The History of Parliamentary Taxation in England

by Shepard Ashman Morgan

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

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 Worry about the supply 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

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 A grant with hard conditions 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]

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 Charles’s third Parliament, 1627-28 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, Threats of non- Parliamentary exaction“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]

The House immediately set itself to the consideration of grievances,Grievances have precedence 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;Denunciation of extortions 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]