The History of England - Vols. 1 to 6 (358 page)

He was not content with reproof and exhortation. As queen Elizabeth had perceived, with regret, the encrease of London, and had restrained all new buildings by proclamation; James, who found that these edicts were not exactly obeyed, frequently renewed them; though a strict execution seems still to have been wanting. He also issued reiterated proclamations, in imitation of his predecessor; containing severe

menaces against the gentry, who lived in town.d
This policy is contrary to that, which has ever been practised by all princes, who studied the encrease of their authority. To allure the nobility to court; to engage them in expensive pleasures or employments, which dissipate their fortune; to encrease their subjection to ministers by attendance; to weaken their authority in the provinces by absence: These have been the common arts of arbitrary government. But James, besides that he had certainly laid no plan for extending his power, had no money to support a splendid court, or bestow on a numerous retinue of gentry and nobility. He thought too, that, by their living together, they became more sensible of their own strength, and were apt to indulge too curious researches into matters of government. To remedy the present evil, he was desirous of dispersing them into their country-seats; where, he hoped, they would bear a more submissive reverence to his authority, and receive less support from each other. But the contrary effect soon followed. The riches, amassed during their residence at home, rendered them independant. The influence, acquired by hospitality, made them formidable. They would not be led by the court: They could not be driven: And thus the system of the English government received a total and a sudden alteration in the course of less than forty years.

The first rise of commerce and the arts had contributed, in preceding reigns, to scatter those immense fortunes of the barons, which rendered them so formidable both to king and people. The farther progress of these advantages began, during this reign, to

ruin the small proprietors of land;e
and, by both events, the gentry, or that rank which composed the house of commons, enlarged their power and authority. The early improvements in luxury were seized by the greater nobles, whose fortunes, placing them above frugality, or even calculation, were soon dissipated in expensive pleasures. These improvements reached at last all men of property; and those of slender fortunes, who, at that time, were often men of family, imitating those of a rank immediately above them, reduced themselves to poverty. Their lands, coming to sale, swelled the estates of those, who possessed riches sufficient for the fashionable PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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expences; but who were not exempted from some care and attention to their domestic economy.

The gentry also of that age were engaged in no expence, except that of country hospitality. No taxes were levied, no wars waged, no attendance at court expected, no bribery or profusion required at elections.
f
Could human nature ever reach happiness, the condition of the English gentry, under so mild and benign a prince, might merit that appellation.

The amount of the king’s revenue, as it stood in 1617, is thus Finances.

stated.g
Of crown lands, 80,000 pounds a year; by customs and new impositions, near 190,000; by wards and other various branches of revenue, beside purveyance, 180,000. The whole amounting to 450,000. The king’s ordinary disbursements, by the same account, are said to exceed this sum thirty-six thousand pounds.
h
All the extraordinary sums, which James had raised by subsidies, loans, sale of lands, sale of the title of baronet, money paid by the states, and by the king of France’s benevolences, &c. were, in the whole, about two millions two hundred thousand pounds. Of which the sale of lands afforded seven hundred and seventy-five thousand pounds. The extraordinary disbursements of the king amounted to two millions; beside above four hundred thousand pounds given in presents. Upon the whole, a sufficient reason appears, partly from necessary expences, partly for want of a rigid economy, why the king, even early in his reign, was deeply involved in debt, and found great difficulty to support the government.

Farmers, not commissioners, levied the customs. It seems, indeed, requisite, that the former method should always be tried before the latter; though a preferable one.

When men’s own interest is concerned, they fall upon a hundred expedients to prevent frauds in the merchants; and these the public may afterwards imitate, in establishing proper rules for its officers.

The customs were supposed to amount to five
per cent
of the value, and were levied upon exports, as well as imports. Nay, the imposition upon exports, by James’s additions, is said to amount, in some few instances, to twenty-five
per cent.
This practice, so hurtful to industry, prevails still in France, Spain, and most countries of

Europe. The customs in 1604, yielded 127,000 pounds a-year:i
They rose to 190,000

towards the end of the reign.

Interest, during this reign, was at ten
percent
till 1624, when it was reduced to eight.

This high interest is an indication of the great profits and small progress of commerce.

The extraordinary supplies granted by parliament, during this whole reign, amounted not to more than 630,000 pounds; which, divided among twenty-one years, makes 30,000 pounds a-year. I do not include those supplies, amounting to 300,000 pounds, which were given to the king by his last parliament. These were paid in to their own commissioners; and the expences of the Spanish war were much more than sufficient to exhaust them. The distressed family of the Palatine was a great burthen on James, during part of his reign. The king, it is pretended, possessed not frugality, proportioned to the extreme narrowness of his revenue. Splendid equipages, however, PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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he did not affect, nor costly furniture, nor a luxurious table, nor prodigal mistresses.

His buildings too were not sumptuous; though the Banqueting-house must not be forgotten, as a monument which does honour to his reign. Hunting was his chief amusement, the cheapest pleasure in which a king can indulge himself. His expences were the effects of liberality, rather than of luxury.

One day, it is said, while he was standing amidst some of his courtiers, a porter passed by, loaded with money, which he was carrying to the treasury. The king observed, that Rich, afterwards earl of Holland, one of his handsome agreeable favourites, whispered something to one standing near him. Upon enquiry, he found, that Rich had said,
how
happy would that money make me!
Without hesitation, James bestowed it all upon him, though it amounted to 3000 pounds. He added,
You think yourself very happy in
obtaining so large a sum; but I am more happy, in having an opportunity of obliging
a worthy man, whom I love.
The generosity of James was more the result of a benign humour or light fancy, than of reason or judgment. The objects of it were such as could render themselves agreeable to him in his loose hours; not such as were endowed with great merit, or who possessed talents or popularity, which could strengthen his interest with the public.

The same advantage, we may remark, over the people, which the crown formerly reaped from that interval between the fall of the peers and rise of the commons, was now possessed by the people against the crown, during the continuance of a like interval. The sovereign had already lost that independant revenue, by which he could subsist without regular supplies from parliament; and he had not yet acquired the means of influencing those assemblies. The effects of this situation, which commenced with the accession of the house of Stuart, soon rose to a great height, and were more or less propagated throughout all the reigns of that unhappy family.

Subsidies and fifteenths are frequently mentioned by historians; but neither the amount of these taxes, nor the method of levying them, had been well explained. It appears, that the fifteenths formerly corresponded to the name, and were that

proportionable part of the moveables.k
But a valuation having been made, in the reign of Edward III. that valuation was always adhered to, and each town paid unalterably a particular sum, which the inhabitants themselves assessed upon their fellow-citizens.

The same tax in corporate towns was called a tenth; because, there, it was, at first, a tenth of the moveables. The whole amount of a tenth and a fifteenth throughout the kingdom, or a fifteenth, as it is often more concisely called, was about 29,000

pounds.
l
The amount of a subsidy was not invariable, like that of a fifteenth. In the eighth of Elizabeth, a subsidy amounted to 120,000 pounds: In the fortieth, it was not

above 78,000.m
It afterwards fell to 70,000; and was continually decreasing.
n
The reason is easily collected from the method of levying it. We may learn from the subsidy bills,
o
that one subsidy was given for four shillings in the pound on land, and two shillings and eight pence on moveables throughout the counties; a considerable tax, had it been strictly levied. But this was only the ancient state of a subsidy. During the reign of James, there was not paid the twentieth part of that sum. The tax was so far personal, that a man paid only in the county where he lived, though he should possess estates in other counties; and the assessors formed a loose estimation of his property, and rated him accordingly. To preserve, however, some rule in the PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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estimation, it seems to have been the practice to keep an eye to former assessments, and to rate every man according as his ancestors, or men of such an estimated property, were accustomed to pay. This was a sufficient reason, why subsidies could not encrease, notwithstanding the great encrease of money and rise of rents. But there was an evident reason, why they continually decreased. The favour, as is natural to suppose, ran always against the crown; especially during the latter end of Elizabeth, when subsidies became numerous and frequent, and the sums levied were considerable, compared to former supplies. The assessors, though accustomed to have an eye to ancient estimations, were not bound to observe any such rule; but might rate anew any person, according to his present income. When rents fell, or parts of an estate were sold off, the proprietor was sure to represent these losses, and obtain a diminution of his subsidy; but where rents rose, or new lands were purchased, he kept his own secret, and paid no more than formerly. The advantage, therefore of every change was taken against the crown; and the crown could obtain the advantage of none. And to make the matter worse, the alterations, which happened in property during this age, were, in general unfavourable to the crown. The small proprietors, or twenty pound men, went continually to decay; and when their estates were swallowed up by a greater, the new purchaser encreased not his subsidy. So loose indeed is the whole method of rating subsidies, that the wonder was not how the tax should continually diminish; but how it yielded any revenue at all. It became at last so unequal and uncertain, that the parliament was obliged to change it into a land tax.

The price of corn, during this reign, and that of the other necessaries of life, was no lower, or was rather higher, than at present. By a proclamation of James, establishing public magazines, whenever wheat fell below thirty-two shillings a-quarter, rye below eighteen, barley below sixteen, the commissioners were empowered to purchase corn

for the magazines.p
These prices then are to be regarded as low; though they would rather pass for high by our present estimation. The usual bread of the poor was at this time made of barley.
q
The best wool, during the greater part of James’s reign, was at

thirty-three shillings a tod:r
At present, it is not above two-thirds of that value; though it is to be presumed, that our exports in woollen goods are somewhat encreased. The finer manufactures too, by the progress of arts and industry have rather diminished in price, notwithstanding the great encrease of money. In Shakespeare, the hostess tells Falstaff, that the shirts she bought him were holland at eight shillings a-yard; a high price at this day, even supposing, what is not probable, that the best holland at that time was equal in goodness to the best that can now be purchased. In like manner, a yard of velvet, about the middle of Elizabeth’s reign, was valued at two and twenty

shillings. It appears, from Dr. Birch’s life of prince Henry,s
that that prince, by contract with his butcher, payed near a groat a-pound throughout the year, for all the beef and mutton used in his family. Besides, we must consider, that the general turn of that age, which no laws could prevent, was the converting of arable land into pasture: A certain proof that the latter was found more profitable, and consequently that all butcher’s meat, as well as bread, was rather higher than at present. We have a regulation of the market with regard to poultry and some other articles, very early in

Charles I.’s reign;t
and the prices are high. A turkey cock four shillings and sixpence, a turkey hen three shillings, a pheasant cock six, a pheasant hen five, a partridge one shilling, a goose two, a capon two and sixpence, a pullet one and sixpence, a rabbit

eight pence, a dozen of pigeons six shillings.u
We must consider, that London at PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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present is more than three times more populous than it was at that time: A circumstance, which much encreases the price of poultry, and of every thing that cannot conveniently be brought from a distance: Not to mention, that these regulations by authority are always calculated to diminish, never to encrease the market prices. The contractors for victualing the navy were allowed by government eight pence a-day for the diet of each man, when in harbour, seven pence halfpenny when at sea;
w
which would suffice at present. The chief difference in expence between that age and the present consists in the imaginary wants of men, which have since extremely multiplied. These
x
are the principal reasons, why James’s revenue would go farther than the same money in our time; though the difference is not near so great as is usually imagined.