The History of Parliamentary Taxation in England

by Shepard Ashman Morgan

[Sidenote Attendance of Knights of the Shire “expedient” for uses of taxation]

Thus we observe that it was “expedient” for the lesser landholders to be present in a Parliament which was called for the purpose of securing the grant of a tax. The tone of the writ is most matter-of-fact, as though the knights of the shire were considered scarcely less usual attendants at Edward’s parliaments than the magnates themselves. That the king “declared unto them certain of his business” and that they proved amenable is exhibited by the fact that this Parliament granted a fifteenth of temporal movables.[130]

The next event of importance witnessed the extension of the function of levying taxes to the citizens and burgesses. By the fall of 1282 Edward found himself in financial difficulties. Since the Parliaments of 1275 taxation had been very light. He had received in 1279 a scutage of forty shillings on the fee on account of the Welsh war,[131] and he received assistance from the clergy in 1279 and the years following. Beside the income resulting from these grants, he still had his custom on wool, but it was far from sufficient for his needs, and he had been obliged to have recourse to the rigid enforcement of statutes, rigorous application of writs, notably that of Quo Warranto,[132] and in 1278 he had adopted the expedient, in after time to be exercised frequently, of compelling all who possessed £20 a year in lands to become knights, and to pay the fee incidental to the attainment of knighthood.[133]

Provincial assemblies at Northampton and York, 1283

The Welsh war came on again in 1282 and added to the king’s embarrassment. He was unwilling to call a Parliament and took the less public but also less efficient means of negotiating with individuals for money with which to carry on the war. He sent royal commissioners abroad through the country who should plead the king’s necessity and accept grants from sheriffs, bailiffs, and mayors as representing their respective communities, and also from individual citizens and countrymen upon their own behalf.[134] These private offerings tided the king over his immediate necessities. Late in the fall, however, he found his position untenable and was forced either to call a Parliament or to adopt some effective substitute. Being at Rhuddlan, in the center of hostile country, and having most of his barons with him, he was obliged to formulate a new plan for the attainment of his end or else to adopt existing machinery to his purposes. He sent out writs on the 24th November bidding the sheriffs send representatives to two provincial assemblies at Northampton or York, as the case might be, for the 20th January following. The members were to include all those who were capable of bearing arms, and who held lands to the annual value of £20, not already with the army; four knights from each county having full power for the community of the county; two men from each city, borough, and market town, having like power for the community of the same, “to hear and to do those things which we on our part will cause to be shown to them.”[135] The clergy also were summoned; the bishops were to bring their archdeacons, the heads of religious houses, and the proctors of the cathedral clergy.

They make grants of taxes

These irregular assemblies convened as they were bidden, the clergy and laity meeting separately. The knights and burgesses at Northampton made a grant of a thirtieth on condition that the barons do likewise;[136] the clergy refused to make any offering at all because the parochial clergy were not represented. At York, the knights and burgesses made the grant of a thirtieth without condition; the clergy made promises which they did not keep. When the collection was made, allowances were admitted for the sums which had been contributed upon private negotiation. Notwithstanding the irregular character of these Councils in view of later developments,—irregular in that the parochial clergy and the baronage were not represented and that the meeting was not in a single general assembly,—they marked the “transition from local to that of central assent to taxation.”[137] The king had discovered that it was easier to attain his end through a Parliament than by private solicitation,—that is, if he were to wait for the assent of the people at all. It was a step on the road; Edward had decided in favor of summoning a Parliament as against asking for money from individuals. It was more profitable.

There is no further record of taxation until 1289, save that of a grant in 1288 from Nicholas IV, of an ecclesiastical tenth for six years in reward of Edward’s vow to undertake a crusade,[138] and a scutage in 1285 on account of the Welsh campaign of three years before.[139] Edward’s expenses, on the other hand, were heavy. The prosecution of his foreign interests in Gascony, where he had been in person for three years, was a heavy drain upon the exchequer. Parliaments of 1289 and 1290 At the Parliament of 1289 the treasurer, John Kirkby, laid the royal needs before the barons, who responded that they would not pay “until they should see the king’s face in his own land.”[140] Kirkby began to tallage the cities and boroughs and the other demesne lands of the king, “imposing upon them an intolerable sum of money.” It is probable that this as well as other royal tallages applied only to such of the cities and boroughs as were included in the royal demesne. As a matter of fact, most of the boroughs were included in the demesnes of the king.[141]

The following spring Edward married his younger daughter to the Earl of Gloucester and besought Parliament for an aid “pur fille marier,” though technically this was to be paid only in the case of the marriage of the king’s eldest daughter. Parliament proved well-disposed, however, and granted forty shillings on the fee. The manner in which the barons and bishops who composed this session of Parliament made their offering is noteworthy, in view of the fact that the tenants-in-chief intimated that they could speak only for themselves. They made their own grant of an aid and extended it “as far as in them lies,” to “the community of the whole kingdom.”[142] The barons made special note of the fact that the offering was an advance upon the two marks which had been granted to King Henry, and stipulated that this be not drawn into precedent. As a matter of fact, the tax fell only on the tenants-in-chief (just why can only be conjectured), and the collection was not made until many years afterward.