The History of Parliamentary Taxation in England

by Shepard Ashman Morgan

“I have few such gifts, Mr. Mayor,” says the queen; “it is a hundred pounds in gold!”

“Please, your grace,” the mayor answers, “it is a great deal more we give you.”

“What is it?” asks the queen.

“It is,” the mayor replies, “the hearts of your loving subjects.”

And the queen makes answer, “We thank you, Mr. Mayor; it is a great deal more indeed.”[289]

Liberality of Elizabeth’s Parliaments. Her extra-Parliamentary exactions

Subsidies were granted in Parliament with liberality and readiness. Forced loans were indeed exacted from the wealthy, but Elizabeth took care to repay honorably and as promptly as she could. A means of revenue which relieved her from the frequent necessity of applying to Parliament was the granting of monopolies, based upon the right of the crown to assure to an inventor or orginator the exclusive benefits of his invention or innovation. By 1601, however, the royal power had encroached so far upon the rights of the individual that the grants of monopoly comprised exclusive control over many of the necessaries of life. The list which was read in the House of Commons in 1601, included:—currants, iron, powder, cards, transportation of leather, vinegar, sea-coal, lead, oil, starch, glass, and even salt. The matter had been first discussed in the Parliament of 1571, was brought up again in 1597, and in 1601 Elizabeth with the tact which she could summon on occasion, sent a message to the House to allay if possible the agitation which was going on there over the subject of monopolies. It gave satisfaction. “Understanding that divers patents” so ran the message, “which she had granted had been grievous to her subjects, some should be presently repealed, some superseded, and none put in execution but such as should first have a trial according to the law for the good of the people.”[290] Thus was this means of indirect taxation by the crown done away with, until the time when James I, putting his clumsy shoulder to the wheel, should seek to introduce it again.

Commons assert their right to originate money bills, 1593

Toward the close of the reign of Elizabeth there was another evidence of the growing realization on the part of the commons that their powers were not to be tampered with. In this instance, the vindication was not against the prerogative of the sovereign, but against an arrogation of power on the part of the House of Lords. The incident was based upon the decreasing liberality of the commons in the years after the Armada. They had risen nobly to the defense of the nation against the peril, but, with the passing of it, their generosity had faded. In 1593, it was represented that, though the queen had spent upon the war some £1,030,000 of her own, the grants of the commons persisted in being inadequate. A message was sent down from the lords which remarked upon the need for a supply and requested the appointment of a committee of conference. Sir Robert Cecil, reporting from the committee, stated that the lords would assent to no smaller grant than three entire subsidies.[291] The commons, on the other hand, had shown a disposition to grant no more than two. Francis Bacon stated the issue. He yielded to the subsidy, “but disliked,” he said, “that this house should join with the upper house in granting it. For the custom and privilege of this house hath always been, first to make offer of the subsidies from hence, then to the upper house; except it were that they present a bill unto this house, with desire of our assent thereto, and then to send it up again.”[292] The commons refused to have further conference with the lords, so determined were they to vindicate their right to originate money bills, by the vote 217 to 128. Notwithstanding this scrupulous adherence to principle, they accepted the suggestion and came forward with a grant of three subsidies, six tenths and six fifteenths.

The death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603, brought to an end the Tudor period and cleared the throne for James Stuart. The Tudor era was one which can be passed lightly over in a strict account of progress toward parliamentary supremacy in taxation. In such a study the period of the Tudors is a bywater. Yet the fact that the principles enunciated in the years prior to their accession stayed alive despite the attacks of Tudor subtlety, points to a vitality sufficient to down the Stuarts, and to establish permanent parliamentary control over the laying of taxes.