[467]. See article 23 (which became c. 33), article 31 (c. 41), and article 32 (cc. 12 and 13), and cf. supra, pp. [140-1]. Whether article 12 (c. 35) was more a benefit to, than a restraint upon, traders seems doubtful.
[468]. This statement, for which evidence is given infra, is not always admitted. Taswell-Langmead, Eng. Const. Hist., p. 107, says “The city of London can never have been regarded as a demesne of the Crown.”
[469]. I. 712, citing Mem. Roll 39 Henry III.
[470]. Alternative explanations are possible, e.g. that the prelates, accustomed to tallage their own dependants, used their influence successfully to combat this innovation as “the thin end of the wedge.”
[471]. It might possibly be argued that the last clause of chapter 13 extending to all towns a confirmation of liberties and customs, was intended to embrace this provision as to aids. If so, the draftsman has expressed himself clumsily.
[472]. Such is the opinion expressed in the Lords’ Report on the Dignity of a Peer, I. 65.
[473]. In 1168, when Henry II. took an aid for the marriage of his daughter, London contributed £617 16s. 8d., which might afford a precedent for a “reasonable” aid. See Pipe Roll, 14 Henry II., cited Madox, I. 585.
[474]. See Const. Hist., II. 548. “Of the scope of this enactment there can be no doubt; it must have been intended to cover every species of tax not authorised by parliament, and ... it seems to have had the effect of abolishing the royal prerogative of tallaging demesne.”
[475]. E.g. Taswell-Langmead, Engl. Const. Hist., 106, and Anson, Law and Custom of the Const., I. 14. Dr. Stubbs, Const. Hist., I. 573, considers that these words “admit the right of the nation to ordain taxation.”