Parliament sat between 22 January and 12 May 1543, and between those dates granted a subsidy payable over three years.

The subsidy was to be paid according to a complicated sliding scale of rates. For those individuals taxed on moveable goods, the minimum threshold of liability was set at 20s., with those in the lowest income bracket paying a total of 4d. per pound across the three payments. This rate rose to 8d. per pound for those with goods worth between £5 and £10, and to 16d. per pound for those with goods worth between £10 and £20. Individuals assessed on goods worth more than £20 were to pay 2s. per pound.

On land, the threshold was again set at 20s, with those individuals possessing an annual income from land of between 20s and £5 paying a total of 8d. per pound across the three payments. Again the rates rose according to wealth, with taxpayers possessing an annual income of between £5 and £10 paying 16d. per pound, those assessed between £10 and £20 paying 2s. per pound, and those assessed on a landed income of more than £20 paying the highest rate of 3s. per pound.

On all assessments, aliens were to pay double these rates, and if they had no taxable property, were liable to pay a poll tax of 4d. (again payable in three instalments). Corporations, gilds and fraternities paid the same double rate as aliens on both lands and goods. Any taxpayer assessed on the £5, £10 or £20 thresholds was to pay at the relevant higher rate.

The 'Act of Union' of England with Wales of 1536 (27 Henry VIII, c. 26) had ordered that parts of Wales should be 'gildable' or taxable from 1 November in that year, but Wales was specifically exempted from the subsequent subsidy, that of 1540. However, in the 'Act of Union' of England with Wales of 1543 (34 and 35 Henry VIII, c. 26), passed in the same Parliament as that of the present subsidy, it was stated that Welsh subjects should be liable to all subsidies and other charges granted by Parliament. They were to pay all other rents, farms, customs and duties to the king, but fines for the redemption of Sessions, which it has been suggested, had come to replace occasional grants of taxation to the crown, were now remitted (Pugh, p 42). The present subsidy was, therefore, the first to which Wales was generally liable since the early fourteenth century, and applied to persons born 'within this Realme of Englande, Wales or other the Kinges Dominyions'. Documents are extant for every county of Wales, athough condition and coverage varies from county to county.

The subsidy was to be collected in three instalments. Native taxpayers assessed on goods worth less than £20 or on lands worth less than £10 were to pay in three unequal instalments, the first payment comprising half the entire sum, to be followed by two payments of a quarter of the entire sum in each of the following two years. Wealthier taxpayers (those assessed on £20 or more of goods or £10 or more in lands) were to pay in three equal instalments, due at the same times. All alien taxpayers were to pay in the same unequal instalments, with the exception of those assessed on more than £20 in lands, who, like their native equivalents, paid in three equal payments.

The commissioners were to divide themselves into regional groups and make assessments, after receiving their commissions by 6 August of each year (in 1543, 1544 and 1545). Assessments were to be certified by 16 November annually, with payment by 6 February in 1544, 1545 and 1546.

Henry VIII asked for an anticipation of the third payment in June 1545, asking that those assessed at more than £10 in goods or £5 in lands for the previous payment pay their tax at once, on the basis of the last assessment. E 179/109/288 states that payment of the anticipation was requested by 25 July, although Surrey and Oxfordshire assessments cite 15 July as the requested payment date (E 179/184/194, E 179/162/242), in Lancashire it was 15 or 16 July (E 179/130/136, E 179/130/146), in Dorset the payment date was 17 July (E 179/104/156), and in Warwickshire the payment was to be at the Exchequer by 24 July (E 179/192/160). In Staffordshire, however, the commissioners appointed to levy the anticipation had divided themselves between the hundreds by 24 June and assessments had been completed by 1 July (E 179/177/129). A book recording details from the certificates returned for the levy of the anticipation survives at E 179/281/6.

The net yields of the three instalments, as calculated by Dr. Schofield, are £76,606 for the first payment, £57,412 for the second and £54,959 for the third.

(|Stat. Realm|, III, pp 563, 893, 935, 938-941; Hoyle, |Tudor Taxation Records|, pp 31-32; Schofield, thesis, Table 40); Pugh, |The Marcher Lordships of South Wales|, p 42.

enrolled account: E 359/42, rots 1-52