The History of Parliamentary Taxation in England

by Shepard Ashman Morgan

The effort to raise so great a sum revived all the forms of taxation known to England in earlier years, and laid the basis for certain methods of acquiring money previously unknown. The justiciars took “from every knight’s fee twenty shillings,[50] and the fourth part of all the incomes of the laity, and all the chalices of the churches, besides the other treasures of the church. Some of the bishops, also, took from the clergy the fourth part of their revenues, while others took a tenth for the ransom of the king.”[51] In addition to the property there stated as having been levied upon, the lands of tenants in socage yielded two shillings on the hide or carucate,[52] personal property to the amount of a fourth of its value, and the wool of the Cistercians and Gilbertines. Thus every person in the kingdom, was laid under contribution. Later kings found all of these means of raising revenue exceedingly fruitful, and some of them served as precedents for taxes which played great parts in the struggle for the control of the public purse.[53]

The king is the authority for the taxes

The authority by which the impositions were laid was apparently solely that of the king. Speaking of the letter which Richard addressed to his mother and the justiciars, urging upon them the necessity for raising money for the ransom, the Chronicler says, “Upon the authority of this letter the king’s mother and the justiciars of England determined that all the clergy as well as the laity ought to give ... for the ransom of our lord the king.” He speaks of the exactions having been taken. The fact that there is no definite record of deliberation or even of assent by the National Council to the enormous demand which the ransom of the king laid upon England, and that no serious objection was raised to the collection, ordered upon the authority of queen and justices, is a comment both upon the weariness of the nation and its respect for the ancient feudal aid.

Richard’s release and subsequent levies

When Richard was finally released from durance in Austria, he returned to England. Remembering the success which met his first visit to the island at the time of his coronation, he proceeded to set his machinery going despite the financial decrepitude of the nation. The account of his Great Council at Nottingham, called near the last of March, 1194, illustrates not only his ingenious methods of making extra-customary feudal exactions but also the manner in which he levied his non-feudal impositions. The Council, which was not very fully attended, was composed of the archbishops, bishops, and earls. On the first day, he removed from office all the sheriffs of Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, and proceeded to sell their places to Archbishop Geoffrey of York, who paid 3000 marks[54] on the spot with a promise of 100 marks by way of annual increment. Having thus spent his first day, on the second he contented himself with issuing orders against his contumacious brother John. But on the third day he demanded the third part of the service of the knights, the wool of the Cistercians for which he was willing to accept a composition, and a carucage of two shillings.[55] This last, which was the lineal descendant of the Danegeld, a land tax on the carucate, he apparently did not exact upon any other authority than his own. The king “determined that there should be granted to him out of every carucate of land through out the whole of England, the sum of two shillings.”[56] His action carries out the theory that the voice of the king in his Council was supreme in matters of taxation, and that the promulgation of a tax levy was rather accepted in the character of an edict than as inviting discussion. The deduction, however, that the individuals composing that Council were barred from objecting to a tax or even refusing to pay it, is not well founded; the time had not yet come when the individual felt himself bound by the tacit acquiescence of the Council. If he were strong enough to withstand the royal displeasure, he could refuse payment.

Richard levied a second carucage in 1198, “from each carucate or hide of land throughout all England five shillings.” Here, too, he acted upon his own authority, and the Chronicler does not refer to the summons of a Council, or the participation of the magnates in the laying of the tax. The assessment of it followed the plan pursued by Henry II, in that the liability of the taxpayer was determined by means of a jury of inquest. Against the payment of the imposition the men of the religious orders demurred, whereupon an edict of outlawry came immediately from Richard. Esteeming the payment of the tax the lighter burden, the friars yielded.

Hugh of Lincoln refuses assent in National Council, 1198

The same year, 1198, furnishes us with what is by far the most noteworthy and interesting incident of the reign of King Richard, an event which is taken to be “a landmark of constitutional history.”[57] Through his efficient justiciar, Archbishop Hubert Walter, the king laid before his Council at Oxford a plan whereby he “required that the people of the kingdom of England should find for him three hundred knights to remain in his service one year, or else give him so much money as to enable him therewith to retain in his service three hundred knights for one year, namely three shillings per day, English money, as the livery of each knight.”[58] The way in which Hubert Walter’s proposition was met throws light upon the subservience of the National Council. “While all the rest were ready to comply with this,” the Chronicler proceeds, “not daring to oppose the king’s wishes, Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln, a true worshipper of God, who withheld himself from every evil work, made answer that for his part he would never in this one matter acquiesce in the king’s desires.” Now, if it could be established that the bishop raised the question as to whether the king had a right to lay an imposition upon the baronage and to require their assent, then we would be justified in saying that Hugh’s refusal went far toward anticipating future history. But the evidence does not uphold so generous an inference. In the first place, it seems highly questionable whether Hubert Walter really offered the alternative of a money payment,[59] a conclusion which reduces the debate to one on foreign service. But Hugh even here did not raise the general question. “I know,” he is quoted as saying, “that the see of Lincoln is held by military service to our lord the king, but it has to be furnished in this land alone; beyond the boundaries of England nothing of the kind is due from it.”[60] Hugh, therefore, refused to comply with the royal request on purely feudal grounds. Basing his objection on ecclesiastical privilege, he registered his refusal for the see of Lincoln alone; he did not take his stand in behalf of the barons or even of the whole body of churchmen. The issue as to their relative powers to tax was not raised between king and Council, and the withdrawal of Hubert Walter’s demand did not constitute one of the first victories over arbitrary taxation. The withdrawal itself seems to have had its disagreeable consequences. Herbert, Bishop of Salisbury, who stood shoulder to shoulder with Hugh of Lincoln in his opposition, had to pay a heavy fine for his part in the contest, and the Abbot of St. Edmund’s was obliged to win back royal favor with a gift of a hundred pounds which he made in addition to the pay of four knights for forty days.

Richard’s reign covered only a decade, six months of which he spent in England.[61] Notwithstanding his long absence, during which the National Council began in some small degree to feel itself able to get along without the royal presence, the authority of the king as the supreme initiator of taxation remained unquestioned. In the assessing of taxes, however, the taxpayers had more participation. The justiciars of Richard continued Henry II’s practice of assessment through a representative jury.

John, 1199-1216