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.”