, “thankfully accepted what had been offered them.”

The Bill of Rights, 1689

The Declaration of Right, with some slight but essential changes, was incorporated at the second session of this Parliament, the 25th October, 1689, in statutory form known subsequently as the Bill of Rights.379 In the matter of taxation, it sums up in a few clauses the whole principle which had been in course of evolution since the German chieftains received gifts of cattle and fruits from their people.

It states that King James “did endeavor to subvert and extirpate... the laws and liberties of this kingdom... by levying money for and to the use of the crown, by pretense of prerogative, for other time and in other manner than the same was granted by Parliament.” Then follows the definite assertion, “that levying money for or to the use of the crown by pretense of prerogative, without grant of Parliament for longer time or in other manner than the same is or shall be granted, is illegal.” The clause which gave to these statements the force of law, emphasizes the power of Parliament. “All which their Majesties are contented and pleased,” so it goes, “shall be declared, enacted, and established by authority of this present Parliament, and shall stand, remain, and be the law of this realm forever; and the same are by their said Majesties, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords spiritual and temporal, and Commons, in Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, declared, enacted and established accordingly.”

With the passing of the Bill of Rights the principle was vindicated in its fullness that Parliament rather than the crown has the power to tax. Within Parliament itself the power of laying taxes had undergone further differentiation in that the House of Commons claimed the sole right of initiating tax levies. The theory deduced therefrom, that the House of Commons has sole control over money bills and that interference by the House of Lords is an assumption of power beyond the constitutional rights of that House, came up for fuller definition 220 years later. The corollary principle that Parliament has the power to appropriate supplies for specific purposes and that it can demand an accounting for the money so appropriated were accorded general acquiescence then and thereafter.

Footnotes

1 Tacitus, Germania, cap. xv. “Mos est civitatibus ultro ac viritim conferre principibus vel armentorum vel frugum, quod pro honore acceptum etiam necessitatibus subvenit.”

2 Vinogradoff, Growth of the Manor, 142, 143.

3 The heriot, unlike the feudal incident known to the Normans as a relief, was a repayment to the king upon the death of a vassal, of the various accoutrements with which he had been endowed. The statute of Cnut II, § 72, fixes the heriot of an earl at eight horses, four suits of armor, and two hundred mancuses of gold. The heriot varied in amount according to the rank of the deceased vassal. The statute is given in Stubbs, Select Charters, 74.

4 Florentii Wigorniensis, Chronicon ex Chronicis, a. 991, p. 149.

5 “This tax was levied by reference to the hides into which in the various hundreds of the shire, land was divided for the purposes of taxation.” The hide was the equivalent of 100 or 120 acres. The rate was one to four shillings, as occasion required. 1 Dowell, History of Taxation and Taxes in England, 8.

6 Amount in 1002, £24,000.—Flor. Wig. a. 1002, p. 155. Amount in 1007, £36,000.—Flor. Wig. a. 1007, p. 159. Amount in 1011 not stated.

7 1 Dowell, History of Taxation and Taxes in England, 10.

8 1 Roger of Hoveden, 110.

9 Decretum est primum iam ut solveretur tributum Danicis viris, propter magnos horrores quos incusserunt incolis maritimis; in primis nempe, X milia librarum. Illud consilium constituit Siricus Archiepiscopus. Chron. Sax. a. 991.

10 Tunc rex Aegelredus, procerum suorum consilio, ad eos legatos misit, promittens tributum et stipendium ea conventione illis se daturum, ut a sua crudelitate omnino desisterunt. Flor. Wig. 151, 152; a. 994.

11 Flor. Wig. 155, 159, 163; a. 1002, 1007, 1011.

12 Medley, English Constitutional History, 117, 118.

13 2 Kemble, Saxons in England, 204-240.

14 At the great Gemôt of Salisbury, 1086, William put an end to the disrupting effects of subinfeudation by causing all holders of land, whether their tenure was mediate or immediate of him to swear primary allegiance to the king.

15 1 Stubbs, Const. Hist. Eng. 385, note.

16 2 Flor. Wig. 17, a. 1084; and 1 Rogeri de Hoveden, 139. “Rex Anglorum Willelmus de unaquaque hida per Angliam sex solidos accepit.” This rate of six shillings the hide was three times as great as the amount under the Saxons.

17 2 Roger of Wendover, 23, a. 1084. “Having extorted large sums of money from all ranks where he could find any cause just or unjust, he crossed the sea into Normandy.”

18 Chron. Sax. a. 1083.

19 1 Stubbs, Const. Hist. Eng. 303.

20 Aside from the reimposed Danegeld, William derived an annual income of £20,000 from the royal lands, and an amount difficult of estimation from the feudal dues and incidents.

21 2 Flor. Wig. 35, a. 1094.

22 § 11. Militibus qui per loricas terras suas defendunt, terras dominicarum carrucarum suarum quietas ab omnibus gildis, et omni opere, proprio dono meo concedo, ut sicut tam magno allevamine alleviati sint, ita se equis et armis bene instruant ad servitium meum et ad defensionem regni mei. Stubbs, Select Charters, 101. The translation of the Charter is in Adams and Stephens, Select Documents of English Constitutional History, 4-6.

23 Ego enim, quando voluero, faciam ea satis summonere propter mea dominica necessaria ad voluntatem meam. Stubbs, Select Charters, 104.

24 Cf. 1 Stubbs, Const. Hist. Eng. 429.

25 2 Chronicon Monasterii de Abingdon, 113, quoted by 1 Stubbs, Const. Hist. Eng. 429, note 3, as follows: “H. rex Anglorum R. episcopo, et Herberto camerario et Hugoni de Boehelanda, salutem. Sciatis quod clamo quietas V hidas abbatis Faricii de Abendona de eleemosyna de Wrtha, de omnibus rebus, et nominatim de isto auxilio quod barones mihi dederunt.”

26 The Saxon Chronicle upon Henry’s taxes:
A. 1103. This was a year of much distress from the manifold taxes.
A. 1104. It is not easy to describe the misery of this land, which it suffered at this time through the various and manifold oppressions and taxes that never ceased or slackened.
A. 1105. This was a year of great distress from the failure of the fruits, and from the manifold taxes which never ceased.
A. 1110. This was a year of much distress from the taxes which the king raised for his daughter’s dowry.
A. 1118. England paid dearly for all this (i. e., the Norman war) by the manifold taxes which ceased not all this year.
A. 1124. Full heavy a year was this; he who had any property was bereaved of it by heavy taxes and assessments, and he who had none, starved with hunger.
From the edition of J. A. Giles.

27 Chron. Sax. a. 1137.

28 Henry of Huntingdon’s Chronicle, a. 1135. Trans. by Thomas Forester, 264.

29 Henry II was the first king since Edward the Confessor in whose veins ran the blood of the Saxon monarchs, being the grandson of Matilda, wife of Henry I. Matilda was great-granddaughter of Edmund Ironside, the son of Ethelred the Unready.

30 1 Stubbs, Const. Hist. Eng. 500.

31 Grim, V. S. Thomæ, 21, 22, in Stubbs, Sel. Chart. 129.

32 Bishop Stubbs (1 Const. Hist. Eng. 500) believes this struggle between Henry II and Becket to have been the deathblow to the levy of the Danegeld, which is not noted in the Pipe Rolls after 1163. J. H. Round [Feudal England, 497-502, in the paper “The Alleged Dispute on Danegeld (1163)”], effectually establishes his contention that the tax in question was not the Danegeld, but the “auxilium vicecomitis” or “Sheriff’s aid,” which was a customary, variable charge paid over locally to the sheriffs in payment for their services.

33 Round, Feudal England, 501.

34 Baldwin, Scutage and Knight Service in England, 12.

35 1 Stubbs, Const. Hist. Eng. 491.

36 H. W. C. Davis, England under the Normans and Angevins, 205.

37 Miss Kate Norgate, Angevin Kings, 432.

38 1 Stubbs, Const. Hist. Eng. 494.

39 Baldwin, Scutage and Knight Service in England, 5.

40 2 Stubbs, ed. Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi Benedicti Abbatis, preface xcv-xcvii, cites other instances of scutage in this reign: 1161, for debts incurred in the Welsh war; 1172, for the expedition into Ireland; 1186, for the expedition into Galloway against the Irish prince, Ronald.

41 Gervas, c. 1381, in Stubbs, Select Charters, 129: Hoc anno (1159) rex Henricus scutagium sive scutagium de Anglia accepit, cujus summa fuit centum millia et quater viginti millia librarum argenti.

42 Liber Rubeus de Scaccario, Hubert Hall, editor, 6, 16-18.

43 John of Salisbury, ep. 128, noted by 1 Stubbs, Const. Hist. Eng. 492, note 1.

44 Round, Feudal England, 274.

45 The Danegeld disappears from the Rolls in 1163. It persists, probably, however, as a “donum” or an “auxilium.” The “carucage” of Richard I is the Danegeld under another name.

46 2 Benedict, 278. Also in Stubbs, Select Charters, 153.

47 2 Benedict, 33.

48 Beside the instances of taxation noted above, the following are noteworthy: 1168, a regular feudal aid, pur fille marier of one mark on the knight’s fee; 1173, exchequer officers held courts and exacted at the same time a tallage throughout the country.

49 The three auxilia are: For the ransom of the king, for the marriage of the king’s eldest daughter, and for the knighting of his eldest son.

50 Other scutages in this reign were: 1189, 10s. on the knight’s fee for a pretended expedition into Wales; 1195, 20s. on the knight’s fee from those who did not follow the king to Normandy; 1196, 20s. for the same reason. 1 Dowell, Taxation and Taxes, 41.

51 3 Rogeri de Hoveden, Chronica, W. Stubbs, ed, 209-225.

52 This carucage appears in the Rolls under the year 1194. It was demanded at the Council of Nottingham.

53 Rogeri de Hoveden, preface to vol. IV, lxxxii-lxxxvii.

54 The mark was the equivalent of two-thirds of a pound.

55 Carucage, a land-tax based upon the carucate, “the quantity of land that could be ploughed by one plough, caruca, full team of eight oxen in a season.” 1 Dowell, Taxation and Taxes, p. 35. Roger of Hoveden sets down the equivalent of the carucate as being 100 acres,—iv. 47.

56 3 Rogeri de Hovoden, 242.

57 1 Stubbs, Const. Hist. Eng. 548.

58 4 Rogeri de Hoveden, 40.

59 The implication in Vita Magna S. Hugonis is to this effect. Vid. Round. Feudal England, 528 et seq.

60 Vita Magna S. Hugonis, 248, in Stubbs, Select Charters, 255.

61 Beside the instances of taxation cited above, Richard exacted from the tenants of the royal demesne a tax upon movables known as tallage. It was semi-feudal in nature, being taken from the dwellers on land held immediately of the king, and consequently the authority of the tax for the time was far beyond question, save as the turbulent elements in the urban populations might assume it as a pretext for a riot. Henry II levied this tax in 1168, 1173; Richard in 1189 and 1194, and probably upon other occasions. These are the only references to tallages in the Rolls of these two reigns. The term appears frequently in later records.

62 4 Rogeri de Hoveden, 107.

63 4 Rogeri de Hoveden, 188, 189.

64 Miss Kate Norgate, John Lackland, 123, note 1, gives a corrected version of the list of scutages given in 1 Liber Rubeus de Scaccario, 10-12:

65 See McKechnie, Magna Carta, 91-93.

66 Miss Norgate, John Lackland, 122.

67 Miss Norgate, John Lackland, 123-124.

68 Ann. Waverl, a. 1207, 258. In Stubbs, Sel. Chart. 273.

69 In 1204 John “took” a seventh of movables. 3 Rogeri de Wendover, 173.

70 3 Rogeri de Wendover, 210.

71 In Stubbs, Select Charters, 283.

72 1 Stubbs, Const. Hist. Eng. 566.

73 3 Rogeri de Wendover, 262.

74 The writ is in Stubbs, Select Charters, 287.

75 2 Memoriale Walteri de Coventria, 217. “Dicentes se propter terras quas in Anglia tenent non debere regem extra regnum sequi nec ipsum euntem scutagio juvare.”

76 See McKechnie, Magna Carta, 144-150.

77 Chapter 12. No scutage or aid shall be imposed in our kingdom, except by the common council of our kingdom, except for the ransoming of our body, for the making of our oldest son a knight, and for once marrying our oldest daughter, and for these purposes it shall be only a reasonable aid; in the same way it shall be done concerning the aids of the city of London. Adams and Stephens, Select Documents of Eng. Const. Hist. 44. Latin text, Stubbs, Select Charters, 298.

78 Below, 66.

79 1 Stubbs, Const. Hist. Eng. 573.

80 Taswell-Langmead, Eng. Const. Hist. 101.

81 See McKechnie, Magna Carta, 274, 284, 291-301.

82 “Tallage was a tax levied at a feudal lord’s arbitrary will upon more or less servile dependants, who had neither power nor right to refuse.” McKechnie, Magna Carta, 228.

83 Chapter 14, “And for holding a common council of the kingdom concerning the assessment of an aid otherwise than in the three cases mentioned above, or concerning the assessment of a scutage, we shall cause to be summoned the archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, and greater barons by our letters individually; and besides we shall cause to be summoned generally, by our sheriffs and bailiffs all those who hold from us in chief, for a certain day, that is at the end of forty days at least, and for a certain place; and in all the letters of that summons, we will express the cause of the summons, and when the summons has thus been given the business shall proceed on the appointed day, on the advice of those who shall be present, even if not all of those who were summoned have come.” Adams and Stephens, Select Documents, 44. The Latin text is in Stubbs, Select Charters, 299.

84 Cap. 42 of this reissue of the Charter states the promise of the king to return to the matter of the levying of scutages and aids, when the occasion should be more propitious. McKechnie, Magna Carta, 168-169.

85 Cap. 44. Scutagium decetero capiatur sicut capi consuevit tempore, regis Henrici avi nostri. McKechnie, Magna Carta, 585, where also is the text of the entire reissue.

86 McKechnie, Magna Carta, 173-174.

87 1 Rotuli Litterarum Clausarum, 349.

88 2 Stubbs, Const. Hist. Eng. 30, note 1. He bases his belief on the fact that “the orders for the collecting this scutage were issued Feb. 22, the same day on which the writs for proclaiming the charters are dated,” and cites 1 Rot. Claus. 377. In the same note he records the following instances of taxation:
“June 7, 1217, the king mentions a carucage, hidage and aid, ‘quod de præcepto nostro assisum est.’ 1 Rot. Claus. 310.”
“Jan. 9, 1218, Henry mentions a carucage and hidage, ‘quod assisum fuit per consilium regni nostri.’ 1 Rot. Claus. 348.
“Jan. 17, Henry mentions a scutage of two marks on the fee, ‘quod exegimus,’ and
“Jan. 24, ‘scutagium de omnibus feodis militum quæ de nobis tenent in capite, quod ultima assisum fuit per commune consilium regni nostri.’ 1 Rot. Claus. 349.”

89 McKechnie, Magna Carta, 181, quotes Matthew Paris, 3 Chron. Maj. 76, “Libertates quas petitis quia violenter extortæ fuerunt, non debent de jure observari.”

90 2 Stubbs, Const. Hist. Eng. 37-38, notes the following taxes:
1. Carucage of 2 shillings, taken at the coronation of 1220. Ann. Wavereley, quoted in Stubbs, Select Charters, 321, gives no hint of the authority for the levy save that the king “accepit” it. The writ (Sel. Chart. 351) states that it was granted by the Council.
2. Scutage of 10 shillings after the capture of Biham, granted by the Council, 1221. 1 Rot. Claus. 458.
3. Scutage of 2 marks for Welsh War, 1223.
4. Scutage of 2 marks for siege of Bedford.
5. Contribution to crusade 1223, assented to by Council. 1 Rot. Claus. 516.

91 2 Matt. Par., Hist. Angl. 268-269.

92 Stubbs, Select Charters, 354. “Pro hac autem concessione et donatione libertatum istarum et aliarum libertatum contentarum in carta nostra de libertatibus forestæ, archiepiscopi, episcopi, abbates, priores, comites, barones, milites, libere tenentes et omnes de regno nostro, dederunt nobis quintam decimam partem omnium mobilium suorum.”

93 1 Matt. Par. 339.

94 Instances of recent taxation are:
1. Scutages 1229, 1230, 1231, each for military expeditions. 2 Stubbs, Const. Hist. Eng. 42, note 3.
2. A tenth of all property 1229. Refused by the barons and paid by the clergy. 2 Matt. Par. Hist. Angl. 316.
3. Tallages 1227, 1230, 1234. 1 Dowell, Taxation and Taxes, 52.
4. A fortieth of movables, 14 Sept., 1232, 24,712 marks granted by the Council. 2 Matt. Par. Hist. Angl. 345.
5. Two marks on the knight’s fee on occasion of the marriage of the king’s sister, 1235, granted by the Commune Concilium. 1 Madox, Hist. Ex. 593.

95 2 Matt. Par. Hist. Angl. 393-394.

96 The writ is in Stubbs, Sel. Chart. 366.

97 1 Matt. Par. Chron. Maj. trans. by J. A. Giles, 397-404.

98 2 Matt. Par. Hist. Angl. 466.

99 Matthew Paris is not clear as to the time of year. 2 Stubbs, Const. Hist. Eng. 62, note 3, fixes the date as between 9th Sept. and 18th Nov.

100 2 Matt. Par. Chron. Maj. trans. Giles, 7-9.

101 2 Matt. Par. Chron. Maj. trans. Giles, 11-12.

102 The following taxes and refusals are variously cited:
1245. Grant of an aid of 20 shillings “ad filiam maritandam.” 1 Madox, Hist. Ex. 594.
1246. Scutage of three marks on the fee. 2 Stubbs, Const. Hist. Eng. 65, note 5, citing Pipe Roll of 1246.
1248. Noted above.
1249. Appointment of justiciar, chancellor, and treasurer demanded. Failure. 2 Matt. Par. Chron. Maj. trans. Giles, 308-309.
1252. The Pope held Henry to his promise of a Crusade made in 1250, and authorized him to exact a tenth of the revenues of the clergy for three years. The clergy delayed. Henry turned to the barons and asked for a scutage; the barons answered that their reply would depend upon the prelates. 2 Matt. Par. Chron. Maj. trans. Giles, 518-527.
1253. Debate on the above. At last Henry obtained his tenth from the clergy and an aid of 3 marks from the tenants-in-chief for the knighting of his son. The condition was the confirmation of the Charters, and a great oath for his faithful observance of them. 3 Matt. Par. Chron. Maj. trans. Giles, 22-24.

103 2 Matt. Par. Chron. Maj. trans. Giles, 254-257, 266-267.

104 2 Matt. Par. Chron. Maj. trans. Giles, 287.

105 One of the royal writs ran thus:
“Rex Vicecomiti Bedeford, et Bukingeham., salutem.... Tibi districte præcipimus, quod præter omnes prædictos venire facias coram consilio nostro apud Westmonasterium in quindena Paschæ proximo futuri, quatuor legales et discretos milites de comitatibus prædictis quos iidem comitatus ad hoc elgerint, vice omnium et singulorum eorundem comitatuum, videlicet duos de uno comitatu et duos de alio, ad providendum, una cum militibus aliorum comitatuum quos ad eundem diem vocari fecimus, quale auxilium nobis in tanta necessitate impendere voluerint. Et tu ipse militibus et aliis de comitatibus prædictis necessitatem nostram et tam urgens negotium nostrum diligenter exponas, et eos ad competens auxilium nobis ad præsens impendendum efficaciter inducas; ita quod prædicti quatuor milites præfato consilio nostro ad prædictum terminum præcise respondere possint super prædicto auxilio pro singulis comitatuum prædictorum.” Stubbs, Select Charters, 376. Translation in Adams and Stephens, Select Documents, 55.

106 3 Matt. Par. Chron. Maj. trans. Giles, 75.

107 “To a general assembly of the barons at London in 1246, the name of Parliament, which had previously been indiscriminately ascribed to assemblies of various kinds, is for the first time given by a contemporary chronicler, Matthew Paris. Henceforth it became specially though not exclusively, the appellation of the National Council.” Taswell-Langmead, Eng. Const. Hist. 187.

108 3 Matt. Par. Chron. Maj. trans. Giles, 119.

109 3 Matt. Par. Chron. Maj. trans. Giles, 141-142.

110 Cf. 2 Stubbs, Const. Hist. Eng. 70-73, and references there cited.

111 3 Matt. Par. Chron. Maj. trans. Giles, 267-268, 271-272.

112 2 Stubbs, Const. Hist. Eng. 76-80; Stubbs, Sel. Chart. 378 ff.; Taswell-Langmead, Eng. Const. Hist. 188-189; 3 Matt. Par. Chron. Maj. trans. Giles, 285-288.

113 Stubbs, Select Charters, 382-387, especially caps. 22, 23.

114 1 Rymer, Foedera, part 2, 62.

115 Stubbs, Sel. Chart. 405.

116 Louis’s award was the so-called “Mise of Amiens.” Given in Stubbs, Sel. Chart. 406. 1 Rymer, Foedera, part 2 83.

117 Stubbs, Sel. Chart. 334; Chron. Rishanger, Camden Society, 37.

118 1 Rymer, Foedera, part 2, 88-89.

119 This Parliament and the scheme of government which was drawn up at the session is the subject of considerable dispute. See 2 Stubbs, Const. Hist. Eng. 93-95; and Medley, Eng. Const. Hist. 133-134. The scheme itself is given in Stubbs, Sel. Chart. 412 ff, and in 1 Rymer, Foedera, part 2, 89.

120 The writ is in part as follows: “Item mandatum est singulis vicecomitibus per Angliam quod venire faciant duos milites de legalibus, probioribus, et discretioribus militibus singulorum comitatuum ad regem Londoniis in octavis prædictis in forma supradicta.
“Item in forma prædicta scribitur civibus Eboraci, civibus Lincolniæ, et ceteris burgis Angliæ, quod mittant in forma prædicta duos de discretioribus, legalioribus et probioribus tam civibus quam burgensibus.
“Item in forma prædicta mandatum est baronibus et probis hominibus Quinque Portuum....” Stubbs, Sel. Charters, 415; 1 Rymer, Foedera, part 2, 93.

121 For a fuller discussion of this rather iconoclastic view of Simon de Montfort, see Medley, Eng. Const. Hist. 134.

122 T. Wykes, Chron. a. 1269, 226-227, in Stubbs, Sel. Chart. 337.

123 Ann. Winton. a. 1273, 113; Stubbs, Sel. Chart. 429.

124 Ann. Winton. a. 1275, 119; Stubbs, Sel. Chart. 430.

125 Stubbs, Sel. Chart. 450.

126 “... archiepiscopi, episcopi, et alii prælati regni Angliæ ac comites, barones, et nos (William, Earl of Pembroke) et communitate ejusdem regni ad instantiam et rogatum mercatorum pluribus de causis unanimiter concesserimus magnifico principi et domino nostro carissimo domino Edwardo Dei gratia regi Angliæ illustri, pro nobis et hæredibus nostris, dimidiam marcam de quolibet sacco lanæ et dimidiam marcam pro singulis trescentis pellibus lanutis quæ faciunt unum saccum, et unam marcam de quolibet lesta coriorum, exeuntibus regnum Angliæ....” Stubbs, Sel. Chart. 451; Adams and Stephens, Sel. Doc. 69, translation.

127 See 1 Hubert Hall, Customs Revenue of England, 65-68; 2, 117-118; Medley, Eng. Const. Hist. 517-518.

128 Wool, hides and leather formed the bulk of the early exports from England. Wine was the principal import. It was on these articles of merchandise, and such others as the merchants brought in and took out, that duties had been charged since early times. The taxes had become customary and were spoken of as “consuetudines,” or customs. The basis for the exaction was the understanding that the merchants, most of them foreigners, should be given protection by the king. The early prisage on wine amounted to one cask from every cargo of from ten to twenty casks, arriving at a port of England. From ships carrying more than twenty casks, two casks were exacted. Sometimes the duty instead of being made in wine was compounded for in money. The amount of the export tax on wool in the beginning is not known. In merchandise of other sorts, the payment amounted to a tenth or a fifteenth of the value of the goods.
Magna Carta abolished illegal exactions on goods retaining only the “ancient and lawful customs” above mentioned. Taxable commodities were wine, wool, and general merchandise. In many instances, in spite of the prohibitions in the Charter, the customs amounted to confiscation. Until the time of Edward I there was unending irregularity in the management of the customs. Merchant strangers, by Cap. 41 of the Great Charter were to have “safe and secure exit from England, and entry to England... buying and selling by the ancient and right customs, quit from all evil Tolls.”

129 “Edwardus Dei Gratia Rex Angliæ dominus Hiberniæ et dux Aquitanniæ vicecomiti Kanciæ salutem. Cum prælatis et magnatibus regni nostri mandaverimus ut ipsi parliamento nostro, quod apud Westmonasterium in quindena Sancti Michælis proxime futura tenebimus. Domino concedenti intersint ad tractandum nobiscum tam super statum regni nostri quam super quibusdam negotiis nostris quæ eis exponemus ibidem, et expediens sit quod duo milites de comitatu prædicto de discretioribus et legalioribus militibus ejusdem comitatus intersint eidem parliamento, ex causis prædictis tibi præcipimus quod in pleno comitatu tuo de assensu ejusdem comitatus eligi facias dictos duos militis et eos ad nos usque Westmonasterium pro communitate dicti comitatus venire facias ad dictum diem ad tractandum nobiscum et cum prædictis prælatis et magnatibus super negotiis prædictis. Et hoc non omittas....” 2 Stubbs, Const. Hist. Eng. 234, note 5.

130 1 Rotuli Parliamentorum, 224.

131 Ann. T. Wykes, 274; Stubbs, Sel. Chart. 431.

132 The statute of Gloucester, passed in 1278, provided for the regulation of territorial franchises. In accordance with it, the itinerant justices were to inquire by what warrant certain franchises were held, and the writ “quo warranto” was issued in each case. Stubbs, 2 Const. Hist. Eng. 114-115.

133 Writ for distraint of knighthood. 1 Stubbs, Sel. Chart. 457.

134 Letter of credence for a royal commissioner to raise an aid. Stubbs, Sel. Chart. 464.

135 Stubbs, Sel. Chart. 465-468.

136 Ann. Dunst. 294, in Stubbs, Sel. Chart. 433.

137 Stubbs, Sel. Chart. 460.

138 2 Stubbs, Const. Hist. Eng. 124, and authorities there cited.

139 Cont. Flor. Wig. 235. The scutage was for forty shillings on the knights fee.

140 Ann. Osney, 316, in Stubbs, Sel. Chart.. 434-435.

141 2 Stubbs, Const. Hist. Eng. 545.

142 “.... magnates et proceres tunc in parliamento existentes, pro se et communitate totius regni quantum in ipsis est, concesserunt domino regi....” etc. Stubbs, Sel. Chart. 477; 1 Rot. Parl. 25.

143 The boroughs and city of London paid this tax, though they were without special representation. The writ of summons is in Stubbs, Sel. Chart. 477.

144 Ann. Osney, 326, and Ann. Dunst. 362, in Stubbs, Sel. Chart. 435.

145 Cont. Flor. Wig. 243.

146 1 Rymer, Foedera, part 3, 80-81; Cont. Flor. Wig. 264.

147 Cont. Flor. Wig. 266.

148 Matth. Westmon. Flores, 421.

149 So Bishop Stubbs conjectures, 2 Const. Hist. Eng. 131.

150 Barth. Cotton, De Rege Edwardo I, 246.

151 2 Walt. de Hemingb. 53-54.

152 2 Walt. de Hemingb. 55-57.

153 Stubbs, Sel. Chart. 479-482.

154 Barth. Cotton, 254 et. seq.; 2 Walt. de Hemingb. 57.

155 The character of this tax, indeed its very existence, is questioned. Matthew of Westminster (422), mentions a tax on the towns of “the sixth penny.” It may have been either a tallage or a tax by special negotiation, or it may have been granted by the shire representatives on the theory that the towns were included within their shires, though this is most unlikely. See Taswell-Langmead, Eng. Const. Hist. 199; 2 Stubbs, Const. Hist. Eng. 132; Stubbs, Sel. Chart. 480, 483-484.

156 Stubbs. Sel. Chart. 482.

157 “Sicut lex justissima, provida circumspectione sacrorum principum stabilita, hortatur et statuit ut quod omnes tangit ab omnibus approbetur, sic et nimis evidenter ut communibus periculis per remedia provisa communiter obvietur.... Præmunientes priorem et capitulum ecclesiæ vestræ, archidiacones, totumque clerum vestræ diocesis, facientes quod iidem prior et archidiaconi in propriis personis suis, et dictum capitulum per unum, idemque clerus per duos procuratores idoneos, plenam et sufficientem potestatem ab ipsis capitulo et clero habentes... ad tractandum, ordinandum et faciendum....” Stubbs, Sel. Chart. 484. Translation in Adams and Stephens, Sel. Doc. 82.

158 The phrase occurs in the codes of Justinian. Cod. V, lix, 5; Taswell-Langmead, Eng. Const. Hist. 200, note 1.

159 Stubbs, Sel. Chart. 485. Translation Adams and Stephens, Sel. Doc. 83.

160 “... Tibi præcipimus firmiter injungentes quod de comitatu prædicto duos milites et de qualibet civitate ejusdem comitatus duos cives, et de quolibet burgo duos burgenses, de discretioribus et ad laboradum potentioribus, sine dilatione eligi, et eos ad nos ad prædictos diem et locum venire facias: ita quod dicti milites plenam et sufficientem potestatem pro se et communitate comitatus prædicti, et dicti cives et burgenses pro se et communitate civitatum et burgorum prædictorum divisim ab ipsis tunc ibidem habeant, ad faciendum quod tunc de communi consilio ordinabitur in præmissis; ita quod pro defectu hujusmodi potestatis negotium prædictum infectum non remaneant quoquo modo.” Stubbs, Sel. Chart. 486. Translation Adams and Stephens, Sel. Doc. 83.

161 In the fourteenth century the clergy ceased to act in Parliament. They preferred to make their grants in separate convocations, and continued to do so until 1664 when they were merged with the other two estates. From the reign of Henry VIII, the grants of the clergy were subject to parliamentary confirmation. Taswell-Langmead, Eng. Const. Hist. 201-202.

162 Barth. Cotton, 299.

163 Barth. Cotton, 299.

164 The bull “Clericis laicos,” published 24th February, 1296, by Boniface VIII, was levelled at the taxation of the clergy by temporal powers; it prohibited the clergy from paying and the secular powers from receiving contributions by way of taxes, under pain of excommunication. The bull is given in 1 Rymer, Foedera, part 3, p. 156, and in Adams and Stephens, Sel. Doc. 84, in translation.

165 Barth. Cotton. 315, 317-319.

166 Walt. de Hemingb., 121.

167 Matt. Westm., 430, in Stubbs, Sel. Chart. 441.

168 1 Rymer, Foedera, part 3, 179.

169 2 Walt, de Hemingb., 121, 122.

170 Matt. Westm., 430, in Stubbs, Sel. Chart. 441. The restitution of Winchelsey’s baronies occurred after this scene 19th July, according to Chron. Cant. Ang. Sac. noted in 2 Stubbs, Const. Hist. Eng. 141.

171 Matt. Westm., 430, in Stubbs, Sel. Chart. 441, 442.

172 Barth. Cotton, 338; 1 Rot. Parl. 239.

173 Barth. Cotton, 334.

174 W. Rishanger, Chron. 175, in Stubbs, Sel. Chart. 442, 443.

175 Matt. Westm., 430; W. Rishanger, 178. Both in Stubbs, Sel. Chart. 444.

176 1 Rymer, Foedera, part 3, 189.

177 Barth. Cotton, 336.

178 1 Rymer, Foedera, part 3, 190.

179 2 Walt. de Hemingb. 147, 148.

180 2 Stubbs, Const. Hist. Eng. 147.

181 “Clericis laicos,” it will be remembered, prohibited compliance by the clergy with demands by the crown for taxation. It is evident that a gift by the clergy for the defense of the realm, provided it be not a compliant, but an initial act, was not a contravention of the bull.

182 Barth. Cotton, 339.

183 “5. And for so much as divers people of our realm are in fear that the aids and tasks which they have given to us beforetime towards our wars and other business, of their own grant and good will, howsoever they were made, might turn to be a bondage to them and their heirs, because they might be at another time found in the rolls, and so likewise the prises taken throughout the realm by our ministers in our name; we have granted for us and our heirs, that we shall not draw such aids, tasks, nor prises into a custom, for anything that hath been done heretofore, or that may be found by roll or in any other manner.” Adams and Stephens, Sel. Doc. 87. Stubbs, Sel. Chart. 495 (French text) and 496 (translation). Original in 2 Walt. de Hemingb. 149.

184 “6. Moreover we have granted for us and our heirs as well to archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, and other folk of holy Church, as also to earls, barons, and to all the commonalty of the land, that for no business from henceforth we shall take of our realm such manner of aids, tasks, nor prises, but by the common assent of all the realm, and for the common profit thereof, saving the ancient aids and prises due and accustomed.
“And for so much as the mere part of the commonalty of the realm find themselves sore grieved with the maletolt of wools, that is to wit, a toll of forty shillings for every sack of wool, and have made petition to us to release the same; we at their requests have clearly released it, and have granted that we will not take such thing nor any other without their common assent and good will; saving to us and our heirs the custom of wools, skins, and leather, granted before by the commonalty aforesaid. In witness of which things we have caused these our letters to be made patents.” Adams and Stephens, Sel. Doc. 87; Stubbs, Sel. Chart. 495 (French text), and 496 (translation).

185 2 Walt. de Hemingb. 152, 153.

186 The statute is in Adams and Stephens, Sel. Doc. 88, translated. The Latin text is in Stubbs, Sel. Chart. 497, 498.

187 In this connection see McKechnie, Magna Carta, 281; 2 Stubbs, Const. Hist. Eng. 148-150, and Sel. Chart. 497; Medley, Eng. Const. Hist. 507, 508.

188 Patent Rolls, 24th Oct., 1301, in Stubbs, Sel. Chart. 446.

189 See 2 Stubbs, Const. Hist. Eng. 156-158, citing 1 Parliamentary Writs, 104.

190 2 Walt. de Hemingb. 223.

191 1 Parl. Writs, 134-135, in Stubbs, Sel. Chart. 500-501.

192 Carta Mercatoria, in Hall, 1 History of the Customs, Appendix, 202-208; 1 ibid. 69-70.

193 2 Walt. de Hemingb. 233; Patent Rolls, a. 1304, 6th Feb., in Stubbs, Sel. Chart. 447.

194 1 Rot. Parl. 161-162.

195 The only other instance of taxation to be noted was the aid granted in 1306 by knights and barons (a thirtieth), and by citizens and burgesses (a twentieth), on the occasion of knighting the king’s son. 1 Rymer, Foedera, part 4, 48.

196 1 Rymer, Foedera, part 4, 112. Also, Stubbs, 2 Const. Hist. Eng. 331.

197 A Parliament of the three Estates at Northampton, 13th Oct., 1307, granted him an aid on the event of his marriage and coronation, and for the burial of Edward I. The clergy granted a fifteenth, the towns a fifteenth, and the barons and knights a twentieth of movables. 1 Rot. Parl. 442.

198 1 Rot. Parl. 443-445.

199 The second article is given in translation in Hall, 1 History of the Customs, Appendix, 208.

200 1 Rot. Parl. 446-447.

201 Translation given in Adams and Stephens, Sel. Doc. 93.

202 2 Stubbs, Const. Hist. Eng. 340, note 1, and citations.

203 1 Rot. Parl. 281-286.

204 Translation given in Adams and Stephens, Sel. Doc. 93-94.

205 2 Stubbs, Const. Hist. Eng. 345 and note 2, with citations.

206 Edward, despite the ordinance banishing Gaveston, in January, 1312, recalled him. But the restoration was fatal to the favorite. Thomas of Lancaster intercepted him on his way back to London and murdered him. Gaveston was avenged, however, in 1322, when Edward for the moment securing the upper hand, took Lancaster and beheaded him.

207 1 Rot. Parl. 449.

208 Other instances of taxation during the reign were: 1313, October. Parliament grants a tax on movables,—the barons and knights a twentieth and the towns a fifteenth. Grant made in consequence of a general pardon issued by Edward. 1 Rot. Parl. 448. Cf. Thom. Walsingham, Hist. Anglicana, ed. 1 Riley, 136. 1315, Jan.-March. King put on an allowance of £10 a day. The clergy grant a tenth on certain conditions, the towns a fifteenth and the barons and knights a twentieth. 2 Stubbs, Const. Hist. Eng. 355, and citations. 1316. Towns grant a fifteenth, the knights and barons offer a soldier to be supported by each township, and the clergy express their willingness to contribute a tenth in their own convocations. 1 Rot. Parl. 450-451. 2 Stubbs, Const. Hist. Eng. 356. The grant of a soldier was afterward compounded for by a grant of a sixteenth. 1319. The towns grant a twelfth, the barons and knights an eighteenth. 1 Rot. Parl. 454-455. 1320. No taxes, save a clerical tenth, granted by the Pope. 2 Stubbs, Const. Hist. Eng. 363, note 2. 1322. Clergy grant a tenth for 2 years. Knights and barons grant a man-at-arms from each township for 40 days. Commuted by money payment. Edward, being for the moment supreme, restores the New Customs for a year. 2 Stubbs, Const. Hist. Eng. 370, and note 2 and authorities there cited.

209 Sept. 1327. Parliament at Lincoln granted a twentieth for the Scotch war. 2 Rot. Parl. 425.

210 2 Ibid. 446.

211 2 Ibid. 66.

212 2 Stubbs, Const. Hist. Eng. 554.

213 2 Rymer, Foedera, Aug. 12, 1336.

214 1 Hen. Knighton, Chronicon, ed. Lumby, 477.

215 Adam Murimuth, Chronica ed. Hog, 81.

216 2 Stubbs, Const. Hist. Eng. 398, 555, with authorities there cited. The statute is given in 1 Hall, Hist. of Customs, 210-211.

217 2 Rot. Parl. 104.

218 2 Ibid. 105.

219 2 Rot. Parl. 107-108.

220 2 Ibid. 112-113. 2 Walt. de Hemingb. 354.

221 14 Edw. III, 1, in 1 Statutes of the Realm, 281, and in Adams and Stephens, Sel. Doc. 103-104.

222 14 Edw. III, 2, in 1 Statutes of the Realm, 281, and in Adams and Stephens, Sel. Doc. 104-105.

223 The definite inclusion of tallage within the scope of these charges and aids prohibited to the royal control had to be asserted further: 1348. Condition of the grant made by Parliament that no tallage or similar exaction should be imposed by the Privy Council. 2 Rot. Parl. 200; Adams and Stephens, Sel. Doc. 113. 1352. The king openly declares that he is not intending again to impose a tallage. 2 Rot. Parl. 238. 1377. Parliament petitions, nearly in the words of the statute of 1340. King replies that only a great exigency would induce him to disregard the petition. 2 Rot. Parl. 365.

224 2 Stubbs, Const. Hist. Eng. 557.

225 Bishop Stubbs conjectures 8th July, 1342, as the date of the grant. 2 Const. Hist. Eng. 412, note 2.

226 2 Rot. Parl. 140, given in Adams and Stephens, 110.

227 1 Dowell, Taxation and Taxes, 166, citing 18 Edw. III, 2 c. 3.

228 2 Rot. Parl. 161.

229 2 Rot. Parl. 200. A translation is given in Adams and Stephens, 113-114.

230 2 Stubbs, Const. Hist. Eng. 418.

231 1 Statutes of the Realm, 371. Translation in Adams and Stephens, Sel. Doc. 128; 2 Rot. Parl. 271.

232 2 Rot. Parl. 308.

233 In 1334 the fifteenth and tenth was compounded for by a fixed sum, rather than in accordance with a strict assessment. Hereafter each town and each county knew for how much it would have to answer. The expression was the fiscal equivalent of £39,000, less about £6,000 for decayed towns. 1 Dowell, Taxation and Taxes, 89.

234 The fifteenths and tenths after 1334 noted in Dowell, 1 Taxation and Taxes, 89, note. Taxation, 1351-1359, see Stubbs, 2 Const. Hist. Eng. 424, note 1. Taxation, 1360-1368, see Stubbs, 2 Const. Hist. Eng. 433, note 1 and p. 432.

235 14 Edw. III, 2.

236 2 Rot. Parl. 161, 202.

237 2 Ibid. 252.

238 2 Ibid. 114.

239 2 Ibid. 128. Translation given in Adams and Stephens, Sel. Doc. 105-106.

240 2 Rot. Parl. 130, given in Adams and Stephens, Sel. Doc. 106.

241 2 Rot. Parl. 364, given in Adams and Stephens, Sel. Doc. 135.

242 Taswell-Langmead, Eng. Const. Hist. 211, note 1.

243 3 Rot. Parl. 7; translation in Adams and Stephens, Sel. Doc. 136.

244 3 Rot. Parl. 35-36. Translation in Adams and Stephens, Sel. Doc. 137-138.

245 3 Rot. Parl. 36.

246 3 Ibid. 56. Translation given in Adams and Stephens, Sel. Doc. 138.

247 3 Rot. Parl. 66.

248 3 Rot. Parl. 73.

249 3 Ibid. 124.

250 The taxes during the reign in summary:—Parliament of October, 1377. Two tenths and two fifteenths. 3 Rot. Parl. 7. Parliament of October, 1378. An increase of custom on wool and merchandise over the grant to Edward III in 1376. 3 Rot. Parl. 37. Parliament of April, 1379 (another session of the last Parliament). Superseded the above tax on wool, which had proven to be insufficient, with a graduated poll-tax which varied according to the position of the taxpayer. A tax of a groat a head had been levied in 1377, but this was the first instance of a poll-tax of varied incidence. The payments: The Dukes of Lancaster and Bretagne, ten marks each; earls or their widows, four pounds; barons and baronets, two pounds; and so on down to persons of the lowest rank, who were to pay a groat apiece. (Further details, 1 Dowell, Taxation and Taxes, 94.) Proceeds were to be strictly for national defense. Produced about half as much as was expected, only £22,000. 3 Rot. Parl. 57-58, 72-73. Parliament of 1380. A tenth and a half and a fifteenth and a half with a year’s subsidy on wool. A second Parliament, finding this amount insufficient, in the same year undertook to raise the “outrageous and intolerable” amount, £160,000. The means was another graduated poll-tax, varying from sixty groats to three, together with a continuance of the subsidy on wool, a custom which netted about £60,000 annually. The clergy undertook to raise their share of the money. The poll-tax was expected to bring about £66,000. 3 Rot. Parl. 75, 90. Parliament of 1382. A fifteenth and a tenth, to be devoted wholly to the defense of the realm. Tunnage and poundage for two years. 3 Rot. Parl. 124, 134. Parliaments of 1383. Grant of fifteenth and tenth made in 1382, given to Bishop of Norwich who was warring against the anti-pope in Flanders. He was held to account at the October session. Two half tenths and two half fifteenths were granted by the commons, one-half without condition, and the other half for the prosecution of the war if it be prolonged. Clergy made similar grants. 3 Rot. Parl. 151-152. Parliament of 1384. At spring session half a tenth and fifteenth. At fall session, two tenths and fifteenths, one of which was remitted the following spring. The object was the prosecution of a war in Scotland. 3 Rot. Parl. 167, 185, 398. Parliament of 1385. Granted a fifteenth and a half and a tenth and a half. Wool subsidy renewed for another year. 3 Rot. Parl. 204. Parliament of 1386. Half a tenth and fifteenth, with duplication if exigencies of war demanded. Continuance of subsidy on wool and merchandise, the object being for naval defense. Before Richard could obtain this grant, he had to consent to the appointment of a commission of reform to correct the irregularities in the realm and in his household. 3 Rot. Parl. 220-221. Parliaments of 1388. First session. Half a tenth and fifteenth with tunnage and poundage and the custom on wool. From the subsidy on wool £20,000 is awarded to the “Lords Appellant,” who had brought charges against the royal favorites upon which they were convicted and punished. 3 Rot. Parl. 244-245. The increase of custom on wool is forbidden. Fall session. A tenth and a fifteenth. 2 Stubbs, Const. Hist. Eng. 505, note 3, and citations. Parliament of 1390. Subsidy on wool and merchandise. 3 Rot. Parl. 278. Parliament of 1391. A fifteenth and a half and a tenth and a half. Above subsidy on wool and merchandise renewed for three years at an increased rate. 3 Rot. Parl. 285-286. Parliament of 1393. Grant on wool and merchandise for three years. 3 Rot. Parl. 301. Parliament of 1394. Tunnage and poundage. 3 Rot. Parl. 314. Parliament of 1395. Fifteenth and tenth. 3 Rot. Parl. 330. Parliament of 1397. Custom on wool for five years. Tunnage and poundage for three years. Protest registered against the extravagance of the court. 3 Rot. Parl. 340. Parliament of 1398. A tenth and a half and a fifteenth and a half. A subsidy on wool, woolfells, and leather for the term of Richard’s life. 3 Rot. Parl. 368.

251 The scheme is given in translation in Adams and Stephens, Sel. Doc. 142-144, from the original in 3 Rot. Parl. 90.

252 2 Stubbs. Const. Hist. Eng. 471.

253 3 Rot. Parl. 368.

254 3 Rot. Parl. 417 ff.

255 2 Thom. de Wals. 230-231. Cf. 3 Rot. Parl. 62.

256 3 Rot. Parl. 458. Translation given in Adams and Stephens, Sel. Doc. 173.

257 3 Rot. Parl. 493.

258 3 Rot. Parl. 611. Translation given in Adams and Stephens, Sel. Doc. 125-127.

259 In 1472 was a marked departure from the rule. A grant regularly enacted, appropriating revenue and income of the commons, was changed by the lords to include a tax on their own property. 6 Rot. Parl. 4-8. The good intent of the act, justified in the eyes of contemporaries, apparently, its irregularity.

260 3 Rot. Parl. 612.

261 4 Rot. Parl. 301-302.

262 5 Rot. Parl. 152-153.

263 5 Rot. Parl. 508.

264 1 Dowell, Taxation and Taxes, 197.

265 6 Rot. Parl. 238-240.

266 “For certainly wee be determined rather to aventure and committe us to the perill of oure lyfs and jopardye of deth, than to lyve in suche thraldome and bondage as we have lyved long tyme heretofore, oppressed and injured by Extorcions and newe Imposicons, agenst the Lawes of God and Man, and the Libertee, old Police, and Lawes of this Reame, wheryn every Englishman is enherited.” 6 Rot. Parl. 241.

267 1 Rich. III, c. 2.—“The king remembering how the Commons of this his realm by new and unlawful inventions and inordinate covetousness, against the law of this realm, have been put to great thraldom and importable charges and exactions, and in especial by a new imposition named a benevolence, whereby divers years the subjects and Commons of this land against their wills and freedom have paid great sums of money to their almost utter destruction; for divers and many worshipful men of this realm by occasion thereof were compelled by necessity to break up their households and to live in great penury and wretchedness. Their debts unpaid and their children unpreferred, and such memorials as they had ordained to be done for the wealth of their souls were made void and annulled, to the great displeasure of God and to the destruction of this realm; therefore the king will it be ordained, by the advice and assent of his Lords spiritual and temporal and the Commons of this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, that his subjects and the commonalty of this his realm from henceforth in no wise be charged by none such charge or imposition called benevolence, nor by such like charge; and that such exactions called benevolences, afore this time taken be taken for no example to make such or any like charge of any his said subjects of this realm hereafter, but it be dampned and annulled forever.” 2 Statutes of the Realm, 478. Translation given in Adams and Stephens, Sel. Doc. 212.

268 6 Rot. Parl. 335.

269 6 Rot. Parl. 421.

270 Taswell-Langmead, Eng. Const. Hist. 298, quoting from Lord Bacon’s Henry VII, 121.

271 For further details see Dowell, 1 Taxation and Taxes, 129, 130. A summary of the taxes of Henry VIII is given in Cobbett, 1 Parliamentary History of England from the Earliest Period to the Year 1803, London 1806; 565-6.

272 Above, 206, 207.

273 More, Life of Sir T. More, 51, quoted in 1 Parl. Hist. 485-6.

274 1 Parl. Hist. 486.

275 1 Parl. Hist. 588.

276 1 Parl. Hist. 490.

277 Taswell-Langmead, Eng. Const. Hist. 300.

278 Ibid., 300, quoting Hall, Chronicle, 696, 700.

279 1 Parl. Hist. 490.

280 Henry levied another benevolence in 1545.

281 The form of these royal promissory notes is as follows:—“We, Henry VIII, by the grace of God, King of England and of France, Defender of Faith, and Lord of Ireland, promise by these presents truly to content and repay unto our trusty and well-beloved subject, A. B., the sum of ——, which he hath lovingly advanced unto us by way of loan, for defence of our realm, and maintenance of our wars against France and Scotland: In witness whereof we have caused our privy seal hereunto to be set and annexed the —— day of ——, the fourteenth year of our reign.” Cited by Hallam, 1 Const. Hist. Eng. 26, note 1, from MS. Instructions to Commissioners.

282 Stat. 21 Henry VIII, c. 24, cited in Taswell-Langmead, Eng. Const. Hist. 301. 1 Parl. Hist. 507.

283 1 Parl. Hist. 560, 578.

284 23 Henry VIII, c. 20, in Adams and Stephens, Sel. Doc. 144.

285 25 Henry VIII, c. 20.

286 25 Henry VIII, c. 21.

287 26 Henry VIII, c. 3.

288 25 Henry VIII, c. 19.

289 Dowell, 1 Taxation and Taxes, 202, quoting 2 Mackintosh, 433, appendix.

290 Taswell-Langmead, Eng. Const. Hist. 377, quoting 4 Parl. Hist. 480.

291 The subsidy at this time, by a conservative estimate, amounted probably to £80,000, making the demand equal to £240,000.

292 1 Hallam, Const. Hist. Eng. 375, quoting D’Ewes, 486.

293 Gneist. Const. Hist. Eng. 546.

294 Taswell-Langmead, Eng. Const. Hist. 177.

295 1 Parliamentary History of England, London, 1806, 967, 970.

296 The case is in 1 Parl. Hist. 998-1017. See also Taswell-Langmead, Eng. Const. Hist. 267-268.

297 1 Parl. Hist. 1030-1042.

298 1 Ibid. 1044-1045.

299 The rate of this grant of tunnage and poundage: Tunnage, 3 s. on every tun of wine imported, save that on the tun of sweet wines the charge was 6 s., and on the awm of Rhenish, 1 s. Poundage, 1 s. on every 20 s. of goods or merchandise imported or exported, except woolen manufactures; on tin and pewter the charge was 2 s. Wool of denizens, 33 s. 4 d. on the sack or 240 woolfells and £3, 6 s., 8 d. on the last of hides.—1 Parl. Hist. 1046.

300 1 Parl. Hist. 1069-1070.

301 Trevelyan, England Under the Stuarts, 107.

302 Medley, Eng. Const. Hist. 235.

303 Prothero, Statutes and Constitutional Documents, 1559-1625, lxxv.

304 Stat. 45 Edw. III, cap. 4.

305 The case is reported in Prothero, Stat. and Const. Doc. 340-342.

306 2 State Trials, 481.

307 Prothero, Stat. and Const. Doc. 354.

308 The arguments of Hakewill and Whitelocke are given in detail in Prothero, Stat. and Const. Doc. 342-353.

309 Taswell-Langmead, Eng. Const. Hist. 395, quoting from Petyt, Jus Parliamentum, 322, 323.

310 1 Parl. Hist. 1122.

311 Prothero, Stat. and Const. Doc. 411.

312 1 Parl. Hist. 1133.

313 1 Parl. Hist. 1159.

314 1 Parl. Hist. 1166.

315 2 Gardiner, Hist. Eng. [1603-1616] 172.

316 1 Parl. Hist. 1179-1180.

317 1 Parl. Hist. 1187.

318 This was “the revival of the ancient right of Parliamentary impeachment—the solemn accusation of an individual by the Commons at the bar of the Lords—which had lain dormant since the impeachment of the Duke of Suffolk in 1449.” For further details see Taswell-Langmead, Eng. Const. Hist. 409 et seq.

319 1 Parl. Hist. 1208.

320 1 Parl. Hist. 1262.

321 1 Parl. Hist. 1300-1301.

322 1 Ibid. 1316-1317.

323 1 Parl. Hist. 1361-1363.

324 1 Ibid. 1366-1371.

325 1 Parl. Hist. 1487-1488.

326 1 Hallam, Const. Hist. Eng. 508, 509.

327 2 Parl. Hist. 6.

328 2 Ibid. 33.

329 2 Ibid. 35-37.

330 2 Parl. Hist. 49, 50.

331 2 Ibid. 56.

332 2 Ibid. 100, 101.

333 Arbitrary imprisonment led to the suspension of the right to secure a writ of habeas corpus, by direct command and peculiar power of the king. Vid. Darnel’s Case in Taswell-Langmead, Eng. Const. Hist. 425, 426.

334 2 Parl. Hist. 207, 208.

335 2 Parl. Hist. 213.

336 2 Ibid. 221.

337 2 Parl. Hist. 230.

338 2 Ibid. 259-260.

339 2 Parl. Hist. 274, 277, 278.

340 2 Parl. Hist. 355.

341 2 Ibid. 377.

342 2 Ibid. 409, 410. The sections which concern taxation:—
Humbly show unto our Sovereign Lord the King, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons in Parliament assembled, that whereas it is declared and enacted by a statute made in the reign of King Edward the First, commonly called, Statutum de tallagio non concedendo, that no tallage or aid shall be laid or levied by the king or his heirs in this realm, without the good-will and assent of the Archbishops, Bishops, Earls, Barons, Knights, Burgesses, and other freemen of the commonalty of this realm; and by authority of Parliament holden in the five and twentieth year of the reign of King Edward the Third, it is declared and enacted, that from thenceforth no person shall be compelled to make any loans to the king against his will, because such loans were against reason and the franchise of the land; and by other laws of this realm it is provided, that none should be charged by any charge or imposition, called a Benevolence, nor by such like charge, by which the statutes before mentioned, and the other the good laws and statutes of this realm, your subjects have inherited this freedom, that they should not be compelled to contribute to any tax, tallage, aid, or other like charge, not set by common consent in Parliament:
Yet nevertheless, of late divers commissions directed to sundry commissioners in several counties with instructions have issued, by pretext whereof your people have been in divers places assembled, and required to lend certain sums of money unto your Majesty, and many of them upon their refusal so to do, have had an unlawful oath administered unto them, not warrantable by the laws and statutes of this realm, and have been constrained to become bound to make appearance and give attendance before your Privy Council, and in other places; and others of them have been therefore imprisoned, confined, and sundry other ways molested and disquieted: and divers other charges have been laid and levied upon your people in several counties, by Lords Lieutenants, Deputy Lieutenants, Commissioners for Musters, Justices of the Peace and others, by command or direction from your Majesty or your privy Council, against the laws and free customs of this realm....
And whereas of late great companies of soldiers and marines have been dispersed into divers counties of the realm, and the inhabitants against their wills have been compelled to receive them into their houses, and there to suffer them to sojourn, against the laws and customs of the realm, and to the great grievance and vexation of the people....
They do therefore humbly pray your most Excellent Majesty, that no man hereafter be compelled to make or yield any gift, loan, benevolence, tax, or such like charge, without common consent by Act of Parliament; and that none be called to make answer, or take such oath, or to give attendance, or be confined, or otherwise molested or disquieted concerning the same, or for refusal thereof;... and that your Majesty will be pleased to remove the said soldiers and marines, and that your people may not be burdened in time to come. 2 Parl. Hist. 374-6. The Petition of Right may also be found in S. R. Gardiner, Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution, 1625-1660, 66-70; Adams and Stephens, Sel. Doc. 339-342. Taswell-Langmead, Eng. Const. Hist. 430-433.

343 Gardiner, Const. Doc. 66, note 2.

344 2 Parl. Hist. 432.

345 2 Parl. Hist. 433-434.

346 2 Parl. Hist. 442, 443.

347 2 Ibid. 449, 453.

348 2 Parl. Hist. 454.

349 2 Ibid. 482.

350 2 Parl. Hist. 457, 491.

351 Gardiner, Const. Doc. 82, 83; 2 Parl. Hist. 491.

352 “The king’s declaration of the causes of the late dissolution.” Gardiner, Const. Doc. 83-99; 2 Parl. Hist. 492-504.

353 2 Parl. Hist. 525.

354 2 Hallam, Const. Hist. Eng. 15.
The “parchments in the Tower” might readily have included the following, which exhibits an historical precedent for the ship money:
“1008. Rex Anglorum Aegelredus de ccc. x. cassatis unam trierem, de novem vero loricam et cassidem fieri, et per totam Angliam naves intente praecipit fabricari.” 1 Florentii Wigorniensis Monachi, Chronicon ex Chronicis, 160.
1 Freeman, Norman Conquest, 647, note LL., cites 3 Codex Diplomaticus, 351, to show that before 1008 a levy of ships was not unknown. Archbishops Aelfric upon his death gave to the people of Wiltshire and Kent a ship. Wiltshire is an inland county. It is justifiable, then, to believe that “per totam Angliam” may be taken literally, and that Ethelred really exacted a ship from every 310 hides throughout England.

355 Gardiner, Const. Doc. 105-108.

356 Taswell-Langmead, Eng. Const. Hist. 443; Trevelyan, England Under the Stuarts, 163.

357 Clarendon, History of the Rebellion, i, 136.

358 Gardiner, Const. Doc. 108, note 2.

359 Gardiner, Const. Doc. 108, 109.

360 2 Hallam, Const. Hist. Eng. 23.

361 Mr. St. John did not enter into a consideration of the legality of the modern impositions of the outports, levied by authority of the Crown.

362 The digest of the argument here given is based upon that of Taswell-Langmead, Eng. Const. Hist. 446, 447, who follows closely 2 Hallam, Const. Hist. Eng. 23-27. Extracts from St. John’s speech are given in Gardiner, Const. Doc. 109-115.

363 Taswell-Langmead, Eng. Const. Hist. 448. 2 Hallam, Const. Hist. Eng. 30.

364 2 Parl. Hist. 532, 533.

365 2 Ibid. 561, 562.

366 2 Parl. Hist. 362, 363.

367 2 Ibid. 568.

368 2 Ibid. 570, 571.

369 2 Parl. Hist. 582, 584.

370 See the list of members in 2 Parl. Hist. 597-629.

371 Taswell-Langmead, Eng. Const. Hist. 455, quoting 1 Clarendon, Hist. 171.

372 The time was from 25th May, to 15th July, 1641.

373 The Act is given in Gardiner, Const. Doc. 88-91.

374 The Act is given in Gardiner, Const. Doc. 115.

375 By subsequent statutes, an end was put to purveyance, distraint of knighthood, and forest extension. Parliament then came forward with a grant of six subsidies and a poll tax equivalent to six subsidies more.

376 2 Hallam, Const. Hist. Eng. 138, 139.

377 Gardiner, Const. Doc. 127-155.

378 For further details see Taswell-Langmead, Eng. Const. Hist. 483, 484; and 2 Dowell, Taxation and Taxes, 8 et seq.

379 The text is in Taswell-Langmead, Eng. Const. Hist. 512-518 and in Adams and Stephens, Sel. Doc. 462-469.