Parliament was still sitting in the session which had opened on 3 November 1640, and which came to be called 'the Long Parliament'. A further two subsidies were granted in view of the danger from the Scots, the act making express mention that it was 'for the further relief of his Majesty's Army and the Northern Counties'. One contemporary source gives 13 May as the date on which the bill was passed.

The two subsidies were to be collected in one payment, and the rates charged, therefore, were identical to those levied in each of the two double subsidies of the previous year (those granted in December 1640). Individuals and corporations were to pay 5s.4d. per pound for moveable goods worth £3 or more, and 8s. per pound for lands worth 20s. or more per annum. Aliens and recusants paid double these rates - 10s.8d. per pound for their moveable goods, and 16s. per pound for their lands - while the poll tax on those aliens and recusants possessing no estate was 16d. per head. Commissioners appointed to levy the tax were named in the statute.

Assessments were to be completed by 20 October and certified at the Exchequer by 20 November 1641; payment was due by 1 December 1641.

In addition to the returns among the E 179 records, the incomplete assessment of Taunton and associated hundreds in Somerset for both subsidies is now BL, Add Roll 28,277, and the assessment of Colneis hundred, Somerset, is BL, Add MS 21,047.

Interim accounts made by collectors of this tax for various counties have been recorded in a paper book. The first nine folios of this book list the taxpayers whose payment was in arrears, persons exempted from payment for various reasons, as well as the dates on which payments were made to the Exchequer by the collectors, many of which were not received until 1642, 1643, or even 1645 (E 179/266/8). The book attests to the difficulties of the collectors in gathering this tax.

(|Stat. Realm|, V, pp. 79-101; |Two Diaries of the Long Parliament|, ed. M. Jansson, (Gloucester, 1984), p 118)

enrolled account: E 359/72, rots 22-32; E 359/73, rots 23-30