1272-1297
[Edward I, 1272-1307]
HENRY died the 16th November, 1272, with his son, the great Edward,
away on the crusade. But there was no question as to the succession;
the most powerful of the barons swore fealty to Edward four days after
his father’s death, and when he returned to England in the middle of
1274, he was crowned King of England. In the interim, the government
was in the hands of the Archbishop of York; the barons still resting
after their struggle with Henry III engaged in no warfare other than
their usual petty tumults. The regular income of the crown sufficed for
the expenses of government.
The young king whose way to the throne was thus paved for him, was
one of the greatest, if indeed he was not in truth the greatest,
figure which ever graced the English throne. He is credited with
being a lover of truth and purity, honorable and contented with
frugal living; he was wary and at the same time determined; an able
councillor, ingenious in working out the details of a plan, he was yet
most sure in accomplishment. Edward was by instinct a legislator, and
equally instinctive was his love of arbitrary power. Yet his wisdom
kept him short of tyranny and showed him that the fittest means of
conserving his own advantage was to allow Parliament reasonable leeway
and scrupulously to regard the forms of its enactments. Edward was,
however, capable of utilizing the letter of the law to the prejudice
of its spirit. And therein lay the chief defect in his generally
ascribed character of perfect monarch; he was not above using the law
to contravene the purposes for which the law itself was designed.
Representation, which had “ripened in the hand of Simon de Montfort,”
Edward I made the common fruit of the people. Edward had the conception
that the nation, if it be strong enough to live in the face of dangers,
must act as the united backing of a strong king. The relation, as he
intended it, between king and people is reciprocal; the strength of
the one is the strength of the other, and neither must predominate.
That was precisely the relation which such a Parliament as that called
by Edward I in 1295, was capable of bringing about; in it each of
the three estates had an essential share in the carrying on of the
government.
The early part of his reign is of importance secondary to that of
the decade ending with 1297. But an understanding of the supremely
important crisis which brought about the Confirmation of the Charters
is only to be built upon a knowledge of the various events which
preceded it.
Before Edward returned from Palestine, his regents summoned to a
Parliament held at Hilarytide 1273, not only prelates and barons,
but also four knights from each shire and four citizens from each
city.[123] The purpose of the convention was the taking of the oath
of allegiance to the new king, and the call was prompted doubtlessly
by the need of having the whole nation held loyal to the absent and
still uncrowned Edward. Here was another instance of the growing
appreciation of the usefulness of the commons.
[Edward’s first Parliament, 1275, and the Statute of
Westminster]
There was no taxation in the reign of Edward I, except as the clergy
taxed the people for the prosecution of the crusade, until Edward
called his first Parliament on the 22d April, 1275, at Westminster.
The composition of the assemblage is uncertain; the implication
of the Chronicler is that it was a Parliament of magnates,[124]
but the introductory clause of the Statute of Westminster has it
otherwise.[125] “These be the Acts of King Edward ...” it says, “by
his council and by the assent of archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors,
earls, barons and the community of the realm being thither assembled.”
The Statute of Westminster, which was composed of some fifty-one
articles, included a provision for regulating the feudal aids which
were required upon the knighting of the lord’s son or on the event of
the marriage of his daughter. Twenty shillings on the knight’s fee
and twenty shillings from each parcel of land held in socage yielding
twenty pounds annually, were to be the maximum rates thereafter.
[A custom on wool]
The great advantages gained by the nation under the Statute of
Westminster were not won without a price. The same Parliament made a
grant of a custom on wool, woolfells, and leather.[126] The parties
to the grant were essentially the same as those who registered their
assent in the preamble of the statute; there was, however, this
singular difference, that it was done “at the instance and request of
the merchants.” The amount levied was “a half-mark from each sack of
wool, and a half-mark from each three hundred woolfells, which make a
sack, and one mark from each last of leather, exported from the realm
of England,” etc.
The importance, both in a forward view and in retrospect of this
grant of a wool custom, is very great. Parliament in granting this
custom assumed the power of assenting to a tax which previously had
been considered within the peculiar province of the king. It made a
definite statement of what was to be taken subsequently as the legal
rate of duty chargeable upon exports of wool. The rate, which since
the beginning of the century had been agreed upon between royal
officers and merchants as their reasonable charge was this half mark
(6_s._ 8_d._) on each sack of wool weighing 364 pounds, or on the
estimated equivalent of a sack, 300 woolfells, and a mark upon each
last (or load) of leather.[127] Exactions above this rate were known
as _mala tolta_, the evil tolls, and the phrase had been shortened to
the single word maletolt. The forty-first chapter of Magna Carta had
promised to all merchants freedom “from all evil tolls,” though it
continued the “ancient and right customs.” Apparently, however, Henry
III with respect to this clause as in many another similar instance,
did not deem himself bound to adhere scrupulously to his promise.
The Parliament of Edward I at Westminster in 1275 settled the matter;
the “great and ancient custom” on wool was legally determined, and
thereafter a larger exaction would be regarded as illegal.[128]
[Edward’s Second Parliament, 13th October, 1275]
Edward summoned a second Parliament for the 13th October following in a
manner which gives ground for the presumption that the presence of the
knights of the shire in a parliament designed primarily for the raising
of money, was already becoming a custom. The point cannot be better
illustrated than by a translation of the writ itself.[129] “Since we
have bidden the prelates and magnates of our realm,” so it goes, “to
be present at our Parliament which we will hold ... at Westminster, to
treat with us both concerning the condition of our realm and of certain
of our business which we will declare to them at the same time, and
as it is expedient that two knights from the county above-mentioned be
present at the same Parliament from the body of discreet and lawful
knights of the same county, by the reasons above-stated we command
you that you cause to be elected in your full county-court (in pleno
comitatu) by the assent of the same county, the said two knights and
that you cause them to come to us at Westminster in behalf of the
community of the said county on the said day, to treat with us and
with the above-mentioned prelates and magnates about the above-stated
business. And omit none of it.”
[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.
[Parliaments of 1289 and 1290]
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. 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.
A second Parliament was held in July. To it Edward summoned two or
three elected knights from each shire.[143] The design behind the
calling of the Parliament was probably the securing of a grant of a
fifteenth of temporal movables, since it develops that such a tax
was laid at that session, by clergy and laity alike.[144] Edward
made a further demand of a tenth of spiritual revenue, which the
clergy granted him on the 2d October following.[145] Apparently these
offerings to the king were in payment for his banishment of the Jews,
who were hated for their usurious habits and for their religion; the
laity sought their expulsion for the former reason and the clergy
ostensibly for the latter, but the offence to their pockets doubtless
did much to arouse their religious zeal against the Jews.
The interval between 1290 and 1294 does not furnish a wealth of
material. The royal poverty coexisted with a spirit of restlessness
on the borders and in France during the four years, and little was
accomplished toward relieving either the one or the other. In 1291
the Pope had complicated Edward’s relations with the English clergy
by giving him a tenth of spiritual revenue for six years,[146] and
the barons holding estates in Wales gave a fifteenth in 1292. Edward
also had recourse to distraint of knighthood, which as in 1282 was
symptomatic of a straitened treasury.[147]
[Seizure of wool, 1294]
Edward in June, 1294, held at Westminster a Parliament which was
attended by the magnates of England and John Baliol, King of Scotland.
The barons determined upon war with France, and proceeded to provide
for the outlay necessitated by it, not by a general grant, but with
private contributions. John Baliol gave the income from the estates
which he held in England for three years, and the other magnates
“promised aid according to their abilities.”[148] But the supply was
far from being sufficient; Edward was obliged to adopt extraordinary
means to meet his obligations. Shortly before the Westminster Council
Edward had made a move which later assumed large proportions in the
parliamentary eye. He seized all the wool in the country, belonging
both to clergy and laymen, and released it the following July at a rate
which meant scarcely less than redemption, three to five marks on the
sack, and which was greatly in excess of the rate specified in 1275.
Edward had a shadow of legal sanction for his act, perhaps the consent
of the wool merchants,[149] perhaps an ordinance of his Council.[150]
In any event, he had the great defense of the exigencies of war, a plea
which he knew how to make effective. Early in July he seized coined
money which had been deposited in the cathedrals and religious houses
for safekeeping, and had it removed to his treasury in London. “And he
got much money which he never after restored,” says the Chronicler.[151]
[Clergy grant money under pain of outlawry, 1294]
Edward summoned for the 21st September of the same year a general
convocation of the clergy to London. Beside the usual body of prelates,
there were in attendance elected representatives of the parochial
and cathedral clergy. Edward demanded half the spiritual revenue, to
the great distress of the ecclesiastics. They demurred, and urged
a postponement which Edward granted them. Upon their reassembling,
the king reiterated his demand upon pain of outlawry in case of
nonfulfillment. The Dean of St. Paul’s was so greatly terrified that he
died of fright, and then the grant was made.[152] This assembly takes
its importance from the fact that here was a tacit recognition of the
need of clerical consent through representatives to taxation.
[Knights of the Shire meet separately]
On the 8th October, Edward addressed writs to the sheriffs ordering the
election of two knights in each shire who were to come to Westminster
on the 12th of the following month. They were to be of “full power
for themselves and the entire community of the county aforesaid,
to consult and consent for themselves and that community, to those
things which the earls, barons, and chief men shall have agreed upon
and ordained.”[153] The next day Edward sent out supplementary writs
summoning two knights from each shire in addition to those previously
called. There was no representation from the cities and boroughs. The
laity proved more tractable than the clergy had been at their assembly
in September, and readily accomplished Edward’s purpose. It is probable
that their deliberations were not delayed, for on the same day with
the assembling of the Parliament, was dated the appointment of the
commissioners of collection. The laity of the baronage and the shires
gave a tenth of all movables.[154] A sixth of movables was drawn from
the towns by separate negotiation, or perhaps by way of tallage.[155]
[Events leading up to the Model Parliament, 1295]
The step to the events and attainments of the next year was not
long, but it was of surpassing importance. The year 1295 is painted
in scarlet on the canvas of constitutional progress in England.
It witnessed the Model Parliament in the composition of which a
principle was applied which must ever stand as the basic theory of
popular legislative institutions; indeed, without it, there can be no
lawmaking by the nation at all, and when the taxing power be included
amongst the lawmaking functions, unless strict adherence be given
to this principle, the taxpayer can never be assured of a voice in
the laying of taxes. Edward I, furnishing the pattern, summoned the
Model Parliament on the expressed theory that “what touches all, by
all should be approved.” Here was the first authentic instance of a
perfect and complete representation of the three estates in a national
legislative body giving its assent to taxation.
The events immediately prior to the calling of the Parliament are of
interest. Trouble was on with the Welsh, and a Scotch war began before
the other was over. The French king had transgressed Edward’s Gascon
possessions and his sailors had landed at Dover, putting a convent
and some houses to the torch. Edward’s arms seemed doomed to universal
failure; nowhere were his prospects bright. By no means the least
serious feature of his position was an empty treasury. With the hope of
devising the means of changing his fortune, he summoned to Westminster
for the 1st August a Parliament composed of the barons and prelates of
the realm. The session took place on the 15th August. The bulk of the
debate was upon the proposal for papal mediation between England and
France, and no attempt was made to raise money. But it was doubtlessly
decided to ask for a grant at the meeting of Parliament intended for
the following autumn.[156]
[“What affects all, by all should be approved”]
On the four days from the 30th September to the 3d October, Edward
addressed writs to the clergy, the barons, and the sheriffs, the last
of whom were to send up the representatives of the counties and the
boroughs. In the writs to the clergy, by way of preamble Edward said,
“As a most just law, established by the careful providence of sacred
princes, exhorts and decrees that what affects all, by all should be
approved, so also, very evidently should common danger be met by means
provided in common.”[157] This legal maxim, which had previously held a
place only in the minds of students of the law, was by this act become
a most important element in the governmental practice of England.[158]
The writs provided not only for the attendance of the prelates, but
also for the sending up of representatives of the lower clergy,--the
archdeacons and deans in person, a suitable proctor for the chapters,
and two others for the parochial clergy of each diocese. All were to
have “full and sufficient power ... to consider, ordain, and provide.”
The writs to the barons[159] were similar in tenor to the usual
issuance upon such occasions. To the sheriffs it was “strictly
commanded” that they “cause to be elected without delay” and sent up to
Westminster “two knights from the aforesaid county, two citizens from
each city in the same county, and two burgesses from each borough, of
those who are especially discreet and capable of acting.” All were to
have “full and sufficient power for themselves and for the community of
the aforesaid county ... and the communities of the aforesaid cities
and boroughs separately, then and there for doing what shall then be
ordained according to the common counsel in the premises; so that the
aforesaid business shall not remain unfinished in any way for defect of
this power.”[160]
[The Model Parliament, 27th Nov., 1295]
The Parliament, since known as the Model Parliament, assembled the
27th November, 1295, in accordance with the summons of the king. Each
of the estates met by itself, and each made its grant to the king
independently of the others.[161] The barons and the knights of the
shire gave Edward an eleventh of their movables, the clergy a tenth,
and the burgesses and citizens a seventh.[162] Here was the perfect
form for the laying of taxes. In 1283 the provincial councils at
Northampton and at York had suggested the composition of the Model
Parliament, but the foreshadowed form was far from perfect. In 1295
the question was fully answered as to how the people should assent to
taxation, in case their assent should be asked. The Model Parliament
furnished the perfect mechanism; the question was still in the air,
however, as to whether this mechanism should be the sole instrument by
which the laying of taxation should be performed.
[Similar composition at Parliament of 1296]
Events, however, were tripping one another up in their haste to bring
forward a suitable answer. The Parliament of 1296, which met at Bury
St. Edmund’s on the 3d November, clinched a precedent which should have
its weight in making the reply. Its constitution was precisely the same
as in 1295; the barons and knights gave a twelfth of their movables,
and the citizens and burghers an eighth.
[Edward puts the clergy in outlawry]
The clergy, however, held off. According to the understanding reached
the previous December when Edward accepted from them a tenth in lieu of
a larger grant, they were to meet a demand with a further contribution
of like amount,[163] unless peace be declared in the interval. In
consequence, Edward was scarcely ready to accept the apology of
Archbishop Winchelsey; the archbishop declared that should the
clergy acquiesce, the papal will expressed in the recently published
bull “Clericis laicos”[164] would be contravened, and that therefore
no grant would be forthcoming. He would give his final answer after
meeting the clergy of his province at St. Paul’s early in January,
1297. When at last his reply was presented, it was in tenor different
from that given in November; the Pope’s will was clear and it must
hold. Edward moved swiftly. Remembering the satisfactory effect of his
threat of outlawry in 1294, he immediately placed the clergy beyond
the royal protection.[165] Some of the clergy won back the favor of
the king by making individual contributions to the royal treasury,
an evasion of the terms of the papal bull which was quite acceptable
to Edward. On the 12th February, the king, weary of waiting for a
favorable movement from Archbishop Winchelsey, ordered the seizure
of the lay fees of the clergy in the see of Canterbury, whereat the
archbishop brought forward his weapon of excommunication. Thus did
Edward find disposed against himself and the royal cause the powerful
body of English churchmen, at a moment when their adherence would have
been of vast advantage.
[Struggle with the barons over service in Gascony]
The Scots had been put down during the year 1296 and Baliol removed
forever from Scotch territory. The momentary peace on the borders
made Edward feverish to avenge himself upon Philip of France, who was
making free with Gascony. The trouble with the church had served to
delay preparations which might speedily have reached completion upon
the granting of money at the November Parliament, and Edward was in
no temper to brook further interference. He had formulated a plan of
campaign against the French which provided not only for an expedition
into Gascony in reinforcement of the army already there, but for the
landing of a powerful force in Flanders. The latter he intended to lead
in person, but the conduct of the Gascon army he hoped to delegate
to his barons. With the intention of securing their consent he called
a meeting of the baronage at Salisbury for the 24th February. Neither
the clergy nor the knights and burgesses were present. The barons held
freshly in mind the recent opposition of the clergy and they were in no
mood to forego any tightening of the royal bonds upon themselves.
Edward urged them to go into Gascony, and straightway one by one they
began to make excuses. To the king, burning to defend the English
possessions abroad and already overwrought by the long struggle with
the churchmen, the refusal savored of disloyalty, and in requital he
threatened them with forfeiture of their lands. The two great earls
Roger Bigod, Earl of Norfolk and Marshal of England, and Humfrey Bohun
of Hereford, the Constable, were quite as backward in meeting the
king’s wishes and no more favorably received.
“With you, O King,” said Earl Roger, “I will gladly go: as belongs to
me by hereditary right, I will go in the front of the host before your
face.”
“But without me,” Edward assured, “you will go with the rest.”
“Without you, O King,” Earl Roger declared, “I am neither bound to go,
nor will I.”
“By God, Earl,” swore the king, “You shall either go or hang!”
“By the same oath, O King, I will neither go nor hang!”[166]
[Seizure of wool]
In these words and on these grounds the Earl Marshal of England refused
to undertake foreign service, and the Council scattered. Edward,
not to be undone, straightway set about preparing for an expedition
independently of his baronage. He laid hands upon all the wool and
woolfells of the country, that being the commodity most readily
convertible into money, and ordered that it be carried to the seaports.
In default of obedience, this wool passed to the crown by confiscation.
Every merchant who was the possessor of more than five sacks received
tallies from the royal commissioners which might or might not secure
payment in the future.[167] Those who had less than five sacks were
allowed to retain it upon paying a toll of forty shillings on the
sack. Simultaneously, Edward directed at every county a demand for
2000 quarters of wheat, a like quantity of oats, and a supply of beef
and pork. Whereas in 1294 Edward had been able to plead the consent of
the merchants to his toll on wool, in the present instance no plea was
possible save the exigencies of the case, and that was no defense at
law. So Edward, by stress of circumstance, was obliged to forfeit the
support of a growing and exceedingly important body of his people.
The king determined to make a final attempt to win the barons from
their contumacy. For the 7th July, he summoned the whole fighting force
of the kingdom to London; the assembly was to include all who held
lands to the annual value of £20, no matter what the tenure.[168] From
these a demand for foreign service was obviously unconstitutional,
since they were not immediately bound to him. Coupled with the weakness
of the king’s position was the continued opposition of Bohun and Bigod;
they and a large number of the other barons had surrounded themselves
with a force of knights to the number of fifteen hundred, and, though
they were not as yet openly hostile, they had been able to shield their
lands from the royal exactions of wool and wheat.[169] When Edward
ordered the Marshal and the Constable to perform their offices, they
refused.
Thus it was that Edward found himself pitted not only against the
King of France, but also against the church, the merchant class, and
his own baronage. Of these the church showed itself most amenable to
placation. Edward restored to Archbishop Winchelsey the lands of the
see of Canterbury which he had confiscated.[170] To strengthen further
a position which at best was exceedingly weak, Edward made a dramatic
attempt to win over to his cause the support of the people.
On the 14th July, a week after his unsuccessful council with the
barons, he appeared on a wooden stage erected in front of the great
hall at Westminster and addressed the populace. He asked that they
forgive the harshness of his acts, but reminded them that what money
they had given him had gone to subdue enemies plotting to drive the
English tongue from the earth.
[Edward’s appeal to the people]
“Behold,” he cried, his voice choked with tears, “I am going to expose
myself to danger for your sakes; I pray you, if I return, receive me
as you have me now, and I will restore to you all that has been taken.
But if I return not,” and at this he brought forward his son, the young
Edward, who was standing near him on the platform, “crown my son as
your king.”[171] The people threw up their caps and promised fealty to
the king. The archbishop declared his resolve to be faithful.
[His financial expedients]
But neither the reconciliation with the church nor the adherence of
the London populace brought him money, and in so far as advantage was
reckoned in terms of shillings, Edward was no better off than before
his council of the 7th July. He had recourse to the old expedient
of individual negotiation. He consulted in a private audience the
chief men still remaining of those who had gathered for the military
levy; he assumed their ability to grant taxes upon the analogy of a
Parliament, an assumption scarcely reasonable in view of their depleted
numbers. Notwithstanding the fact that Earls Roger and Humfrey remained
obdurate, such of the barons and knights as were there granted an
eighth and the citizens and burghers a fifth, on the somewhat hazy
understanding that the king should confirm the charters. Edward on the
30th July gave orders for the collection of the tax and issued writs
for the seizure of 8000 sacks of wool, for which the merchants received
tallies as a record of credit at the exchequer.[172]
[The barons’ grievances]
Then he went down to the coast and prepared to embark. Putting great
faith in the continued support of the people, he addressed to them
an eloquent plea for loyalty to the crown as against the barons. He
spoke of the exactions of money to which they had been subjected,
and declared that, severe as was the pain which had been inflicted
upon the people, equally great was his own distress; that the money
had been spent for “le commun profit du reaume, pur son pople honyr
et destruyre.”[173] The barons, on the other hand, immediately came
forward with a list of grievances which they presented to the king,
complaining, amongst other things, of the aids, tallages, and prises
which the king had lately levied. So afflicted were they with “divers
tallages, aids, and prises,” such as those upon corn, oats, malt, wool,
hides, oxen, kine, and salt meat, that it would have been impossible
for them to equip for any foreign expedition. More than that, they
could make no grant of an aid, because of their great poverty following
the exaction of the aforesaid tallages and prises; indeed, there were
“many who had no sustenance, and who could not till their lands.” The
tax on wool was much too heavy, no less than 40_s._ on the sack; wool
comprised half the wealth of the nation, and the tax was equivalent
to a fifth part of the value of the whole land. Magna Carta and the
Charter of the Forest were both disregarded, and many acts were done
in defiance of them.[174]
[Edward embarks for Flanders]
Edward did not return a definite answer; the call to war sounded too
loudly. Before he embarked he issued orders for the collection of a
third of clerical temporalities in a most peremptory manner; on the
10th August the clergy had expressed hopes of being able to gain the
Pope’s permission to disregard the provisions of “Clericis laicos,”
but of late they had showed a disposition to stand with the baronage.
Finally, on the 22d August, Edward succeeded in getting up sail and
made for Flanders.
But he could not escape the issue. Almost before England had sunk below
his horizon Bohun and Bigod were at the Exchequer loudly protesting
against the collection of the aid which had been irregularly granted to
Edward five weeks previously. They went to the extreme of forbidding
the Barons of the Exchequer to proceed with their work of taking the
tax until Edward should make formal confirmation of the Charters.[175]
The Londoners forgot their loyalty to the king, and swore by the earls.
The young Prince Edward, afterward king, whom Edward had left as his
regent, tried to throw a dam across the swelling river by promising
that the eighth should not be taken into precedent.[176] This was
published in proclamation on the 28th August, but it availed nothing.
The fifth which had been asserted as owing from the cities and boroughs
was lost sight of.
Edward, two days before his departure for Flanders had sent out
summonses to a number of barons and knights to meet his son on the
8th September at Rochester. But before that date was reached, the
necessity for a full Council was apparent. Accordingly, on the 8th
September, messages were sent out which called most of the barons of
the royal party; on the 9th, Archbishop Winchelsey, the Constable and
the Marshal, were summoned,[177] and on the 15th letters were addressed
to the sheriffs ordering an election of knights of the shire.[178] No
representatives of the cities and boroughs or of the inferior clergy
were called.
[Principle that grants must await redress of grievances]
The Parliament was summoned for the octaves of St. Michael (the 6th
October), at London. The great nobles, coming with their train of armed
soldiers, both foot and horse, had command of the situation.[179]
They demanded that the young regent confirm Magna Carta and the
Charter of the Forest, together with certain supplementary articles.
Prince Edward, acting on the advice of his councillors, agreed,
and straightway on the 10th October, sent the Charters and the new
provisions to his father in Flanders for final confirmation. Nor was
that enough. “The earls,” says Bishop Stubbs, “took advantage of their
strength to force on the government the principle, which both before
and long after was a subject of contention among English statesmen,
that grievances must be redressed before supplies are granted.”[180]
The irregular and much disputed grant of an eighth they declared null,
and in place of it they substituted a ninth from such of the laity
as were in attendance, a grant in which the towns subsequently were
included. Here was one of the opening battles in the war which was to
decide whether or not Parliament, sitting guardian of the public purse,
could by reason of that guardianship, establish its control over the
executive as well as the legislative acts of the nation.
[Confirmation of the Charters]
The articles found the king at Ghent on the 5th November and he set his
name both to the Charters and to the provisions supplementary to them.
The difficulties with the barons thus concluded, it was not long before
the clerical atmosphere cleared also. On the 20th November, the clergy,
in response to a suggestion from Archbishop Winchelsey, evading the
letter of “Clericis laicos,” initiated a tax upon themselves, a fifth
from the northern province, and a tenth from the southern.[181] The
purpose of the levy was the defense of the realm against the Scots who
had again invaded the north.[182]
Edward I, when he signed “Confirmatio Cartarum,” in an inconclusive
way handed over to Parliament the right to consent to all taxation
before it be levied; in other words, hereafter Parliament had grounds
upon which it could contest arbitrary exactions of the crown. That the
grounds for objection were not absolute and that Edward left a loophole
by which he could escape will appear upon a consideration of the
articles themselves.
[The tax provisions of Confirmatio Cartarum]
The first four chapters of Confirmatio Cartarum have to do with the
bare reissuance of the Charter of Henry III, and penalties for their
infraction. The fifth is more to the point; it provides that the recent
exactions shall not be taken into precedent for future taxation.[183]
The sixth chapter brings the issue directly before us and exhibits
also the loophole by which the king might find his escape from it, if
he should have the inclination and the power to do so. It says that
“for no business from henceforth we shall take of our realm such manner
of aids, tasks, nor prises, but by the common assent of all the realm,
and for the common profit thereof, saving the ancient aids and prises
due and accustomed.”[184] The chapter going on in reference to the evil
custom of forty shillings on every sack of wool, commonly known as the
“maletolt,” says, “We ... have granted that we will not take such thing
nor any other without their common assent and good will; saving to us
and our heirs the custom of wools, skins, and leather, granted before
by the commonalty aforesaid.”
The chapters are explicit. Of the two, the sixth is of far greater
consequence, both to those seeking in Confirmatio Cartarum a complete
statement of the right of Parliament to exercise exclusive control
over taxation and to those looking for a vindication of the royal
prerogative. The fifth can be taken for what it was, a mere promise on
the part of the king not to bring forward past wrongs in defense of
future ills,--a promise, the like of which was seldom of much practical
avail. The sixth, however, were it not for two clauses saving to the
king “the ancient aids and prises, due and accustomed,” and the “custom
of wools, skins, and leather granted before,” would have established a
tolerably broad basis for the theory that royal control over taxation
underwent its legal death in 1297. The facts, however, that the king
could still retain his right to levy ancient aids and prises, provided
they were what his ancestors were wont to exact; that he could claim
unquestioned control over the wool-tax to the extent of half a mark on
the sack; and that nothing was said at all about his right to tallage
his demesne and the city of London, form a sound backing for the
contention that not only was the royal power over taxation not dead,
but that it was still vigorous and capable of much future activity.
One might rightfully deduce, also, at least in so far as an explicit
reading of the text can lead one to conclusions, that within certain
circumscribed limits, the royal prerogative would be unquestioned.
By implication, however, it is possible to read into Confirmatio
Cartarum a different significance than a bald consideration of its
contents allows. The mere fact that the nation had taken a stand on
the matter of taxation marks the year 1297 as of profound importance;
the fact that the stand was not conclusive, that it did not represent
the fullest advance possible at the time, is not to be wondered at.
Furthermore, the subsequent Parliaments saw to it that the king
observed more than the mere letter of the law, notwithstanding Edward’s
evident aptitude for only that. The case in this respect was not unlike
the observance of the omitted chapters of Magna Carta; though the
written form of them had been misunderstood and unappreciated, yet by
the natural forces at play between king and Councils, the spirit of
them survived.
[De tallagio non concedendo]
The so-called Statute _De tallagio non concedendo_, if it could be
taken at its face value, provided exactly those restraints upon the
royal power wherein Confirmatio Cartarum was wanting. It appears in the
Chronicle of Walter of Hemingburgh immediately after the French text
of Confirmatio Cartarum under the heading “Articuli incerti in Magna
Carta,”[185] “No tallage or aid,” it says, “shall be laid or levied
by us or our heirs in our realm, without the good will and assent of
the archbishops, bishops, earls, barons, knights, burgesses, and other
freemen of our realm.”[186]
Seizure of corn, wool, and leather was provided against, and the
maletolt was forever done away with. Humfrey Bohun and Roger Bigod
received pardon for themselves and their following for failing to serve
in the train of Edward when he went to Flanders.
_De tallagio non concedendo_ was denominated a statute in the Petition
of Right and declared to be such by decision of the judges, in the
Hampden case in 1637. In all probability, however, it is nothing but
the Latin abstract of Confirmatio Cartarum, included by Walter of
Hemingburgh in his narrative for the greater convenience of the reader,
together with a formal statement of the pardon of the two earls. That
Edward did not feel himself bound by the restrictions of the “Statute”
is shown by the fact that in 1304 he tallaged the towns and the royal
demesne. Furthermore, the nation seems at the time not to have regarded
the Chronicler’s articles as law, for they registered no complaint
against Edward’s tallage.[187]
The appearance of Confirmatio Cartarum marked a stage in the history
of parliamentary taxation. During the reigns of Henry III and Edward,
machinery was constructed which could carry out the chapters of Magna
Carta providing for taxation by assent. The Parliament of the three
estates, assembled for the purpose of meeting the pecuniary necessities
of the king, proved itself to be the easiest and most effective means
by which the whole nation could grant taxes. But the evolution from the
Commune Concilium, the rough prototype of Parliament, had scarcely gone
farther than to supply a convenient instrument of taxation. In 1297
every tax did not need the assent of Parliament as the prerequisite to
its levy; Confirmatio Cartarum was not all-inclusive. More than that,
the question was still undetermined as to whether the granting of
supplies should always wait upon redress of grievances. If Parliament
should maintain that principle in practice, then its hold would be
secure upon the executive. Power in 1297 was not far from a balance
between king and nation.
If the evolution of a government can ever be attributed to the
directing skill of man rather than to the slow weaving of events,
the construction for England of an engine of popular taxation can be
ascribed to Edward Plantagenet, and in less degree to the drafter of
the working plan, Simon de Montfort. Edward perceived the nation’s
problem and adapted such means as lay near his hand to its solution. So
it was that an assembly, not only of the magnates of the kingdom, but
of elected knights of the shire, of parish priests from the inferior
clergy, of merchant citizens and burgesses from the towns, came
together to provide in common for the common need.
V
TAXATION BY THE COMMONS 1297-1461
[Character of the period]
THE years subsequent to 1297 up to the time of the Tudors comprise a
period of differentiation within Parliament itself. Save for the event
of the year 1340, when the statute was passed which completed the
movement punctuated by Confirmatio Cartarum, to the effect that every
form of taxation must have the sanction of Parliament in order to be
legal, the three centuries showed greater progress inside the walls of
Parliament than beyond them. Struggles there were in plenitude between
king and Parliament to secure adherence in practice to the theory
enunciated in 1340, but the great question was that of the ruling
power within Parliament. It is during this period that the Commons
come forward as the sole initiators of taxes, leaving to the Lords
merely the coördinate power of consent. In close interrelation with
this monopoly of power over the public purse, comes, in consequence
of the theory that supplies must wait upon redress of grievances, the
advance toward control by the House of Commons of the entire machinery
of government, legislative and executive.
It is a period of confusion and contradiction. Time and again
constitutional life seems to be dead. War, disputed succession to the
crown, tyranny, slip-shod government,--these and more tend to make
the years 1297-1461 a bundle of scenes ill-bound together. The Wars
of the Roses, the struggles with France for various causes and with
varied consequences, the doting of monarchs upon foreign favorites,
all contribute toward popular distraction from that interest in
government, that keen hostility to maladministration, which makes
for constitutional progress. There was no leader to prick the public
conscience; no Simon de Montfort or Edward Plantagenet to inaugurate
reforms in the great matters of government.
[The Parliament of Lincoln, 1301]
When Edward I put his name to Confirmatio Cartarum at Ghent, on
the 5th November, 1297, he had still ten years to live. In 1301, he
re-confirmed the Charters in a bill of some twelve articles forced
from him by the barons in a manner which he denounced as outrageous,
and thereby concluded the baronial conflict. The barons presented
their claims at the Parliament of Lincoln which was summoned for the
20th January, 1301, and included amongst them, beside the plea for a
confirmation of the Charters, a demand for the enforcement of general
reforms, this last to be the prerequisite for a grant of money. A
fifteenth of all movables was then voted to the king, to be paid upon
the completion of the reforms, the date proposed being Michaelmas next
coming.[188] The clergy, who still professed adherence to the bull
“Clericis laicos,” with the approval of the baronage averred that
they could not acquiesce in any grant of money in the face of papal
prohibition. Edward, in his reply to the claims made by the barons,
declared his unwillingness to admit the validity of the assertion that
papal consent was necessary to the clerical grant. His confirmation of
the Charters was dated 14th February, 1301.[189]
[Edward’s financial expedients]
[Tunnage and poundage and other customs]
Edward’s last years were years of financial difficulty. In 1302 at the
Parliament held on the 1st July, at London, he received from the lay
estates and the clergy a fifteenth of temporal goods.[190] The same
year saw him turn back to the aid _pur fille marier_ which the barons
had granted twelve years previously in June, 1290; and in 1303 he
attempted to obtain the consent of the merchants to an increase in the
custom on wine, wool, and merchandise. He called a meeting at York,
quite irregular in its constitutional aspect, and presented the matter
for its consideration. The merchants would not listen to the plea and
the matter, as far as denizens were concerned, was dropped.[191] Five
months previously, on the 1st February, Edward had had better fortune
in a similar effort with the foreign merchants. On the principle that
the crown had the right to close the ports to merchant strangers,
Edward entered into negotiation with the leading men amongst them, and
in return for a grant of all the privileges and liberties essential to
them, they agreed to a fifty per cent. increase over the rates paid
upon wools and leather by English-born merchants. Beside these were new
duties upon other commodities, whether they be exported or imported:
wine, 2_s._ on the tun, a custom which was to achieve notoriety
under the name of tunnage; cloth, from 1_s._ to 2_s._ on the piece
depending upon the dye; general merchandise, 3_d._ in the pound of
20_s._, subsequently called poundage; and wax, 1_s._ per quintal.[192]
This agreement between king and merchants, known by the title “Carta
Mercatoria,” was not technically in contravention of Confirmatio
Cartarum, notwithstanding the provisions of the latter against the
levying without national consent of any but the “ancient prises” and
the custom on wool previously granted. Confirmatio Cartarum was a grant
to Englishmen and to Edward’s sharply legal mind, its liberties did not
extend to foreigners, however closely knit their relations might be
with the king’s own people.
[Tallage, 1304]
In 1304 Edward took from the demesne cities and boroughs and the royal
demesne a sixth of movables.[193] The records of the Parliament of
1305, far from noting any complaint against the king’s tallage, contain
this memorandum: “To the petition of archbishops, bishops, prelates,
earls, barons, and other good men of the land, praying that the king
wills to grant them the power to tallage their ancient demesne ... even
as the king has tallaged his demesne, it was answered, ‘Let it be as
petitioned.’”[194] This is all but final evidence against the validity
of _De tallagio non concedendo_.[195]
[Edward II, 1307-1327]
The great Edward died at Burgh-upon-Sands on Friday, the 7th July,
1307, and the sceptre fell into the nerveless hand of Edward II. The
new king did not inherit his father’s great attributes nor his good
fortune; he was improvident and unperceptive, the faithful dupe of
advantage-seeking associates, the lavish spender of money he did not
have, the chief enemy of himself. At last, when he had reigned some
twenty years, he was put down and his son succeeded in his stead.
Edward II’s accession was undisputed; at Carlisle, on the 20th July, he
received the homage and fealty of the English baronage, and six months
later on the 25th February, 1308, he was crowned. The coronation oath
he was obliged to take in French, not being familiar with the Latin
tongue. The oath was more than usually stringent; the last of the four
promises required of the king was this: “Sire, do you grant to hold
and to keep the laws and righteous customs which the community of your
realm shall have chosen, and will you defend and strengthen them to the
honor of God, to the utmost of your power?” Edward answered, “I grant
and promise.”[196]
Edward did not call a Parliament between
October 1307, and April 1309.[197] He was in fear, apparently, of an
attack upon his foreign favorite, Piers Gaveston, and was desirous
of shielding him, as Charles I attempted to shield Buckingham three
centuries later, by doing without a Parliament. The only merit of
the favorite seems to have been the deep, and in its consequences
the pathetic love with which he inspired the young monarch. He was
self-seeking, avaricious, willful, and capable of exercising a
domination over the king as complete as it was profitable to himself.
At last, however, the loans, which his Italian bankers, the Friscobaldi
had supplied Edward, withered away and he was obliged to issue a
summons to a Parliament.
[Tentative abolition of the New Customs]
Parliament met on the 27th April, 1309, with a full attendance of
clergy, lords, knights and burgesses. In response to Edward’s urgent
request for funds, the lords, burgesses and knights granted him a
meagre twenty-fifth, but only on condition of a redress of grievances,
these being detailed in a schedule of eleven articles.[198] Two of
the eleven have to do with taxation; the first was directed at the
abuses of purveyance; the second hit more nearly, having to do with the
New Customs which Edward I had provided for in the Carta Mercatoria
of 1303.[199] “And as to the customs which the king taketh by his
officers--,” so goes the memorandum in the Rolls, “that is to say, of
every tun of wine, two shillings; of every cloth which alien merchants
bring into his land, two shillings; and of every pound value of avoir
de pois, three pence--the king willeth at the request of the said good
people that the said customs of wines, clothes, and avoir de pois, do
cease at his will, in order to know and be advised what profit and
advantage will accrue to him and his people by ceasing the taking
of those customs; and the king will have counsel according to the
advantage which he shall see therein: saving always to the king the
ancient prises and customs anciently due and approved.” The king gave
orders that the conditional grant of the twenty-fifth be collected.
[The Lords Ordainers, 1309-1311]
The trouble over Gaveston, however, was not settled, and he became
increasingly worrisome to the barons. Furthermore the customs were
collected not by Englishmen but by Edward’s Italian bankers. In March
1310, meeting in council, the barons drew up a petition praying against
the impoverishment of the exchequer despite grants of money; the king,
so they said, was still exacting prises and living by purveyance
contrary to the engagement of 1309. Edward, still hoping to shield
Gaveston, assented to the election of a commission of twenty-one, known
as the Lords Ordainers, who exercised his authority for the space of a
year and a half.
The Lords Ordainers, recalling in their composition and purposes those
who put forward the scheme of reform in the Provisions of Oxford of
1255, proceeded to promulgate ordinances for the correction of abuses.
On the 2d August, 1310, six ordinances were made public and received
the confirmation of the king.[200] By the fourth, it was ordained “that
the customs of the realm be kept and received by people of the realm,
and not by aliens; and that the issues and profits of the same customs,
together with all other issues and profits of the realm arising from
any matters whatsoever, shall come entirely to the King’s exchequer,
... to maintain the household of the king, and otherwise to his profit,
so that the king may live of his own, without taking prises other than
those anciently due and accustomed; and all others shall cease.”[201]
Despite the apparent inclusion of the “New Customs” within the meaning
of this ordinance, their resumption was ordered the same day, on the
ground that during the period of their prohibition, prices had not been
reduced.[202]
[New Customs abolished]
Parliament met on the 8th August, 1311, to receive the final report of
the Ordainers, and sat for two months. Thirty-five additional articles
were drawn up in Parliament.[203] By the tenth article new prises
are to be abolished, and by the eleventh the New Customs are done
away with in their entirety. “New customs have been levied,” says the
ordinance, “and the old enhanced, as upon wools, cloths, wines, avoir
de pois, and other things, whereby the merchants come more seldom, and
bring fewer good into the land, and the foreign merchants abide longer
than they were wont to do, by which abiding things become more dear
than they were wont to be, to the damage of the king and his people;
we do ordain that all manner of customs and imposts levied since the
coronation of King Edward, son of King Henry, be entirely put out, and
altogether extinguished for ever, notwithstanding the charter which the
said King Edward made to the merchant aliens, because the same was made
contrary to the Great Charter ..., saving nevertheless to the king the
customs of wools, woolfells, and leather; that is to say, for each sack
of wool, half a mark, and for three hundred woolfells, half a mark, and
for a last of leather, one mark ..., and henceforth merchant strangers
shall come, abide, and go according to the ancient customs....”[204] On
the 9th October, the day upon which Parliament rose, the order went
out which made the ordinance effective.[205]
[Banishment of Gaveston]
[Tallage of 1312: Riots in London and Bristol]
Gaveston, the hated favorite, whose corruption and acts of oppression
had furnished the immediate cause for the reform movement, was amply
provided for. He was put under sentence of perpetual banishment and
in order to safeguard themselves against the return to power of him
and his kind, the barons reiterated the demand made in 1244, that the
appointment of ministers be subject in the future to their council
and consent.[206] The king gave his assent to the ordinances on the
30th September and two weeks later they went out to the sheriffs for
publication.
The Parliament which met in 1312 granted Edward no money. His position
was desperate and he turned everywhere in the hope that he could raise
funds wherewith to meet his necessities; the merchants and the clergy,
even the Pope, were induced to lend him money. But they could not
satisfy his needs; therefore in December, 1312, the Council determined
to levy a tallage on the demesne towns and the royal demesne of a
fifteenth of movables and a tenth of rents.[207] The imposition met
with opposition, resistance being most riotous in London and Bristol.
The objections which the people of Bristol raised were not based upon
legal grounds; it so happened that at the moment certain of their
burgesses were confined in the Tower of London, and that grievance,
so they maintained, warranted their refusal. The basis for resistance
raised by the citizens of London was not so casual; they claimed
immunity from a royal tallage on the ground of the “ancient privileges”
guaranteed to them under Magna Carta. Neither cited _De tallagio non
concedendo_ as the defense of their actions, and the presumption
against the validity of the so-called statute is therefore enhanced.
The king secured his payment by way of compromise; the Londoners
granted a “loan” of £400 and another of £1000, from which sums they
were to be relieved at the time of collection of the next general
aid. Many other towns escaped upon the ground that they were not
situated within the royal demesne. The principle that the king could
levy tallages upon his own demesne thus remained unquestioned; but no
tallage was levied during the rest of this reign.[208]
[Deposition of Edward II]
It is unnecessary to follow Edward II to his melancholy end. His
deposition came more as the result of stress in his own household than
because of any strain which he put upon the constitution. Favorites,
an unfaithful wife, and factions which he bred among his barons, did
more to bring about his dethronement and his subsequent murder than any
condition of taxation. In the list of grievances which Bishop Stratford
drew up as furnishing cause sufficient for the overthrow of Edward,
nothing appears which has any connection with the question of taxation,
much less any assertion of parliamentary right to control it. The king
consented to the election of his son in his stead on January 20, 1327.
Eight months thereafter he died; few doubt that he was murdered.
[Edward III, 1327-1377]
The reign of Edward III dates from the 24th January, 1327. He was
crowned five days later at the age of fourteen and took the same
stringent oath as that which had failed to bind his father. Parliament
appointed a council of government which was to be in constant
attendance upon the king; but the queen and her familiar, Mortimer,
assumed so dominant a control over the young king that the influence
of the Council was nil. Edward went through the formality of confirming
the charters and forbidding illegal assessment of aids. His rule really
did not begin until November, 1330, when Mortimer was killed.
Edward III, being no statesman, but a warrior, energetic, without
scruple, lavish, and ambitious, was not a figure designed to loom
large in constitutional history. He did not mould events as did his
grandfather; he watched them move. As a matter of fact there was
advance. Tallage was prohibited and there came, too, the abolition in
law of other forms of arbitrary taxation.
[Tallage of 1332 and its withdrawal]
Edward had in mind in 1332 the reduction of Scotland.[209] To that end
he revived a financial expedient which had not been exercised since
his father’s embarrassment in 1312, and tallaged the demesne cities
and boroughs, and the rural demesne. On the 25th June, he sent out
orders for the collection of a fourteenth of movables and a ninth of
rents.[210]
Parliament met three months later, on the 9th September, and a request
formulated by the prelates, earls, barons, and the knights of the
shires, was addressed to the king praying the recall of the commission
for the tallage; Parliament offered as a substitute a fifteenth from
the shires and a tenth from the towns. Just why a Parliament in which
the Rolls do not note the inclusion of the burgesses should accomplish
such a substitution, which obviously benefited the townsmen, is not
clear, unless a considerable portion of the knights dwelt within the
royal demesne or in small towns formerly subjected to the exaction of
tallage. In his acceptance of the grant Edward promised for the future
that he would not lay such a tallage, “Except as was customary in the
time of our ancestors, and as he might rightly do.”[211] It was not,
however, until the sweeping legislation of 1340 that tallage became
illegal.
[New Customs become a regular means of revenue]
In parallel to the struggle against tallaging the royal demesne was the
contest with the king in the matter of the custom on wool. Edward in
1328 confirmed the reëstablished scale of 1322 which his father in his
hour of supremacy had laid upon the alien merchants, in amount equal to
the “nova custuma” of Edward I. From this time the New Customs became
a part of the regular revenue of the crown, though Parliament did not
yield its sanction until a time some fifty years after the first levy,
when, in 1353, it gave its assent to the Statute of Staples.
But the regulation of the relations between king and merchant denizens,
and incidentally through them, his relations (aside from the New
Customs) with the aliens, is not so briefly told. Throughout the reign
of Edward III the question was being quietly fought out as to whether
or not the king might tamper with the wool customs irrespective of
parliamentary sanction. In 1332 Edward issued an ordinance which
provided for the collection of a subsidy on the wool of denizens; the
rate was to be half a mark on the sack and 300 woolfells, and twenty
shillings on the last of leather. A year later on the 30th June, 1333,
Edward recalled his ordinance, but he did not relinquish his grasp
upon the customs; by negotiation with the merchants, he received ten
shillings on the sack and 300 woolfells and a pound on the last. In
order to bolster up the legality of the proceeding, he issued a royal
ordinance to the same effect.[212]
[The wool customs]
In August of the year 1336, when the king’s arms were meeting with
great success on the northern border, Edward, confident in his
popularity, sent out royal letters forbidding the export of wool.[213]
Parliament met at Nottingham the following month full of pride in the
military prowess of the king, and granted him liberal aids. Not only
did the barons and knights contribute a twentieth, the towns a tenth,
the clergy a sixth, but the merchants, who were at this moment, so it
appeared, on the verge of attaining to the dignity of a fourth estate
in Parliament, granted him forty shillings on the sack of wool; and
the foreign merchants were to pay an additional twenty shillings.[214]
In the hope that its action would encourage the domestic manufacture
of cloth, Parliament in March, 1337, passed a statute forbidding
the exportation of wool, and offering foreign operatives special
inducements to settle in England.[215] The embargo was to continue
until the king and his Council should decide otherwise. Thus empowered,
Edward and his Council issued an ordinance imposing upon denizens a
custom of £2 on the sack and on 300 woolfells, and £3 on the last of
leather; the unfortunate aliens were to pay double.[216]
The effect upon the people was immediate; unable to sympathize with
the project of importing skilled labor and seeing only the curtailment
in profits normally accruing from their chief article of export, they
were led almost to the point of revolt. The Parliament which met in
September 1339, in answer to the general cry for reform, brought
forward measures aimed to allay the popular irritation. The barons made
the curious grant of “the tenth sheaf, the tenth lamb, and the tenth
fleece, payable in two years,” and they “willed that the maletolt of
wool lately levied afresh, be entirely removed and held to the old
rate.”[217] The knights and burgesses, questioning their ability to
grant money to the king without first consulting their constituents,
desired the matter deferred to a subsequent Parliament. They mentioned
six grievances upon which they demanded redress. They asked release
from the customary aids and prises, and “that the maletolt of wool and
lead be taken as of old, for that the same is now increased without the
assent of Parliament.”[218] The new Parliament, in accordance with the
will of the knights and burgesses, was summoned for the 20th January,
1340.
At this session no new legislation was undertaken. Edward was
abroad and his absence discouraged the members from enunciating new
principles. They showed themselves, however, sympathetic with the royal
necessities. The lords again offered the tenth sheaf, the tenth fleece,
and the tenth lamb; the commons granted 30,000 sacks of wool, on the
condition of the royal acceptance of certain articles drawn by them,
and in case their reforms were not favored by the king, they made a
free gift of 2500 sacks of wool.[219] Edward called a new Parliament
which met the 29th March, there being in attendance a large body of
merchants. The prelates, barons, and knights made a gift of the ninth
sheaf, fleece, and lamb in complement to the baronial tenth of the
previous January, and the towns gave a ninth of movables; a fifteenth
from the rest of the nation, such as had no wool and yet were not
townsfolk, completed the grant, save for a custom on each sack of
wool, on every 300 woolfells, and on every last of leather, of forty
shillings.[220] But the gifts were conditional; the king was to accept
the articles prepared by the commons. Being amenable to their will,
he referred the petitions to a committee, part of which was selected
by the commons themselves, with the understanding that it should draw
up statutes embracing such of the matters prayed for as were of a
permanent character.
[Statutory abolition of the maletolt and of all unauthorized
taxation]
The first statute met the demands of 1339. “And for this grant,” it
says, speaking of the liberal wool subsidy mentioned above, “the king
by the assent of the prelates, earls, barons, and all others assembled
in Parliament, hath granted, that from the feast of Pentecost that
cometh in a year, he nor his heirs shall not demand, assess, nor take,
nor suffer to be taken more custom of a sack of wool of any Englishman
but half a mark of custom only; and upon woolfells and leather the old
custom.... And this establishment lawfully to be holden and kept, the
king hath promised in the presence of the prelates, earls, barons, and
others in his Parliament, no more to charge, set, or assess, upon the
custom, but in the manner as afore is said.”[221]
The second statute was still more sweeping: “We ... will and grant
for us and our heirs, to the same prelates, earls, barons, and
commons, citizens, burgesses, and merchants ... that they be” not
“from henceforth charged nor grieved to make common aid, or to sustain
charge, if it be not by the common assent of the prelates, earls,
barons, and other great men, and commons of our said realm of England,
and that in the Parliament; and that all the profits rising from the
said aid, and of the wards and marriages, customs, and escheats, and
other profits rising of the said realm of England, shall be put and
spent upon the maintenance of the safeguard of our said realm of
England and of our wars....”[222]
[Parliament the sole taxing authority in law]
The importance of these two acts is readily apparent. The promise of
Edward to abide by the recommendation of Parliament in the matter of
the subsidy on wool, was an admission by the king that not he but
they had final control over the laying of customs duties. Thus was
established the principle to be defended and likewise to be questioned
in the future, that Parliament alone had power to lay a tax on wool.
In the second place, by the statute which provided that no charge
or aid should be levied but by consent of Parliament, tallage died
a legislative death.[223] And not only was this statute aimed at
tallages but as well at every species of unauthorized taxation. Thus
was enunciated the profoundly important principle that Parliament
was the sole authority for levying taxes not merely on the nation
at large, as had long been the practice, but in every department of
the government, on the royal demesne as readily as on the shires
themselves. If the practice of future years had lived up to the ideal
expressed in this statute, it would be possible to draw a line at the
year 1340 and say that thereafter Englishmen exercised the right of
taxing themselves.
The commons perceived, apparently, that the incidence of indirect
taxation fell upon the nation quite to the same degree as direct
taxation. The customs, in the beginning undisputedly within the royal
prerogative, and according to royalistic advocates unceasingly so up
to relatively modern times, were contended for almost as heartily as
power over direct taxation itself. “The history of the customs,” says
Bishop Stubbs, “illustrates the pertinacity of the commons as well as
the evasive policy of the supporters of prerogative.”[224] Prior to
the accession of Edward III, the struggle for control, centering upon
exactions in excess of the _antiquæ custumæ_, was quietly waged between
king and Parliament. During his reign and afterward the watchfulness of
Parliament kept up.
[Checkered history of the wool customs]
After the legislation of 1340, Parliament showed itself willing to
bargain with the king for control of the customs duties, thus staying
within its legal rights. It could only petition, it could not yet
enforce; and when the king promised his assent to a petition he
frequently forgot his word. An account of what became of the custom
on wool is illuminating as indicative of the variation between
petition and enforcement. In 1340, the king had received by grant of
Parliament forty shillings on the sack, for a year and a half, on the
understanding that he would abolish the maletolt. After a lapse of two
years,[225] Edward procured from the merchants without the consent of
the commons, a custom of forty shillings on the sack and issued orders
for its collection. The commons, exhibiting more than an elementary
knowledge of economic principles, perceived that the tax fell not upon
the foreign merchants, but upon the growers of wool. In response to the
remonstrance of the commons made in the Parliament of May, 1343, Edward
declared to them that the price to be paid for wool, being fixed by
the authority of Parliament, would be constant, and that consequently
the foreign merchants would feel the incidence of the tax.[226] The
commons, duly impressed by so subtle an argument, consented to a
reimposition of the exaction for three years under the sanction of
Parliament. After the passing of the three years, and the ordinance
fixing the price of wool having in the meantime been revoked,[227]
the commons, finding that Edward showed no disposition to release
wool from the custom, petitioned against its continuance.[228] The
king replied that he had secured the assent of the baronage and of
the merchants, and that he had already pledged the proceeds of it to
his creditors. The commons, finding that they could not win their
point, contented themselves with a belief that having established
the principle, they could at any time demand a practice of it, and
granted the perpetuation of the old rate for two years. In 1348, at the
conclusion of that term, the commons again presented a remonstrance,
asserting that the wool subsidy was really a land tax. They granted
a fifteenth for three years on the condition that the subsidy of
wool should cease in three years, and that for the future “no such
grant should be made by the merchants.” The wording was particularly
conclusive,--no “imposition, tallage, or charge by way of loan or in
any other manner,” was to be laid “without the grant and assent of the
commons in Parliament.” And the enactment was to remain “as a matter of
record, whereby they may have remedy if anything should be attempted
to the contrary in time to come.”[229] Edward accepted the grant and
assented to most of the petitions, but no new statute was based upon
them, a fact which is taken to indicate that the oppressions complained
of were recognized as illegal.[230]
Again in 1362 arbitrary exactions on wool received the attention of the
commons and the statute passed in that year enacted that thereafter no
subsidy should be set on wool without the assent of Parliament.[231]
Notwithstanding the explicit and repeated assertions by the Commons
that Parliament had the sole right to levy the subsidy, Edward at
intervals exacted the maletolt. The matter reappeared in 1371 and was
greeted with a similar statute.[232]
The details of the fifteenths and tenths,[233] of the tunnage and
poundage, of clerical grants, and of the individual subsidies on wool
belong rather to the domain of fiscal history than to a consideration
of the growing power of the English Parliament to levy taxes.[234]
The constitutional points receive illustration most clearly in the
narration of the controversy over wool, since in respect of that and of
tallage new questions were involved. As regards the rest, Parliament
did not more than confirm itself in habits which it had already formed.
[Appropriation of supplies]
Side by side with the power to grant taxes was growing up the faculty
for supervising the expenditure of money so raised. As far back as the
second decade of the reign of Henry III, in 1237, William of Ralegh
had suggested to the Commune Concilium that it appoint a committee
with whom the proceeds of a grant be deposited and by whom the money
be expended; that the suggestion was not taken was owing, perhaps, to
the ignorance of the baronage. Edward I was too strong to permit of
being so controlled, and under Edward II the whole power of the crown
was for a time delegated to others; in neither reign was the principle
of appropriation of supplies definitely put forward. But in the time of
Edward III, owing doubtless to the vast sums thrown into his bottomless
war chest, Parliament began to demand a voice in the disposition of
the public funds. In 1340, as we have seen, it was denominated in the
statute that the “profits of the said realm of England shall be put
and spent upon the maintenance of the safeguard of our said realm of
England, and of our wars.”[235] The grants of 1346 and 1348, in so
far as they accrued from the northern counties, were to be applied to
defend the border against the Scots,[236] and in 1353 a subsidy on wool
was granted to be applied solely for the purposes of the war.[237]
[Examination of accounts]
Whether or not the money was actually applied according to the
direction of Parliament was another matter. Efforts to ensure the
carrying out of the parliamentary will were begun as early as 1340. In
that year a committee of lords and commons was appointed to examine the
accounts of William de la Pole and the other collectors of the last
subsidy.[238] In 1341 the Rolls of Parliament have it that “the great
men and commons of the land pray, for the common profit of the king
and of themselves, that certain persons be deputed by commission to
audit the accounts of all those who have received the wool of our said
lord, or other aid granted to him; and also of those who have received
and paid out his money, as well beyond the seas as in the realm from
the commencement of his war until now; and that the rolls and other
remembrances, obligations, and other things made abroad be delivered
into the chancery, to be enrolled and recorded, just as was wont to
be done heretofore.”[239] To the petition the royal response ran: “It
is the king’s pleasure that this be done by good men deputed for the
purpose, with the addition that the treasurer and the chief baron be
of the number; and that it be done concerning this as it was heretofore
ordained; and that the lords be chosen in this Parliament. And also
that all rolls, remembrances, and obligations made beyond the sea, be
delivered into the chancery.”[240]
There is not much reason to suppose that Edward adhered to this promise
better than he held to others of a similar character, save that there
appears no complaint from Parliament until the last year of his reign.
In 1377, in voicing the demand of Peter de la Mare, the commons in the
Good Parliament petitioned “that it may please our lord the king to
name two earls and two barons, of those who shall seem to him best, who
shall be guardians and treasurers as well of this subsidy now granted
and of the subsidy which the clergy of England is yet to grant to
the king our lord, as of the subsidy of wool, leather, and woolfells
granted in the last Parliament.”[241] The lords so chosen were to be
sworn before the commons, and were to expend the subsidies “for the
said wars and for no other work.” The high treasurer of England was
to have nothing to do with it in anywise whatsoever. Decisive action,
however, waited upon the next reign.
[Death of Edward III, 21st June, 1377]
The long life of Edward III came to an end on the 21st June, 1377. His
was a reign which had seen much war, much poverty, much famine, and
worse than these, the Great Plague. The time was not well designed,
so it would seem, for constitutional advance, yet in the direction of
parliamentary taxation, the progress was marked. To be sure, Parliament
had not dared to come into open combat with the king, and had, in order
to preserve its theoretical power, been many times obliged to sanction
a tax after it had been levied. Thus did Edward play with Parliament
throughout the argument over the wool tax, yet the nation did secure
the enunciation of complete parliamentary control over the levying of
taxes of every description in the sweeping legislation of 1340.
But Parliament had shown a disposition to reach out after powers
which its predecessors in some instances had exercised and in others
foreshadowed. The history of the wool customs shows this if it shows
nothing else, that Parliament was inclined to make supply wait upon
redress of grievances; that the inclination was not a determination
was owing to the fact of Edward’s wars; withholding supply would wreck
English military prestige far more quickly than the arms of France. Yet
the time was not far distant when the grant would be reserved until the
end of the session, and thus secure the redress of grievances before
the granting of a supply. By other means, also, Parliament was reaching
out to control the executive. By appropriating money for particular
purposes, to which expenditure should be limited, and by demanding
an audit of accounts to insure adherence to those limitations, the
representatives of the nation were securing for it the control of the
public purse, not only in the department of income but of outlay.
[Separate sessions of the houses]
Throughout the reigns of Edward II and Edward III a process of
differentiation had been going on within the walls of Parliament
itself, resulting in separate sessions of lords and commons. The
process had its beginnings, indeed, in the time of Edward I, yet no
instance can be pointed to with certainty showing the separate sessions
until 1332. In that year the Rolls of Parliament speak of distinct
assemblies. In 1339 the division appears to have become permanent. The
House of Commons in 1352 occupied the Chapter House of Westminster
Abbey.[242] The separate sessions of lords on the one hand and the
knights of the shires and the burgesses was the preliminary of the
assumption by the two latter bodies, in name the House of Commons, of
the power of initiating tax legislation.
[Richard II, 1377-1399]
Edward III left the throne to the keeping of a boy, his grandson, the
youthful Richard II. He was only eleven years old at the beginning of
his reign, and only thirty-three when his brief attempt at absolutism
brought him deposition, and then death. “The fair rose withered,” as
Shakespeare described his dethronement, but the withering was due to
the attempt of the king, ill-advised and perhaps insane, to climb too
high.
In the matter of taxation, however, the chief interest lies in the
early part of his reign, when the years of Richard’s minority gave the
commons opportunity to enforce the exercise of the principle that taxes
should not be levied without their consent, and to foster the theories
advanced in the previous reign that they had a right to examine the
public accounts and to appropriate supplies.
[Trouble over audit of accounts]
In the time of Richard II the examination of public accounts and the
granting of money for specific purposes, became national issues. At his
first Parliament, that of October, 1377, grants of two fifteenths and
tenths were made for the prosecution of the French war on the express
condition that two treasurers be appointed who should see to the due
application of the proceeds.[243] The king chose William Walworth and
John Philipot, merchants of London, the latter of whom is distinguished
as one of the earliest English financiers, and these swore to perform
their duties faithfully. It was not without difficulty, however, that
the next Parliament, which met in October, 1378, was able to secure
an accounting. The commons demanded the accounts and for a time the
chancellor attempted evasion, hoping, so it appears, to shield John
of Gaunt who was suspected of obtaining money from the treasurers for
his private purposes. He was forced to yield and the accounts were
laid open to criticism, though with the incidental assertion by the
king “that it had never been known that, of a subsidy or other grant
made to the king in Parliament or out of Parliament by the commons, an
account had afterwards been rendered to the commons or to any one else
except to the king and his officers.” More than that, there was to be
understanding “that this shall not in future be considered a precedent
or an inference that this should have been done otherwise than by the
personal volition and command alone of our said lord the king....”[244]
[Special treasurers]
Nevertheless, this same Parliament upon the occasion of its grant to
the king, petitioned that it be expended for the advantage of the
kingdom, and that competent treasurers be appointed to keep the
accounts.[245] The thirteen-year-old king readily fell in with the
idea. To the Parliament of 1379 he sent letters in which he said, “That
you may be fully informed of the real nature of the said necessary
expenditures made and to be made, the treasurers for the said war
shall be present and shall appear, at such hour as pleases you, to
show you clearly in writing their receipts and expenditures made since
the last Parliament.”[246] The House of Commons, later during the same
Parliament petitioned for the discharge of the special treasurers,
and prayed that the Treasurer of England with the Chamberlains of the
Exchequer receive money as “was usual of old.”[247] Here is an early
instance of the individual action of the House of Commons. But in
1380, the tide turned back. The commons who were assuming leadership
in the situation, hearing from the chancellor of the very serious
embarrassment in which the crown found itself, were stung to the
belief that there was extravagance in the royal household, or else
that the ministers were incapable. They therefore prayed the king
to allow the election in Parliament of the chief officers of state.
Richard responded favorably and the commission was appointed, with
the old treasurers of subsidies, William Walworth and John Philipot,
as members.[248] By 1382 the reversion to the system of special
treasurers was complete,[249] and from that time, save at moments of
great national confusion, these officers were regularly appointed and
had as their duties the keeping of accounts, both of income and outlay,
which were to be presented before Parliament at its session immediately
following.
[Taxation by Parliament]
Over the levy of taxes Parliament, so it appears, had unquestioned
control throughout the reign;[250] the king’s household was vastly
extravagant and the royal prerogative of purveyance was exercised to
excess, but even in the articles of deposition no word of complaint,
save in the most general terms, is levelled at the king for laying
taxes unlawfully, and this remonstrance is unsupported by specific
instances. Indeed, the most violent outbreak on the score of taxation
was against Parliament itself.
In 1380, Parliament found itself in this difficult position, that
it was under necessity of supplying an immensely large sum, no less
than £160,000, as speedily as possible. The French war, an expedition
about to be undertaken against Scotland, and the usual expenses of
the kingdom had so depleted the royal treasury that the king was
sorely embarrassed; he was greatly in debt and his jewels were already
pawned. The commons were at a loss to devise the means whereby so
great a sum could be raised, and showed a disposition to shirk the
burden. The lords undertook it and suggested three methods: a graduated
poll-tax, a custom on merchandise, or a number of fifteenths and
tenths. The commons, seeing in the first the virtue of rapid assessment
and collection, chose it in spite of the disappointing proceeds of
the poll-tax of two years previously. A subsidy on wool, the normal
income from which would amount to £60,000, was to serve as an
auxiliary tax. The clergy undertook to raise a third of the remaining
£100,000, leaving some £66,667 to accrue from the poll-tax. The rate
varied according to individuals from sixty groats to three, with an
understanding that the rich should help the poor, but that in no case
should a man pay less than a groat for himself and his wife.[251]
[The Rising of the Villeins]
Here was the exciting cause for the Rising of the Villeins which
Bishop Stubbs describes as “one of the most portentous phenomena to
be found in the whole of our history.”[252] Following closely as did
the poll-tax of 1380 upon those of 1378 and 1379, both of which bore
heavily upon the lesser people, the impost set fire to tinder which had
been long preparing for a conflagration. To enter into an inquiry as
to the underlying causes and the ultimate consequences of this rising,
would be to travel far afield. It is sufficient to observe that the
payment of even so small a sum as a groat, served to bring freshly to
the minds of the most ignorant the maladministration in London, and
to arouse in them the impulse, however ill-advised or ill-directed,
to correct abuses in the executive. The Rising of the Villeins is
illustrative of the not unusual conception that bad government is
chiefly reprehensible because it is expensive.
The taxation during the years 1389-1397 was regular and moderate.
Richard’s rule for the time was that of a constitutional monarch and
his Parliaments exercised the power of initiating taxation without
opposition. Parliament was practicing what it had accomplished in
theory in the long years of struggle since Magna Carta; it was
accustoming itself to the exercise of the powers which in principle it
had acquired. Fulfillment in fact was following upon enunciation of
principle. Consequently it was with the greater shock to the nation
that Richard II suddenly changed from his constitutional habit and took
upon himself the powers of a despot.
[Richard’s despotism and his dethronement]
The temptation came to him as a result of the action of Parliament
itself. In 1398, following upon its grant the previous year, of a
custom on wool for five years and tunnage and poundage for three
years, it granted the subsidy on wool, woolfells, and leather
to Richard for the space of his life. Beside this unprecedented
liberality, it gave him as well a tenth and a half and a fifteenth and
a half for the curious term of a year and a half.[253] Nor was this
all. It cut off its own head by delegating its authority to a standing
committee of Parliament. The opening was barely offered before Richard
took advantage of it. With a revenue for life and a Council subservient
to his will, scarcely ever was there better chance for despotism; but
the acceptance of the opportunity was the close forerunner of disaster.
With the idea in his head that all was safe in England, Richard went
off to Ireland. This gave Henry, the heir to the dukedom of Lancaster,
a dream of an unguarded throne to which he could climb. Estranged by
reason of his disinheritance, he was ready to act as soon as he saw
such a vision. He landed in Yorkshire, moved southward, receiving
allegiance of the people as he went, and won away from Richard the
powerful supporters of the throne. Richard, returning, fought a battle
already lost. He resigned his kingship, and the nation as represented
in Parliament, accepted his resignation.
The charges against the king, upon which sentence of deposition was
pronounced, were summed up in thirty-three articles. Only four of them
in any degree concern taxation. These are: (14) he had not repaid loans
made in dependence upon his solemn promise; (15) he had alienated the
crown estates, and exacted unlawful taxes and purveyances; (19) he had
tampered with the elections by nominating the knights whom the sheriffs
were to return, in order to ensure to himself a revenue for life;
(21) he had extorted money from seventeen whole shires for pretended
pardons.[254]
The charges were doubtless colored by enthusiasm for his deposition.
The most serious, that of unlawful taxation, seems difficult to
substantiate unless it be taken in connection with the article which
asserts that the Parliament of 1398 was packed for the very purpose of
securing a revenue for life. The complaint against purveyance seems
equally ill-founded; during the reign of Edward III it had assumed the
proportions of a great abuse of prerogative, but it was not in the time
of his grandson an object of great concern to the nation. Thomas of
Walsingham, whose tone is somewhat querulous, gives substance to the
charges about the nonpayment of loans and the exaction of money for
pretended pardons. “Promising in good faith to repay,” he says, “he
never after gave the money back to his creditors.” Further, “The clergy
and the common people and the temporal lords were constrained to give
the king sums of money beyond the strength of man to bear, in order to
buy back his good will.”[255] The step was very short to the forced
loans of the Tudors.
The trouble with Richard was that he did not go to school to history.
Parliament was putting into practice what it could learn from the
experience of its predecessors. Richard, swept with a desire, intense
and perhaps insane, to wield the sceptre of absolutism, was blinded to
what he might have read, and underwent the consequences.
[Henry IV, 1399-1413]
Henry IV was better advised; at any rate, he was politic enough to live
closely by what he had learned. He was suspicious, cautious, slow and
faltering in action save in the one supreme instance of seizing the
throne; an exceedingly good politician. The power of Parliament and
especially of the commons during his reign was more complete than ever
before,--fuller, indeed, than it should be again until after the final
hand-to-hand struggle with the Stuarts. In the matter of taxation,
instances of illegality are rare; Parliament continued to exercise the
supreme control in voting taxes; and in the more recently acquired
rights of appropriating supplies and examining public accounts, the
supremacy of Parliament was established. Not only does this observation
hold good during the reign of Henry IV, but it is equally applicable to
the two Lancastrians who succeeded him.
In 1400 there appears to have been an exception to this rule. Henry
apparently secured an aid not from Parliament but from the Great
Council. There was the understanding, however, that the grant was
binding not upon the nation at large but upon the members of the
Council.
[Practice of delaying grants]
In 1401 the commons attempted to make dependence of supply upon
redress of grievances a part of the regular parliamentary procedure.
They prayed the king that they know his responses to petitions before
setting themselves to the business of granting a supply. Henry met the
issue squarely. “On the last day of the Parliament,” say the Rolls,
“response was made that this manner of deed had not been seen nor used
in the time of any of his ancestors or predecessors, that they should
have any response to their petitions or knowledge of the same before
they had taken up and completed all the other business of Parliament,
be it to make any grant or otherwise. And therefore the king did not
wish in any way to change the good customs and usages made and used in
former times.”[256] Nevertheless, the commons proceeded to put into
practice the substance of their demand by delaying their grants of
supply until the last day of the session, when the most important of
the petitions would have received answers. Thus the next Parliament,
that which met on the 30th September, 1402, withheld its grant until
the 24th November; the session closed on the 25th and no business was
transacted in the meantime.
[Initiation of tax levies in the House of Commons, 1407]
The chief advance in the reign of the new king lay not in a fuller
control by Parliament in the matter of laying taxation; that would
scarcely have been possible. But it lay rather in a differentiation of
powers within Parliament itself, leading to a more complete supervision
of taxation by the House of Commons. Since the end of Edward III’s
reign the theory had been practiced that the commons should exercise a
decisive power over the levy of taxes, as illustrated in the levy of
the poll-tax of 1380.
The form of making a grant, “made by the commons with the assent of the
lords spiritual and temporal” first occurred in the grants to Richard
II in 1395.[257] Votes of money previous to that year were made in
conjunction with the House of Lords. The phrase was repeated in the
grants of 1401 and 1402.
In 1407 came the assertion that to the commons not only belonged
decisive power, but that they alone had the faculty of originating
taxation. It came not as a direct demand for the yielding of a
principle, but as an implication that the practice already existed, and
as such it gains in strength.
The trend of events leading up to the significant reference is
interesting. In 1407 the lords had held a debate in the king’s presence
respecting the condition of the kingdom, and had determined upon the
number of subsidies needful for national defense. Henry, for the moment
forgetting his politics, in a peremptory tone requested the commons
to send a delegation to the House of Lords “to hear and to report to
their companions that which they should have in command of our lord
the king.” The commons sent a committee of twelve in response to the
request; they heard that “it was the will of our said lord the King
they should report to the rest of their companions” the determination
of the lords, and that, “they should see to it that they conformed
most nearly to the purpose of the Lords aforesaid.” When the delegates
returned, their report was received by the commons as being an
infringement upon their liberties. The king, hearing of the temper
of the commons, reassuming immediately his habit of the politician,
“declares, by the advice and consent of the lords in manner following,”
that it is lawful for both houses to commune apart by themselves “of
the state of the realm and of the remedy necessary for the same.” So
far the king has merely recognized the need for separate deliberations
by the two houses; the phrase which implies the existence in the House
of Commons of the power to initiate taxation is this: “Any grant by the
commons granted, and by the lords assented to.”[258] Thus is admitted
by implication the order in which a grant should be made by the two
houses. In the same communication the king renounces any right which
he might previously have held to know the amount or conditions of a
prospective grant until both houses should be of one mind. The grant
which eased so sweeping an admission from the king was generous.[259]
It consisted of a fifteenth and a half and a tenth and a half, a
subsidy on wool, and tunnage and poundage for two years.[260]
In 1410 Henry asked Parliament for permission to collect a tenth and a
fifteenth annually, whenever Parliament should not be sitting. Had the
request been granted, the result for a frugal monarch would have been
hardly less than independence of parliamentary control. He was refused.
Without the frequent necessity of calling a Parliament, Henry’s last
years, instead of their smooth constitutional trend, might readily have
had as tragic a story as those of Richard II. He died in 1413.
[Henry V, 1413-1422]
His son Henry V came to the throne without dispute, and for a brief
nine years fired the souls of the English people with zest of conquest
and pride of race. A warrior, the mediæval ideal of a king, he was
yet noble of mind and soul. Had his brilliant career not so suddenly
flickered and gone out, he might have won a place beside Edward I; as
it was, the constitutional history of his reign reveals no struggle
between people and monarch over the sordid wherewithal to fight his
battles; both sides apparently honored the other. The taxation during
his reign was heavy, but it was voted gladly to the king who could use
it as a means to victory at Agincourt. Henry V, whom his people loved
enough to make legendary participant in their revellings, died in
France, 31st August, 1422.
[Henry VI, 1422-1461]
Henry VI was almost as unfortunate in his birth as in his death, and
his life seemed to bring him nothing but disaster. He was barely a
year old when his father died, his troubled reign saw the Wars of the
Roses, and tradition has it that he died by the hand of Richard, Duke
of Gloucester, afterward king. Weak in health, the possessor of a mind
which in boyhood showed the feverish precocity that foreshadows an
unbalanced maturity, he was nevertheless generous, temperate, mild, and
devoted.
[Declaration for appropriation of supplies]
The early part of his reign gives one of the few instances chronicled
under the Lancastrian kings of an attack upon constitutional usages
in taxation. In 1425 while the Duke of Bedford and Humfrey, Duke of
Gloucester were acting virtually as regents to their nephew the young
king, Bedford together with various other lords announced in Parliament
that a certain subsidy, which had been appropriated for a particular
purpose, should be levied for the king’s use notwithstanding the
conditions attaching to it; they advanced an opinion of the justices
favoring their action. The commons vindicated their right, however,
in the same Parliament; they made a fresh grant, restating the former
conditions, with this explicit addition, “No part thereof be beset ne
dispendid to no othir use, but oonly in and for the defense of the seid
roialme.”[261]
It would be both wearisome and profitless to enter into a detailed
account of the various subsidies on wool, of income taxes, of
fifteenths and tenths which trod one on the heels of the other during
the reign of Henry VI. One incident of a constitutional character,
however, rises from the general regularity. In 1449, Parliament
attempted to levy a tax upon the stipendiary priests, though usage
had it that the clergy were to have the power of taxing themselves in
convocation; a subsidy of a noble was levied upon each stipendiary
priest, for which they were to receive a general pardon at the
hands of Parliament. Henry, perceiving that trouble was brewing,
addressed the clergy, saying that it was for them to make the grant in
convocation, and that it was for him to pardon. Thus Parliament, for
the moment overreaching itself, was forced back upon the justice of
precedent.[262]
[Accession of the Yorkists]
The wars with France and with Burgundy, the heavy taxation incident to
them, the rebellion of Jack Cade arising out of it, and the Wars of
the Roses in 1453 following closely thereafter; the woeful struggle of
Henry, bleached-out in mind, a dependent upon the efforts of a woman
against the rising power of York; the wanton shedding of the noblest
blood in England--these neither developed nor confirmed parliamentary
power. Edward of York, it is sufficient to understand, became king on
the 4th March, 1461, upon King Henry’s overthrow. A momentary turning
of the tide set him once more upon it, but his tenure was very brief
and ended in tragedy.
The passing of Henry VI brings us to the dawn of the Yorkist and Tudor
era. During the reigns of the son and grandson of Edward I and the
reigns of Richard II and the Lancastrians, Parliament had developed
swiftly, not so much in the assumption of new powers as in the
distribution of powers within itself. The commons became a separate
body. Burgesses learned to act in the House of Commons in concert with
knights of the shires who in the time of Edward I had made common cause
with the greater barons. Together they assumed the right of initiating
taxes, with the understanding that the hereditary chamber should have
solely the power of assent.
The right of Parliament as against that of the king to control taxation
was enunciated again and again, not only in the instance of direct
taxation, including the levies of tallage, but in the case of the
customs, as indicated in the legislation prohibiting the maletolt.
But the enunciation of powers of Parliament was not followed by
complete and undisputed exercise of the rights so enunciated. The kings
clung to what they deemed their ancient prerogatives and more than
once overstepped the law. The Yorkists and Tudors showed a disposition
somewhat less amenable.
VI
EXTRA-PARLIAMENTARY EXACTION 1461-1603
WITH the coming of the Yorkist kings in 1461 there began a period
lasting until the end of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, in which the taxing
powers of Parliament were subtly assailed by monarchs who knew how to
use the law to their own advantage, regardless of its intent. Yet the
powers, attenuated though they were, remained to form the substance of
vigorous opposition to the attacks of the Stuarts, when they should try
to practice their theories of absolutism.
[Edward IV, 1461-1483]
[Benevolences and forced loans]
Under Edward IV, whose reign dates from 1461, the forms of taxation by
authority of Parliament were indeed gone through with. In that respect
his reign was typical of the period. His early taxation, levied while
the struggle with the Lancastrians was still in progress, was not
particularly heavy; but being laid by Parliaments sympathetic with
the Yorkist cause, Edward had little difficulty in exerting supreme
influence over it. Four years after his accession, he was given the
subsidy on wool and tunnage and poundage for life.[263] Beside these,
Parliament granted him frequent fifteenths and tenths. Not content,
however, with the grants made by Parliament, he had recourse to a
new form of extortion known by the euphemistic title of benevolence.
The benevolence was a gift made to the king by individuals or groups
of them, ostensibly in charity, but in reality under enforcement. It
differed from the forced loan, the exaction of which is mentioned in
the list of charges leading to the deposition of Richard II, in that
by it the king incurred no obligation for repayment. Henry VIII in
later years proved himself a genius at obtaining both of these means
of income. Edward found also that the revival of obsolete statutes and
the laying of fines for breaches of them could be turned to profit; the
collection of ancient debts due to the crown, and the utilization of
the royal power to advance his own mercantile interests, Edward pushed
to the extreme in order to supplement the not infrequent regular grants
of Parliament.
Dowell retells the story given in Hall’s _Chronicle_ of Edward and a
certain rich widow to whom he applied in person for a benevolence. In
his younger days Edward was one of the handsomest men in the land, and
the widow received his advances with favor. He asked her for a gift and
she promptly gave him £20.
“By my troth,” says she, “for thy lovely countenance thou shalt have
even twenty pounds.”
Edward, who had “looked for scarce half that sum, thanked her and
lovinglie kissed her.” Thereupon the lady doubled the benevolence,
paying him a second £20, either, as the Chronicler remarks, “because
she esteemed the kiss of a king so precious a jewele” or “because
the flavour of his breath did so comfort her stomach.” Such was a
fifteenth-century conception of royal courtesy.[264]