In February 1642, during the Long Parliament, parliament voted a grant of £400,000 to Charles I by an act entitled 'an act for the speedy raising and levying of moneys for the necessary defence and great affairs of the kingdoms of England and Ireland and for the payment of debts undertaken by the Parliament'. The total sum of £400,000 was divided up and allocated to the individual counties, cities and boroughs, with each required to pay an amount specified in the statute. Within each county/city/borough, the sums due were to be divided further among the towns, hamlets and parishes, and within these, individuals held to be liable to pay the subsidy were to be assessed and charged sums proportional to the values of their estates, at the discretion of the commissioners.
p> Held liable to pay the subsidy were lords, clergy and laymen with moveable goods to the value of £3 or more, aliens and recusants owning moveable property of any value, or those persons enjoying income from lands held by whatever tenure, or offices or annuities, of 20s. per annum or more. Only servants earning under £10 annually, or servants of the king earning under £5 annually, were exempt. The commissioners, all appointed by and named in the statute, were to charge a rate per pound, as in the manner of subsidies, and were to be given their commissions by 10 April 1642.
p> A special feature of this subsidy was the apportionment of the tax between landlords and tenants. In the case of lands let to tenants for life, a term of years, or at will, and for nearly the yearly value, the person receiving the rent (the landlord) was liable to pay the tax. If the lands were let at under their yearly value, however, the tax payable was to be apportioned between the landlord and the occupier, in proportions to be decided by the assessors.
p> Aliens and recusants were to be charged double, and if not liable in either category, were to pay a poll tax of 2s.8d. Half the money received from aliens and recusants, and all that collected from officeholders, was to be set aside as 'surplusage', and would be used to repay those who had lent money to the crown with 8% interest. This surplusage was not to count towards the quota allocated to the township or parish, but was in addition to the £400,000 granted.
p> The tax was to be paid in two instalments. The first payment was to be assessed by 20 May, certified at the Exchequer by 20 June and paid by 20 July 1642, and the second was to be assessed by 20 November, certified by 20 December (1642) and paid by 20 January 1643. However, a certificate of exemption, drawn up in Surrey in May 1642, gives 20 June as the date on which the first payment was due (E 179/186/446), as do certificates for workers at the Royal Mint (E 179/274/77 Part 3).
p> Although the names of the persons charged and the collectors appointed by the commissioners were to be returned into the Exchequer, the money was to be paid directly to the lord mayor or chamberlain of the treasury of the city of London (the king's major creditor). A letter dated 11 December 1643 from the king at Oxford, presumably relating to the proceeds of this tax and possibly others, contains a request to pay 'some £200 of public money collected in the county of Merioneth as pole money, subsidy money or otherwise', directly to Sir Orlando Bridgeman (as vice-chamberlain of Chester) at Chester. This was because the king was 'pressed for money to supply his forces which had come from Ireland to Chester' (National Library of Wales, Ruthin 1411 (a)).
p> The tax was still being collected during the Civil War. Several tax collection documents dating from the Civil War period refer to the tax as the 'royal subsidie' (E 179/313/2, E 179/249/14 and E 179/249/17). Sussex collectors' affidavits sworn in March 1646 testify that attempts to bring in the first instalment of the money had only just been abandoned there. One collector was too afraid to distrain the Earl of Northumberland, 'hee being a Peere of the realme and a member of the high Courte of parliament', even though the Earl's steward had refused to pay on his behalf (E 179/395/18, m 9). The collectors of the tax in Surrey encountered similar problems: an affidavit dated 21 November 1645 reveals that William, Lord Monson, a member of parliament, had likewise intimidated another collector (E 179/186/446, m 1). An affidavit containing a long list of uncollectable debts was sworn by a Nottinghamshire collector of the tax on 25 November 1647 (E 179/163/12); three Oxfordshire affidavits of non-distraint were sworn at the Exchequer in February and May 1650 (E 179/304/3, E 179/395/11); and certificates attesting to a collector's inability to distrain were issued before the mayor of Coventry as late as June 1650 (E 179/194/319).
p> In addition to the assessments returned by the commissioners in individual counties, a paper book of interim accounts of the collectors of both payments of this tax from various counties, including London, exists (E 179/266/8). The book lists delinquent taxpayers and persons exempted from payment, and records the dates of payments made by the collectors into the Exchequer. It also contains warrants for allowances and other memoranda. An original assessment of Trowbridge and three hundreds in Wiltshire for the first payment of this subsidy, and another of Taunton and associated hundreds in Somerset for the second payment of this subsidy, and never returned into the Exchequer, are now BL, Add MS 30,989; Add Roll 28,278.
p> An assessment of individuals for the first collection of this grant, dated 6 June 1642, for the rape of Pevensey, Sussex, is at C 103/153. This is in good condition and legible, apart from some small patches of soiling. It consists of eight rotulets and covers the hundreds of Loxfield Camden (rot 1), Rotherfield (rot 2d) and Loxfield Dorset (rot 4d).
p> Although no documents for this tax for Anglesey survive among the records of TNA series E 179, a warrant dated 14 November 1642 to collect the second payment of this grant (stating that the first collection had been paid) relating to Anglesey is among the Presaddfed papers 484 (i) in the Archives Department, University of Wales: Bangor. For Denbighshire, there is a warrant dated 30 May 1642 to levy presumably the first collection, for Rhuthun hundred, listing either assessors or collectors for each township, in the National Library of Wales (Crosse of Shaw Hill collection 1092). Although assessments were made for the parishes of Llanfair [Dyffryn Clwyd], Llanelidan, Derwen, Clocaenog and Efenechtid, either under that warrant, or a warrant for the second collection, only the assessments for Llanfair, Llanelidan, Clocaenog and Efenechtid survive among the Crosse of Shaw Hill collection (1119-22).
p> The form of assessment of this tax was to become the standard form of assessment for the weekly and monthly assessments ordained by parliament and collected during the Civil War and under the Commonwealth.
p> |Stat.Realm|, V, pp 145-167)
p> enrolled account: E 359/73, rots 30-35 p>
|