assessing the various townships they followed customs which had become established. Some townships were, by custom, assessed wholly in terris, at the 4s. rate; some wholly in bonis, at the 2s. 8d. rate; and from the diary of a subsidy man of the period we learn the following interesting particulars :-Elmswell, a township in Yorkshire in which he resided, had always been rated at 10. in bonis for a subsidy. There were usually three subsidy men-the lord of the manor being one, and the tenant of a farm of his another. If the lord of the manor was assessed at only 47. in bonis towards the 107., he by the custom had to pay in that assessment without any bearer, because it was for his demesne. But if he was assessed at 77., that is to say, 41. for his demesne and 31. for his farm as without a tenant at the time, then he was to have half the bearers in the township, and as much borne of his 37. as the other subsidy man had of his 31.1

The extent to which taxation in bonis, for moveables, at the 2s. 8d. rate, was carried, as opposed to taxation in terris, for land and rent, at the 4s. rate, may be gathered from an assessment of the county of Gloucester. The whole charge for the county is 11,6297. 16s. 8d.; of which 8,251. 10s. is charged on goods, and only

1 For instance: 'Henry Best his rate for the subsidy of 77. in bonis, for which two subsidyes commeth, att 28. 8d. per pound to 37s. 4d.; whereof hee himselfe is to pay 318. 4d. and Edward Lynsley, his bearer, 68. William Whitehead 37. in bonis commeth to 168., whearof William Pindar, a bearer with him, payeth 38. 4d., and Richard Parrott, another bearer with him, 28. 8d.; soe that his owne part commeth but to 10s. just.' -Best's Farming Book (Surtees Society Pub. vol. xxxiii.), p. 87. Obs. the lord of the manor, being a subsidy man charged in bonis, paid nothing in respect of the rent derived from the farm, rents being charged with land.

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3,3781. 68. 8d. on lands. The county, though rich in landowners by recent purchase, derived from the ranks of the prosperous merchants of Bristol, shows a subsidy roll with only 79 names of persons charged 10l. or more. One only is rated at 50l.-sir Henry Pool, of Saperton, who was at the time eminent for his great housekeeping;' five are rated at 40l., and four at 301.1 It would be difficult to understand how the commissioners could have the effrontery to sign the roll, did we not bear in mind that the commissioner was himself assessed as 'a justice of the peace'-such was the arbitrary mode of valuation-at 61. or 10l., while the statutory qualification for the post was 20l., and his fortune probably five times that amount at the least. He would, therefore, not improbably consider himself justified in applying to others a similar standard of measurement. Large allowances were made for outgoings, for large families, and for the expenses of position; and in the result estates of 30l. or 40l. in the queen's subsidy books were, as sir Walter Raleigh stated in the house of commons, not the hundredth part of the wealth of some of the persons assessed."

Thus it was that after the defeat of the Armada, in the last fifteen years of the reign of the queen, while rents rose, and internal industry, lately strongly reinforced by the immigration of refugees from the religious persecutions in the Netherlands, progressed in development day by day; while commerce, represented at the Royal Exchange-originally Gresham's Bourse —

1 Atkyns' Gloucestershire, pp. 12, 335. The list is for the subsidies, 5 Jac. I. Ante, p. 192.

2

was increasing in every direction; while expense in dress and expense in building-those unfailing criteria of wealth in the upper classes-were conspicuous, the one in those magnificent costumes where, as we see in portraits to this day, the courtier was rightly said to carry sometimes the value of a manor' on his back; the other in all that great bravery of building that set in in the times of Elizabeth,' of which so many examples still exist in our Elizabethan halls and manor-houses; and while the increase in drinking— that unfailing criterion, alas! of increase in means in the lower classes in England, carried your English in potency of potting above even your Dane, your German, and your swag-bellied Hollander '-briefly, while agriculture, internal industry, and trade and commerce all combined in advance, and everything else evidenced an increase of riches, the ad valorem rate on property declined in yield. In these last fifteen years of the reign— the spacious times of great Elizabeth'-all else expanded save the total of the queen's subsidy roll. In short, such a travestie of taxation took place, such a burlesque of assessment was represented in the proceedings of the commissioners for the subsidies, that in reading Bacon's observations upon taxes, while we acknowledge their correctness, they appear to have a force and felicity beyond, perhaps, the intention of the author, when he says: He that shall look into other countries, and consider the taxes, and tallages, and impositions, and assizes, and the like, that are everywhere in use, will find that the Englishman is most master of his own valuation and the least bitten in purse of any nation in Europe.'

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CHAPTER III.

BENEVOLENCES AND MONOPOLIES.

1. Benevolences.

The benevolence of 1491. Morton's fork.' The 'shoaring or underpropping' Act. Another benevolence in 1504. The amiable graunte of Henry VIII. Another benevolence in 1545. Gifts to queen Elizabeth. A hearty benevolence.

NOTWITHSTANDING the condemnation of the levy of money by means of benevolences or voluntary subscriptions, by the statute against benevolences, in the first year of the reign of king Richard III., that kind of levy was again employed in his reign, and his successor, Henry VII., took, in 1491, a benevolence from the more able sort'-ab opulentioribus tantum 1-for the expedition to France, which was very popular.

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For this benevolence the king had the quasiparliamentary authority of a grant from a great council. Writs were sent to commissioners in the various counties,2 with instructions from archbishop Morton, the chancellor, to them to act in the levy upon the principle that such as are sparing in their manner of living must have saved money, while those that live

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1 Bacon, Works, vi. 121.

2 Writ de pecuniâ mutuandâ pro expeditione Franciae.—Foedera, xii. 464.

in a splendid and hospitable manner give ample evidence of wealth and ability to pay '—a dilemma which has been termed Morton's 'fork,' or crotch.' Subsequently, in 1494, the king was authorised to get in the contributions that had been offered, by an Act which was called 'the shoaring or underpropping Act.'1 A second benevolence is stated to have been demanded by the king in 1504; but as he had just then received a subsidy from parliament, and as there were no wars, no fears,' it seems doubtful whether the entries upon the authority of which this statement rests may not have had reference to arrears collected under the Act of 1494.

2

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The next benevolence was the amiable graunte,' which Henry VIII. demanded in 1528, after the revocation of the illegal commissions for the levy of a sixth, which had resulted in serious disturbances in Suffolk, Huntingdon, Kent, and other parts of the kingdom. In Kent the people had answered the demands of the commissioners by a cry that they were English and not French, free men and not slaves." The king therefore sent out letters to state that he would take nothing from the people but by way of benevolence.

1 11 Hen. VII. c. 10; Bacon, Hist. Hen. VII.; Works, vi. 121, 160; Holinshed, iii. 532.

2 See Bacon, Works, vi. 224, and note.

3 Ante, p. 174. Note: 'the duke of Suffolk, sitting in commission about this subsidy in Suffolk in 1526, persuaded, by courteous means, the rich clothiers to assent thereto; but when they came home and went about to discharge and put from them their spinners, carders, fullers, weavers, and other artificers, which they kept in work aforetime, the people began to assemble in companies,' and, in short, there was a rebellion against the subsidy. Holinshed, iii. 709.