Parliament was summoned to commence on 17 May 1625, but its opening was delayed until the treaty for the marriage of Charles I with the French princess Henrietta Maria had been completed, and did not formally begin until 18 June 1625. On 30 June or soon after, a supply of two subsidies was granted to the king, again for the defence of the Palatinate, but parliament was not dissolved until 12 August, after the commons had refused to vote a further supply. The grant may at least have been made by 15 July 1625, according to a letter in the Wynn of Gwydir collection at the National Library of Wales (ref. 1356), when Sir John Cook, one of the Masters of Requests, was stated to be intending to move the House for more subsidies. After the dissolution of Parliament, another letter suggests that the attempt would be made to raise money by other means as 'the resolution now is to send forth Privy Seals' (Wynn of Gwydir 1362).

The rates were the same as for the previous subsidy, each to be collected in one payment. Individuals and corporations were charged 2s.8d. per pound for moveable goods worth £3 or more, and 4s. per pound for lands worth 20s. or more per annum. Aliens paid double these rates (5s.4d. per pound on goods and 8s. per pound on lands), and if not meeting the minimum requirement, were liable to a poll tax of 8d. per head for each payment.

From this date forward, Catholic recusants were to be charged for subsidies at the same double rates as aliens. They were to be assessed on lands or goods, and if not meeting the minimum thresholds for liability, were, like aliens, to pay a poll tax of 8d. per head. Recusants were defined as Catholics over the age of 17, or persons aged over 21 who had not attended holy communion for a year. There was evidently, in some parts, a vigorous reaction to this innovation. An affidavit sworn by a Warwickshire collector on 26 June 1626 records that there were over 150 persons in his hundred from whom he had been unable to levy the second part of the tax, all but seven of these being recusants assessed 'per poles' (E 179/259/4).

The first subsidy was to be assessed by 30 September, certified at the Exchequer by 20 October and paid by 31 October 1625; the second was to be assessed by 31 March, certified by 20 April and paid by 30 April 1626.

An assessment of individuals for the second collection of this grant, dated 29 March 1626, for Coleshill hundred, Flintshire, is in the National Library of Wales, ref. Bettisfield 904. It appears that instructions for levying the subsidies, or at least the second collection, in Caernarfonshire, were only received by 22 July 1626, according to a letter of that date in the Wynn of Gwydir collection in the National Library of Wales (ref. 1427). Further letters dated November 1626 seem to suggest that there was general opposition to payment, noting that eleven commissioners had been sent to the Fleet prison for refusing to pay and that 'many of the inferior sort refuse to yield to the royal subsidies' (Wynn of Gwydir 1442-3).

Books containing the names of the collectors of these two subsidies, together with the amounts assessed upon their areas, are now at E 179/283/21-22.

(|Stat. Realm|, V, pp 1, 9-21; Russell, |Parliaments and English Politics|, pp 204-259)

enrolled account: E 359/68