the grant of fifteenths and tenths a general subsidy on land and goods. Changed from what the French term a tax de quotité to a tax de répartition, from what, had not the word at the present day a peculiar meaning, we should term a rate, to a fixed land tax, being, not the fractional grant on moveables it purported to be, but a stated sum divisible between certain districts, the tax in this form came to be regarded by the people almost as of constitutional right. When less than the sum for a full fifteenth and tenth was required, half a fifteenth and tenth was granted; and when a greater sum was required, it was granted under the name of two fifteenths and tenths, or as the case might be. All attempts to introduce other forms of taxation or to disturb the settlement of 1334 almost invariably failed. We see the dogged insistence of the Englishman in this matter prevailing in after times to turn the general subsidy or new rate of the Tudor period into another tax of a fixed sum. The parliamentary assessments of the commonwealth times continued the tradition. And when, after the Revolution, another attempt was made to introduce and establish the principle of rating in taxation, the property tax of William III., planted in the same soil, grew gradually to resemble the assessments, the subsidies, and the fifteenths and tenths in the form it attained of the fixed Land tax of the eighteenth century. To the present day, at the distance of five centuries and a half, the consequences of the arrangement made in 1334 for the local assessment and collection of the fifteenth and tenth are clearly visible in England.

The fifteenths and tenths granted to Edward after 1334 and before the peace of Bretigni were as follows: -One in 1336, three in 1337, to be collected in three years, and one in 1340. Then came years of heavy taxation of wool. In 1344 two fifteenths and tenths were granted for two years; in 1346 two more for two years; in 1348 three more for three years; and in 1352 three more for three years. In 1357 a single fifteenth and tenth was granted, and this was the last before the peace of Bretigni in 1360.

From the date of the peace of Bretigni to 1369, in a time of comparative peace, no grants of fifteenths and tenths were made.

In 1369, in consequence of the infraction of the treaty by Charles V., who, resuming the position of suzerain of Aquitaine, had summoned the Black Prince to Paris to answer for his taxation of the duchy, Edward took again the title of king of France.

On announcing this to the parliament of 1371, the king added that he had been at great expense in sending out men, and that he had received news that the enemy was strengthening himself; on these grounds he applied to them for a grant.

The lords and commons, first turning to account the unpopularity of the government in consequence of the want of success of operations on the continent, obtained a practical dismissal of the bishops who held the posts of chancellor and treasurer. Great mischief, they represented to the king in an address to him, had befallen the state in consequence of the government being carried on by ecclesiastics whom it was impossible to

bring to account, and it would be well, should it please him, that, for the future, sufficient and able layment should be chosen and none other to hold the office of chancellor, treasurer, clerk of the privy seal, baron or comptroller of the exchequer, or any important post of the kind. William of Wykeham resigned his post of chancellor and bishop Brantingham that of treasurer, and they were succeeded by sir Robert Thorpe and sir Richard le Scrope. After that many ways for an aid had been propounded and debated,' a subsidy of 50,000l. was granted, to be levied of every parish in the land 22s. 3d., so as the parishes of greater value should contribute rateably to those of less value.'1

The parish, an ecclesiastical division of the country, formed of the township or cluster of townships which paid tithes to the parish church, had not hitherto been used as a fiscal division; and the government estimated the number of parishes in the kingdom at 40,000; but a marvellous miscalculation had been made. A month or two afterwards, on examination of the reports or certificates of the archbishops, bishops, and sheriffs returned into chancery for the purposes of the tax, it appeared that, in order to obtain 50,000l., the rate for every parish ought to be extended from 22s. 3d. to 57. 168., the number of parishes being in reality under 9,000. A great council was held at Winchester, consisting of four bishops, four abbots, six earls, six barons, and one member who had served in the last parliament for every constituency, and the necessary re

1 Par. Rolls, ii. 303–4.

assessment was made. The assessment was 50,1817. 8s. from 8,600 parishes. Chester was not included. In the next year, 1372, the old form of fifteenth and tenth was again used, and in 1373 two fifteenths and tenths were granted, to be collected in two years if the war should so long last. No grant of any fifteenth or tenth was made in the parliament of 1376, termed the good parliament;' and the next direct tax granted for the purposes of the war was that imposed by the parliament of 1377.

PART II.

1377-1380.

Imposition of the first poll tax. The tallage of groats of 1377. The graduated poll tax of 1379. Schedule of taxpayers. Imposition of another poll tax in 1380. The peasant insurrection. The real causes and the result of the insurrection.

IN 1377a tax hitherto unheard of,' as it was termed by Walsingham, was imposed by the parliament that met in January in that year. In the absence of the king, who lay ill at Shene, the parliament was opened, under commission, by Richard of Bordeaux, prince of Wales, son of the Black Prince, who had died in the previous June. A fortnight before the meeting of parliament two bishops had been appointed to the posts of chancellor and treasurer, and the new chancellor used, in his speech on opening the parliament, the French language, in reversal of the practice which had usually prevailed since 1363, of using the native language.1

The king, he said, requested the advice, counsel, and assistance of parliament in consequence of news received by him of the preparations made by the king of France, under cover of the truce, for war by land.

1 Subsequently, in 1381, bishop Courtenay, the new chancellor, in succession to archbishop Sudbury, who had been murdered by the rebels in 1380, made his speech in English.