Tax and Rebllion

Tax Reform and Rebellion in Early Tudor England
Author(s): MICHAEL BUSH

Source: History , October 1991, Vol. 76, No. 248 (October 1991), pp. 379-400
Published by: Wiley
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24421380
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Tax Reform and Rebellion in Early Tudor
England
MICHAEL BUSH
University of Manchester
rebellions against the government. The first occurred in York

Characterizing
shire in 1489; thethe
second,early Tudor
in the West Countryperiod
in 1497; the was
third, a succession of regional
in East Anglia in 1525; the fourth in Lincolnshire in 1536; the fifth
in Yorkshire in the same year; the sixth in the West Country in 1549.
All were large-scale revolts, not necessarily of long duration but involv
ing thousands of active participants. All, moreover, belonged to the
same tradition of insurrection as the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 and Jack
Cade's Uprising of 1450. Essentially they were risings of the commons.
Undirected by dynasticism or deference and driven by popular initiative,
they differed distinctly from the baronial revolts of the past. In addition,
all were reactions against changes in the tax system.
Their fiscal associations have been played down in recent years.
C. S. L. Da vies concludes that, on account of the benignity of its tax system,
popular revolts in England were much less frequent than in France.
J. D. Alsop concludes that 'the sixteenth-century parliament and people
in general accepted' fundamental alterations in the tax system 'with
little protestation'.2 R. S. Schofield makes the same point, noticing
that the two uprisings that were predominantly tax revolts (i.e. those
of 1489 and 1497) 'occurred at the beginning of the early Tudor period
in unstable times and were confined to small regions'.3 Arguing the
rarity of tax revolt in early Tudor England, however, requires some
intellectual prestidigitation. Davies's conclusion depends upon his selec
tion of period. If his study had focused on the late fifteenth and early
sixteenth centuries, instead of the period 1500-1700, it would have found
an excess of tax revolts in England and a paucity in France. Alsop's
' C. S. L. Davies, 'Peasant Revolt in France and England: A Comparison', Agricultural

History Review, xxi (1973) [hereafter Davies, 'Peasant Revolt'], 124-5.
2 J. D. Alsop, 'The Theory and Practice of Tudor Taxation', English Historical Review,
lxxxii (1982), 13,28-9.
3 R. S. Schofield, 'Parliamentary Lay Taxation, 1485-1547' (Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge, 1963)
[hereafter Schofield, 'Parliamentary Lay Taxation'], pp. 463-5. 'Small regions' is highly mis
leading for the 1497 uprising which affected several southern counties (see n. 30). Moreover,
the 1489 uprising involved two of the Ridings.

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380 TAX REFORM AND REBELLION
conclusion results from concentrating upon one particular

vation: the greater use of direct tax revenues to finance ordin
ment. This, however, amounted only to an administrative rear
of existing funds. Failing to enlarge the tax burden, or to exte
ment powers at the expense of subject rights, it did not, unde
arouse much indignation. On the other hand, other fiscal refor
ened incomes and rights, notably the evaluation of persona
by government agents, extensions in the system of indirec
and the introduction of taxes which breached the expected
of consent. These reforms were vigorously opposed. Comme
the tax revolts, Schofield states that 'it would be a mistake
their importance.' But this is what he proceeds to do. By o
tax protests which failed to amount to rebellions and by re
tax grievance to dominate a rebellion before he can take i
as its cause, he is able to declare that tax revolt was rare in
England in spite of the existence of six rebellions prof
grievances, a considerable tax strike in the North and We
of Yorkshire in 1513, and a spectacular rash of riots to rec
impounded by tax collectors (rescues of distraint) in the years
All of this protest was a reaction against government at
reform an extremely primitive fiscal system. In 1485 the
system was the most underdeveloped in Western Europe,
Scotland. In England there was no equivalent either of the F
or of the Castilian servicio. A system of regular direct ta
lacking: in character, the two direct taxes available to the g
the subsidy and the fifteenth and tenth, were emergency mea
required parliamentary authorization whenever levied. More
was no equivalent of the sales taxes found in France and C
aides and the alcabala. In fact, the only indirect taxes wer
dues, granted for the life of the monarch in the first parliam
reign, and aulnage, a farmed-out right to charge a sealing f
piece of cloth manufactured for sale.
Besides these parliamentary levies there were various pr
taxes: notably the feudal incidents exacted of tenants-in-chief,
of purveyance which permitted the government to requis
at fixed prices, and interest-free loans which subjects were
pay and the government to pay back. The Yorkists had introdu
prerogative tax in 1475, a compulsory gift called the benev
it was outlawed by parliament in 1484. With the exception of t
olence, these non-parliamentary levies made only margina
to the government's revenue.4
The primitiveness of the tax system, and the high cost of wa
for reform. The outcome was a series of fiscal modifications an
4 R. Virgoe, 'The Benevolence of 148Γ, EHR, civ (1989) [hereafter Virgoe

of 1481']: 1475, £21,000 (p. 26); 1481, £30,000 (p. 38); 1491, £48,000 (p. 29); 1
(see P. Williams, The Tudor Regime (Oxford, 1979) [hereafter Williams, Tudo
66).

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MICHAEL BUSH 381
quent protest against actual and imagined innovations in the t

Arousing, if not solely causing, rebellion, were changes m
subsidy, an issue of revolt in 1489 and 1536; alterations in the
and tenth, a source of rebellion in 1497 and 1536; the rum
taxes on livestock, goods and services which contributed
rebellions of 1536; a tax on sheep and cloth which offended th
rebels in 1549; new taxes on the clergy, an issue of rebelli
as was the government's attempt to enlarge its feudal income
a legal device termed the Use its efficacy as a means of tax
the unrepaid loan of 1522, a cause of revolt in 1525 an
the rated benevolence, the major stimulus of the amicable gra
in 1525.
The fiscal system's backwardness lay partly with the inadeq

fifteenth and tenth. When first developed in the reign of
it had been a highly sophisticated tax. Directly assessed and
the current value of goods and chattels, it had allowed the
access to the real wealth of the bulk of the population wh
the subsistence nature of rural society, and its corollary of
low income, could only be effectively reached through a lev
sonal property. However, by 1336 the tax had ossified and
basically unchanged until its termination in 1624.5 Throu
time the yield of one fifteenth and tenth stood at roughly
Its local apportionment was also fixed. From tax to tax and
of economic growth or decline, each ward and vill made the sa
bution as in 1334. Moreover, from 1336 onwards the asses
individual wealth was placed beyond the competence o
appointed officials and reserved for the local community to
Since the assessment of community wealth was unnecessary, o
of the fixed apportionment, and since the assessment of indiv
butions was left to the community, the government's role
the tax was confined to authorization and collection. Both of th
tions, however, lay within the control of parliament whose co
necessary to justify a levy and which had the right to nam
missioners responsible for its collection.
Whilst administratively simple and conveniently guaranteein
fic revenue, the tax had obvious limitations. The yield co
revised in relation to the current wealth of the realm. To increase it
the government was therefore obliged to ask parliament to grant multiple
fifteenths and tenths collectable in the same year. These were not readily
forthcoming: throughout the fifteenth century no more than two at a
time were granted and usually on condition that they were levied in
5 J. R. Lander, Government and Community (1980) [hereafter Lander, Government and Com
munity1, pp. 79-80; J. F. Willard, Parliamentary Taxes on Personal Property, 1290-1334 (Cam
bridge, Mass., 1934), pp. 12-13; Schofield, 'Parliamentary Lay Taxation', ch. 3.
6 Because of rebates, the actual revenue from one fifteenth and tenth was about £32,000
between 1433 and 1446 and about £30,000 thereafter.

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consecutive years. Another serious limitation was the levy'

to fall upon one type of wealth: that is, the value of goods and
In this respect the tax normally exempted wealth in the form
fee-based or waged income. Also limiting the value of t
the conception of it as an extraordinary aid, only claimab
of emergency, not a regular levy. Moreover, thanks to the
and tenth, the true wealth of the country went not only u
also unknown since, unable to assess the wealth of either c
or individuals, the government was incapable, through the fif
tenth, of compiling a register of taxpayers and their individua
From the government's point of view, the system was ba
of reform. Compounding the ineffectiveness of the fifteenth
was the falling revenue from indirect taxation arising from th
export of wool in the late middle ages, and the consequen
in the government's dependence upon direct taxation.7 Th
was obvious: to replace the procedure of working down fr
yield through a perpetually set community allocation wit
of working upwards from revisable assessments of indivi
through a nationally set rate of so much in the pound. On
manner could a system of direct taxation properly tap the
of the realm. The way to achieve it was likewise self-evid
substitute for the fifteenth and tenth a direct tax which lacked its limi
tations, or liberate the fifteenth and tenth from its fourteenth-century
straitjacket. Both openings were explored in the late fifteenth and early
sixteenth centuries to an accompaniment of parliamentary protests, non
cooperation, tax strikes and rebellion. In fact, five of the six tax rebellions
were reactions against alterations to the system of direct taxation.
The attempt to find an alternative to the fifteenth and tenth led to
the introduction of several experimental taxes. These fall into two categ
ories: taxes that did not specifically assess wealth and those that did.
In the form of the poll tax, the former were tried with rebellious, off
putting consequences in the late fourteenth century.8 In the form of
the directly assessed subsidy, the latter were tentatively developed in
the course of the fifteenth century and established under the Tudors
as a major source of revenue. In the genesis of this tax, the subsidy
of 1489 marked a major breakthrough, although at the time it proved
a failure, falling far short of its expected yield and causing the govern
ment to use a fifteenth and tenth in order to raise the residue.9 Prior
to this one, the majority of directly assessed subsidies (1404, 1411, 1431,
7 J. R. Lander, 'The Hundred Years War and Edward IV's Campaign in France', in Tudor
Men and Institutions, ed. A. J, Slavin (Baton Rouge, 1972), pp. 72-3.
8 For the groat tallages of 1377, 1379 and 1380, see R. Virgoe, 'The Parliamentary Subsidy
of 1450', Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, lv (1982) [hereafter Virgoe, 'Parliamen
tary Subsidy'], 126. A fifteenth-century variant which likewise avoided the need for wealth
assessment was the taxes on fiefs or households in 1428 (6 Henry VI c. 13) and 1431 (9
Henry Vic. 15).
' Rotuli Parliamentorum, vi. 438.

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MICHAEL BUSH 383
1435, 1450 and 1472) were simply income taxes, levied on

or wages in accordance with a statutory rate.10 In fact, they
tially complements to the fifteenth and tenth, allowing the g
to tax a form of wealth that was beyond the latter's reach
of them had taxed the value of personal property (1453 an
without setting either a rate or a threshold of liability; an
the subsidy of 1474, had proposed that royal commission
assess individuals on the value of their goods and chattels."
and in a manner which became normal under the early T
subsidy of 1489 directly assessed both incomes and the value o
property by means of a national rate and, in the case of th
a national threshold of liability, producing a tax which ove
of the drawbacks associated with the fifteenth and tenth
both the taxation of landed income and the taxation of person
in accordance with its actual value.12 The 1489 subsidy had
sors - it was the third of a series of 'archer taxes' (the p
were enacted in 1453 and 1472-4), its levy on land and
accorded with earlier legislation, and its taxation of person
was precedented by the direct assessment of goods associa
with the 1474 subsidy but also an attempted reform of th
and tenth in 1463.13 But it was, without doubt, steeped
novelty, partly because it directly assessed the value of goods
in conjunction with a nationally set rate and partly becaus
first repeater subsidy: that is, a tax which once granted could
at the full rate over several years without further enactment
the sense of novelty was the fact that its prototypes, the tax
and 1474, had been withdrawn.14 The Act itself declared
was 'nothing like it hitherto', and to quell fears of constitutio
ment it laid down that it was 'not to be taken for precede
the certificates of wealth made by the commissioners shou
returnable in any of the king's courts of record' and that
collected should be withheld from the king until he actua
war. The tax raised only about a third of the expected re
than one fifteenth and tenth instead of the equivalent o
a half fifteenths and tenths.15 And protest also expressed its
10 1404: 6 Henry IV c. 9. 1411: 13 Henry IV c. 9. 1431: 9 Henry VI c. 15. 1

VI c. 12. 1450: 28 Henry VI c. 12. 1472: 12/13 Edward IV c. 8. Also see Virgoe,
Subsidy', pp. 126-30.
" 1453: 21/22 Henry VI c. 14. 1474: 14 Edward IV c.7. This was to meet th
the 1472 tax (Rotuli Parliamentorum, vi. 115-17).
12 4 Henry VII c. 20. For an assessment of this tax and its importance in
development of the subsidy, see G. Bailey, 'An Examination of the Develo
Directly Assessed Subsidy' (BA thesis, Manchester, 1988).
13 Each of these taxes was raised specifically to provide for a number of arc
see below.
14 S. Dowell, A History of Taxation and Taxes in England (3rd edn., 1965) [hereafter Dowell,
History of Taxation], i. 121, 124.
15 Rotuli Parliamentorum, vi. 422-3, 438. The tax raised no more than £27,000, instead of
the expected £75,000.

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a major revolt in Yorkshire which involved at least 5,000 pa

who murdered the earl of Northumberland, marched from
as far south as Doncaster, picking up support en route, and
session of York. The revolt endured from 20 April to 20 May an
the raising of an army royal.16
The 1489 subsidy was weighty as well as novel.17 Its h
stemmed from the fact that it followed two fifteenths and tenth
collection was still under way when the levy of the subsidy
target of £75,000, all to be collected within one year, and th
ment's right to raise three times this amount in the period
By any former standard it was a burdensome tax. However,
occurred in the first year of the levy, at a time when its repet
although enacted, still undecided and only warranted if the k
paign against the French lasted for more than one year. This
novelty, therefore, could hardly have been a source of objection
1489. As for the other novelties of the 1489 subsidy, the
threshold for the tax on movables were relatively favourable to
payer. The rate was remarkably low at threepence in the pou
the threshold was comparatively high at £6 19s. 4c/.19 None th
terms of the subsidy did mean that goods and chattels were bei
yet again and with the full amount collected by 1 May. In
the alternative levy on incomes was to be collected in two in
one by the start of May, the other by 1 November. To appr
impact of the subsidy it has to be placed in the context of the f
and tenths levied in 1488 and 1489 and their failure, throug
on assessments made in the more prosperous early fourteenth
to allow sufficient compensation for the economic decline sp
evident, for example, in late fifteenth-century York and its
ings.20 As for the tax on incomes, the unusual absence of a t
as well as a relatively high rate of two shillings in the pound
it heavy. In both respects it followed the subsidy of 1472, bu
16 Μ. Α. Hicks, 'The Yorkshire Rebellion of 1489 Reconsidered', Northern Histor

[hereafter Hicks, 'Yorkshire Rebellion'], 39ff.
"Ibid.,pp. 50-1.
18 3 Henry VII c. 16. Fifteenths and tenths were payable in 1488 and in 1489 (Rot
torum vi. 401). In 1489 part of the subsidy was to be paid before 1 May; on
fifteenth and tenth by 24 June; the second part of the subsidy before 1 Nov.; an
half of the fifteenth and tenth by 11 Nov.
" For comparison with Tudor rates and thresholds, see R. S. Schofield, 'Taxa
Political Limits of the Tudor State', in Law and Government under the Tudors,
et al. (Cambridge, 1988) [hereafter Schofield, 'Taxation and Political Limits'],
234-5. For taxes based on goods and chattels there are no enacted rates or th
the fifteenth century prior to 1489, apart from the experimental and aborted f
tenth of 1463 whose threshold for movables was five marks. In 1332, shortly be
to be directly assessed, the fifteenth and tenth had an enacted threshold of 6
of one tenth for ancient demesne and boroughs and a threshold of 10s. and a
fifteenth for elsewhere. The 1334 Act, however, omitted the instruction on thr
did all future Acts authorizing the levy of fifteenths and tenths.
20 For the heaviness of the fifteenth and tenth in a depopulated York, see D
Tudor York (Oxford, 1979), pp. 206-7.

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MICHAEL BUSH 385
from the other fifteenth-century subsidies, which had po

a threshold and a lower tax rate.21 Furthermore, the abno
the tax could only be seen as a government attempt to m
revenues by breaking through the constitutional restrictions
placed in the subject's interest upon the system of direct taxa
as well as pockets, then, seemed at risk; but the two con
were closely connected. The fiscal developments of the sixteen
revealed that the key to large tax revenues lay in directly ass
and chattels and in repeater levies.22 The subsidy grant o
the first to put forward a way of turning this key.
The subsidy, as fashioned by the Act of 1489, was not
until 1513. None the less, a device had been found which
Wolsey regime, revealed a capacity for revenue-raising that f
the fifteenth and tenth. Later changes to the subsidy wer
revisions and refinements of the 1489 enactment. They conce
ments to threshold and rate, attempts to remove the incon
straints that parliament had imposed upon the governmen
for accepting fiscal innovation, and a short-lived device, be
and last tried in the subsidy grant of 1523, to bring within t
those whom the thresholds relieved of liability. Thus, the
of 1513 removed some of the restrictions attached to the 1
Whilst insisting that it finance a campaign against France
specify, in the manner of an archer tax, how the grant shoul
Moreover, it allowed certification in the Exchequer and dir
to the king. In exchange, parliament insisted that it, rath
crown, should name the commissioners responsible for assessm
the subsidy Act of 1534 furthered the process of derestrictio
the crown rather than parliament the right to appoint a
permitting the tax to be levied for reasons other than war.23 T
of the 1534 Act mentioned defence but could not conceal that it was
granted in peacetime and for peaceful purposes. Of these reforms only
the last was a specific cause of revolt.
Attempts to tax subjects who were too poor to pay the levy on the
value of personal property and on income from land or fees featured
21 Earlier fifteenth-century taxes on landed and fee income had all possessed an enacted
threshold with the exception of the subsidy of 1472: 500 marks in 1404, £20 in 1411, £5
in 1431, £5 in 1435, £1 in 1450 (revised to £2 in 1452), and 10s. in 1463 (see R. S. Schofield,
'The Geographical Distribution of Wealth in England, 1334-1649', Economic History Review,
2nd ser., xviii (1965) [hereafter Schofield, 'Geographical Distribution of Wealth'], 490). All
later Tudor subsidies possessed a threshold on landed and fee income, except the subsidy
of 1513. As for the rate, the 1489 subsidy again resembled that of 1472; but otherwise the
rate on income was much lower in the fifteenth century except for very high incomes in
1435 (over £400) and in 1450 (over £200). In comparison with the early sixteenth century
the 1489 rate on income was high and ungraduated. In comparison with the late sixteenth
century when it became standardized at 4s. in the pound, the 1489 rate was low.
22 The importance of effectively taxing the value of goods and chattels is appreciated by
Schofield in his 'Geographical Distribution of Wealth', pp. 485, 492, and in his 'Taxation
and Political Limits', p. 236.
231513: 4 Henry VIII c. 19.1534: 26 Henry VIII c. 19.

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taxes on wages (1513, 1514, 1515 and 1523) and a flat-rat

the untaxed remainder.24 Interestingly, this experiment resu
more than an assembly of tax protest in Richmondshire and a t
in Craven, Yorkshire, both occurring in 1513, suggesting t
far as the subsidy was concerned, there was no simple co
between revolt and the range of fiscal liability.25 This is con
the Lincolnshire uprising of 1536 and the Pilgrimage of Grace. I
tion was the subsidy enacted in 1534. On the face of it, it
a heavy tax. It raised only £45,000; and that was over two
An instalment rather than a repeater subsidy, it was just th
of the 1489 subsidy; and compared with other Tudor sub
threshold of £20 was one of the highest and its assessment rate o
in the pound one of the lowest. Another alleviation was th
of two features of the Wolsey subsidies, a levy on wages and
exaction imposed upon those exempted by the threshold fo
and goods. The government also took the precaution of not
payment of the subsidy and fifteenth and tenth in the same year
more, the direct taxation granted in 1534 was the first to b
since 1523, and the subsidy levied in 1535 and 1536 was the
be collected since 1527. The rebels of 1536 could not have
to the weight of the 1534 subsidy, although they seemed t
mind the oppressiveness of earlier subsidies and were move
conviction that enough had been paid. They also had in mind
tial oppressiveness of future subsidies, fearing that the novelty
time subsidy heralded, through frequent levies, a weight of
that would damage the commonwealth.27
The tax reforms of the early Tudors applied not only to th
but also to the fifteenth and tenth. The latter reform followed four
courses: abolition of the rebate for poverty, first introduced in 1433
to compensate for economic recession and which under the Tudors was
worth £6,000 in tax revenue; doubling the levy by imposing the tax
twice in the same year; creating a hybrid tax that crossed the fixed
yield of the fifteenth and tenth with the direct assessment of the subsidy;
and using the subsidy as a supplement to the fifteenth and tenth.
Attempts to alter the fifteenth and tenth contributed to three major
rebellions, one in 1497 and two in 1536, and in the 1490s to a large
number of disturbances to reclaim goods confiscated for the non
payment of taxes.
Reform began with the parliamentary levy of 1463 which sought to
24 4 Henry VIII c. 19; 5 Henry VIII c. 17; 6 Henry VIII c. 26; 14/15 Henry VIII c. 16.
25 letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII, ed. S. S. Brewer
and James Gairdner (1862-1910) [hereafter LP], x. 745 (misdated) and LP iv. 377-8 (misdated).
All three documents belong to 1513. For the correlation of liability and revolt, see Davies,
'Peasant Revolt', pp. 125-6.
26 Schofield, 'Parliamentary Lay Taxation', table 40.
2'See M. L. Bush, "'Enhancements and Importunate Charges": An Analysis of the Tax
Complaints of October 1536', Albion xxii (1990) [hereafter 'Enhancements and Importunate
Charges'], 403ff

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MICHAEL BUSH 387
end the £6,000 rebate for poverty, to introduce to the fift

tenth the direct assessment of landed income and to restore to it the
pre-1336 practice of freshly evaluating personal property by means of
government-appointed commissioners. If successfully imposed, it would
have enabled the government to compile a record of the country's landed
and movable wealth. Although it was quickly converted into a normal
fifteenth and tenth, what it proposed resurfaced in three early Tudor
tax grants.28
The first of these grants, that of 1497, authorized two fifteenths and
tenths supplemented by an aid consisting of two directly assessed levies
which, in amount and local allocation, were each the equivalent of a
fifteenth and tenth. The aid resembled the 1463 levy, having a fixed
yield, a threshold and no rate, but differed from it in having a twice-as
high threshold, the £6,000 rebate for poverty and assessors appointed
by parliament.29 The outcome was a massive revolt in Cornwall which
picked up support from other southern counties, notably Devon, Somer
set, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Dorset, Hampshire, Surrey and Sussex,
as the rebel army marched upon London. 0 In the absence of vital
evidence, the specific fiscal objection can only be surmised. The tax
grant of 1497 was highly unusual because of the accompanying aid
which was clearly not a subsidy in that it lacked a set rate and its yield
was fixed and guaranteed, both nationally and locally, in accordance
with the standard practices of the fifteenth and tenth. Nor was it a
conventional fifteenth and tenth since it featured an assessment of landed
income as well as goods and chattels and its statutory fiscal machinery
consisted of assessors as well as collectors. Moreover, its application
was innovatory, its 1463 prototype having been cancelled. Because of
the constraints placed upon the 1489 subsidy, the aid of 1497 marked
a breakthrough for the government in authorizing assessments of indi
vidual wealth, as expressed in terms of the value of goods and chattels,
to be lodged in the Exchequer. Essentially, this experiment has to be
seen as a direct response not simply to the inadequacies of the traditional
fifteenth and tenth but also to the dismal failures of the subsidies granted
in 1472-4 and 1489.31 The advantage enjoyed by the fifteenth and tenth
over the subsidy was the certainty of its yield. Whereas the fifteenth
and tenth invariably produced an amount which accorded with expec
tations, the fifteenth-century subsidy invariably fell short. With no set
local allocation, the way was open for evasion by deliberate underassess
28 3 Edward IV, c. 8. For the rebate and its removal see Dowell, 'History of Taxation',
pp. 112-15, and Lander, Government and Community, p. 80. For the conversion to a normal
fifteenth and tenth, see Dowell, p. 121.
2912 Henry VII c. 12.
30 See Great Chronicle of London, ed. A. H. Thomas and I. D. Thornley (1938), p. 276; P.
L. Hughes and J. F. Larkin, Tudor Royal Proclamations (1964) [hereafter Hughes and Larkin,
Tudor Royal Proclamations], i, no. 35; Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1494-1509, p. 115.
31 Failures of 1472: Lander, Government and Community, pp. 97-8, 287-8; and 1489: Great
Chronicle of London, p. 243.

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ment. The Great Chronicle of London described the fate o

subsidy: although a huge sum of money was expected 'by
it was levied and summed, what by the favour of the com
and such charges as were spent in levying of the same, it
little over a fifteenth.' The aid of 1497 simply sought to co
advantages of the two systems - the direct assessment of t
and the guaranteed yield of the fifteenth and tenth.
Quite apart from the innovatory aid, the fiscal grant of
unusual in authorizing two fifteenths and tenths to be le
year. Prior to Henry VII's reign this was a very infrequent
In the course of the fifteenth century it happened in 1417
in 1429, but not again until the 1490s. Making Henry VII's f
unusual was not only the 1489 subsidy and the 1497 aid bu
imposition, in both 1492 and 1497, of double fifteenths and te
collection was due within the space of one year.32 The out
a large number of disturbances. On at least fifty-three occasio
these two years communities whose goods the fifteenth and te
tors had impounded for non-payment of tax committed a
distraint to reclaim their confiscated possessions. Another t
rescues occurred in response to the fifteenths and tenths levie
1489 and 1490. Furthermore, in April 1492 there was a myster
ing near Pontefract which was suppressed by government troo
worth. No evidence survives as to its purpose, but the t
immediately followed the deadline for paying the first of the
and tenths granted in 1491 - and the absence of Yorkist co
hint at objection to the double fifteenth and tenth levied in tha
The combination of novelty and doubling in 1497 made f
tremely onerous tax. As originally enacted, it was the equivalen
fifteenths and tenths, all to be collected within one year,
and two in November. Thus the country found itself calle
pay £120,000. And this came on top of a forced loan of £
in February, three months prior to the payment of the fi
of the tax, and not repayable until after the November co
the remaining £60,000.34 In accordance with the statute a
the grant, the second part of the aid was excused, but no
the country still had to pay £90,000 within one year, as w
loan and at a time when the burden of the normal fifteenth an
had yet to be alleviated by economic recovery.35 In all pr
32 1492: 7 Henry VII c. 11 (first payment due on 1 Apr.; second due on 1

12 Henry VII c. 12. Two fifteenths and tenths were also granted in 1487 but
spread over two years (see n. 41).
Schofield, 'Parliamentary Lay Taxation', table 47. Under the early Tudors
in all were recorded. Ackworth: Plumpton Correspondence, ed. Thomas Stap
Society, 1839), p. 81; A. F. Pollard, The Reign of Henry VII from Contemp
(1913-14) [hereafter Pollard, Henry VII], i. 81.
34 See J. B. Sheppard, 'Christ Church Letters', Camden Society, NS xix (1877), 6
35 Rotuli Parliamentorum, vi. 517.

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MICHAEL BUSH 389
the revolt was against an unprecedented weight of taxation fr

resistance seemed to offer the only escape, since the fixed
out the possibility of evasion through deliberate underasse
ing the burden less easy to bear was the novelty of the ai
directly assessing goods and chattels and in allowing the
be recorded in the Exchequer, was as intrusively threatening
subsidy.
A further attempt to adapt the fifteenth and tenth by grafting upon
it features of the subsidy occurred in 1504, apparently without protest
but also without renewal.36 Thereafter, one final attempt at revision
was made. This concerned the rebate introduced in the fifteenth century
to compensate for the effects of depopulation and economic decline.
Because it was fixed in yield, the fifteenth and tenth became relatively
heavy in a period of population contraction and economic recession,
and relatively light as a result of population growth and inflation. An
anomaly of the tax was that a decline in regional wealth necessitated
a raising of the local rate. The hardship that this caused was indicated
by the parliament of 1380 which ruled out multiple fifteenths and tenths
and even preferred a poll tax because of the fifteenth and tenth's grievous
weight. The parliament of 1450 which refused the grant of a fifteenth
and tenth made the same point.37 To provide relief in the fifteenth
century, a number of towns were excused the tax, and a rebate was
introduced at £4,000 in 1433 and fixed at £6,000 in 1446.38 The latter
remission was preserved until the tax grant of 1534, when its removal
raised the overall levy by 18 per cent. This reform contributed to the
revolts of 1536 which objected to the tax grant of 1534, opposing not
only the payment of the second instalment of the subsidy but also the
fifteenth and tenth scheduled for payment in 1537. The grievance as
presented in the Lincolnshire articles and adopted by the Pilgrimage
of Grace centred upon a recent loss of sheep and cattle which raised
the levy on each animal to unacceptable levels. Whereas the objection
to the subsidy centred upon the innovation of a peacetime levy, the
objection to the fifteenth and tenth stemmed from its inordinate weight,
the result of economic misfortune and the government's unwillingness
to take it into account.39 Thereafter, the £6,000 remission was preserved,
although the general recovery of the economy left it totally unjustified.
For a time in Henry VIII's reign a plan was afoot to replace the
fifteenth and tenth by the subsidy. Prior to 1534 a fifteenth and tenth
had not been collected since 1516. Moreover, between 1523 and 1527
£150,000 was raised by means of the subsidy alone.40 But then the
* 19 Henry VII c. 32.

37 1380: see G. Edwards, The Second Century of the English Parliament (Oxford, 1979), pp.
29-30, 39; 1450: Dowell, History of Taxation, p. 116.
38 Schofield, 'Geographical Distribution of Wealth', p. 488.
39 See Bush, 'Enhancements and Importunate Charges', pp. 404-7.
40 7 Henry VIII c. 9 and Schofield, 'Parliamentary Lay Taxation', table 40.

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1534 Act confirmed the form, first evident in 1497 and u

1513, that direct taxation would take: a fifteenth and tenth su
by a directly assessed levy. By the late sixteenth century it wa
acceptable. Earlier, however, the conjunction of the two f
explosive combination, not only in 1536, after the two had bee
in the same Act although levied in consecutive years, but also
occasions when a fifteenth and tenth and a directly assesse
raised in the same year. Such coincidences led to revolt in
and 1513.41 In fact, the first coincidence to occur without
in 1541.42 Thereafter, as the fixed assessment of the fifteenth
and the underassessment of the subsidy combined with rap
to reduce their real weight, the coincidental levy of the two t
normal, unexceptionable practice.43
Changes in the system of clerical direct taxation created y
rebel grievance. The Act for first fruits and tenths of 153
resumed and extended a papal tax - the exaction of a first
all new appointments to clerical office - making it the eq
year's income from the office in question, but also introdu
vatory tax, a perpetual levy of one tenth of ecclesiastical reven
other words, parliament in 1534 granted the crown a reg
tax upon the clergy that required no further consent for i
exactable each and every year, and leviable at the high rat
shillings in the pound. To ensure that the monarch receiv
the same Act authorized a government survey of church w
accordingly, the Valor Ecclesiasticus was compiled in 15
involved themselves in the rebellions of 1536 for a variety
religious and temporal. Evident in the articles submitted to
ment, and also in the deliberations of the clerical representativ
at Pontefract in the first week of December 1536, was a st
grievance against first fruits and tenths, partly on grounds of
partly on grounds of weight and, since the taxes had been
without the consent of convocation, partly for reasons of cons
irregularity.45
It was clearly in the government's interest not only to ref

taxation but also to do something about the underdevelop
of indirect taxation. By 1550 the Tudor regime had firmly
the practice of granting customs to the monarch for life i
41 The second of the fifteenths and tenths granted in 1487 was due in 1489 (Ro
torum, vi. 401). For 1497: 12 Henry VII c. 12 and 13. For 1513: 3 Henry
4 Henry VIII c. 19.
42 Between 1541 and 1547 coincidental levies of the fifteenth and tenth and su
in every year except 1545.
43 See G. R. Elton, The Parliament of England, 1559-1581 (Cambridge, 1986), p
44 26 Henry VIII c. 3.
45 Articles: PRO SP1/112 (LP xi. 1246). Clerical committee: British Library
Cleo. Ε v, ff. 413-413b (LPxi. 1245).

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MICHAEL BUSH 391
parliament of the reign, but had added to its limited repertoire

levies only a quickly terminated tax on sheep and cloth.
Granted by parliament in March 1549, the relief on sheep
was linked with a subsidy so as to confine liability to sub
tax burden, as calculated on sheep and cloth, exceeded their
as calculated on goods and chattels.46 This offsetting pro
efited the rich but provided no relief for subjects whose liabil
subsidy was either a minimal sum, on account of the low va
goods and chattels, or nil, on account of the subsidy's tax
of £10. In practice, the sheep/cloth tax was a device for extract
from subjects whose poverty safeguarded them from the
terms offered no tax relief apart from a lower rate on flo
than twenty sheep. For the poor clothmakers, the only con
the attendant measures allowing the fee-farms of towns
locally on poor relief and public works rather than paid to
ment.47 As for the set rate, it was far from low. In the m
the people of Lincolnshire and the East Riding had found it
that, in connection with the fifteenth and tenth, they should
twelve pence for twenty sheep.48 Now the minimum charge f
of sheep was twenty pence and the maximum charge sixty
intervening gradations of forty and thirty pence. Even wh
is taken into account, the sheep tax, as it was rated, remain
imposition. The same was probably true of the tax on clo
flat rate of eight pence in the pound on the value of all kinds
Adding to the burden of the relief on sheep and cloth was
character: it was to operate for three successive years. It
deeply worrying tax, partly because the mechanism of offsett
the subsidy meant that some graziers and clothiers were
their sheep and cloth, and therefore awarded the advantage of
ing those who were, or of making a much larger profit; and pa
connected with it was the registration of all sheep and cl
Exchequer. Yet again, then, a novel tax which was heavy
right and pregnant with sinister implications.
During its eight months of life the sheep and cloth tax
insurrection in the West Country. Incensing the rebels of
Cornwall was not only the new church service but also a n
of taxation.49 For a time the government persisted with t
sought to quell revolt first by allowing Lord Russell to p
remission and later by granting 'two eases', the first, excu
first year flocks of one hundred sheep or less from the tax, t
excusing clothiers from having their products immediatel
46 2/3 Edward Vic. 36.

" Μ. L. Bush, The Government Policy of Protector Somerset (1975), pp. 49-50.
48 See the third article of the Lincolnshire petition (PRO SP1/108 (LP xi. 705(1
49 Made in a lost supplication, but evident in the government's reply to it
Rose-Troup, The Western Rebellion (1913) [hereafter Rose-Troup, Western R
G, p. 437).

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concession which must have delayed the levy.50 Then, in

parliament repealed the measure on the grounds that it wa
to administer and harmful to the poor.51
In addition, the rumour of indirect taxes could incite rev
in October 1536 the Lincolnshire and Yorkshire rebels were offended
not only by alterations to the subsidy and fifteenth and tenth but also
by the fear of 'enhancements' which, it was thought, would consist of
taxes on livestock, sacraments (on baptisms, burials and marriages),
food and gold. If realized, such taxes would have swept away the protec
tion offered by the subsidy's high threshold and low rate of assessment,
enabling the government to tax the realm, and especially the poorer
element, with unprecedented severity.52 In late 1536 the government
convincingly dismissed the new taxes as unfounded rumour, so much
so that they were not included in any of the articles submitted by the
rebels to the government.53 None the less in the early stages of the
revolt the spectre of a fiscal revolution, as raised by rumour, had incited
commoners to action. Furthermore, the fiscal grievances of the western
rebels in 1549 were fuelled not simply by the actual tax on sheep but
also by the rumour that it would extend to geese and pigs.54
The early Tudors also sought to reform the prerogative taxes at their
disposal, notably the benevolence, the forced loan and the crown's feudal
income. Although outlawed in 1484, the benevolence was revived in
1491 and imposed in 1525, 1545 and 1546. Like the forced loan, it was
a contribution which the crown could demand of subjects to meet the
needs of defensive war. Originally, it differed from the forced loan in
that it was not repayable and the amount required of each subject was
determined by his own generosity (i.e. benevolence). Under the early
Tudors the benevolence was subjected to two important changes. The
first concerned a parliamentary underpropping: presumably a conse
quence of the tax's prohibition by Act of parliament in 1484. Thus,
the benevolences of 1491 and 1545 were retrospectively authorized by
statute.55 In addition, the three benevolences of Henry VIII's reign
were government-rated, in the manner of the loan or the subsidy. In
each case it was not left to the subject to decide how much to pay
but to commissioners who made a specific demand determined by an
official assessment of the subject's wealth and a national rate in the
pound set by the government and declared in its instructions to them.
50 Ibid., p. 438.
51 3/4 Edward Vic. 23.
52 LP χi. 569, 768(2), 826, 892.
53 Hughes and Larkin, Tudor Royal Proclamations, i, nos. 168 and 169; LP xi. 955, 956,
769.
54 N. Pocock (ed.), Troubles Connected with the Prayer Book of 1549, Camden Society, NS,
xxxvii (1884), 16.
5511 Henry VII c. 10 and 37 Henry VIII c. 25 (xxxii).

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MICHAEL BUSH 393
In this respect, the benevolences of Henry VIII's reign were v

ent from those imposed earlier. They were hardly 'benevolenc
The first time the rated benevolence was used rebellion ensued. The
amicable grant of 1525 caused considerable protest in the south-east
and large-scale revolt in Suffolk and Essex. With no assurance of repay
ment, and authorized neither by parliament nor convocation but simply
by commission, it smacked of novelty and illegitimacy. Furthermore,
it was alarmingly heavy, with a very low threshold, a very high rate
of assessment and an expected yield of something like £333,000. To
add insult to injury, its levy coincided with the collection of a heavy,
repeater subsidy, and followed the exaction, in 1522 and 1523, of a
huge, and as yet unrepaid, forced loan.57 The point made by the pro
testers was that they were not against assisting the king but wished, in
the normal manner of a benevolence, to decide for themselves how much
they should pay, especially in view of the other fiscal demands made
of them.58 Faced by widespread protest and non-cooperation, and seek
ing the most practical way to raise money quickly and curb disorder,
the government made concessions, first halving the assessment rate, a
move which led to the East Anglian uprisings of early May, and then
replacing a rated tax by one which, in the usual manner of a benevolence,
permitted the goodwill of the payee to determine the level of his contri
bution.59 In the charged atmosphere of the time this true benevolence
was also opposed, because it contravened the Act of 1484.60 By the
end of May the government had abandoned the tax altogether, but
not forever. Rated benevolences were reimposed in 1545 and 1546 but
less forcefully and with a much lower rate of assessment and a much
higher threshold, and in 1545 with success, since £125,000 was raised.61
No revolt resulted, although the collectors encountered a great deal
of non-cooperation. In fact, the history of the benevolence in the late
56 1525: see the surviving instructions to the clergy (LP iv, App. 34). The instructions for
the laity are missing but their content can be worked out from Hall (E. Hall, Henry VIII,
ed. C. Whibley (1904) [hereafter Hall, Henry VIII], p. 35), and letters from commissioners
(H. Ellis (ed.), Original Letters Illustrative of English History, 3rd ser., i. (1846), 359 (LP
iv. 1266), 369 (LP iv. 1243) and 376 (LP iv. 1235)). 1545: see instructions, LP xx(2), App.
4. 1546: see instructions, LP xxi( 1), 844. For the earlier benevolences, see Virgoe, 'Benevolence
of 1481', pp. 25ff. See also the instructions misdated in Ν. H. Nicolas, Proceedings and
Ordinances of the Privy Council of England, ν (1835), 418ff., which Virgoe (p. 33) believes
related to the 1481 benevolence, but which probably belonged to that of 1491, and the
commission of 1491 (Patent Rolls, 1494-1509, p. 353), and the description of the same tax
in the underpropping Act of 1494 (11 Henry VII c. 10).
57 G. W. Bernard, War, Taxation and Rebellion in Early Tudor England (Sussex, 1986) [hereafter
Bernard, War, Taxation and Rebellion], pp. 117-21. The threshold was 20,s. The rate was
3s. Ad. in the pound for those with income or wealth worth £50 upwards; Is. 8d. in the
pound for those in the £20 to £50 category; and Is. in the pound for those in the 20s.
to £20 category.
58 See e.g. Ellis (ed.), Original Letters Illustrative of English History, 3rd ser., i. [hereafter
Ellis, Original Letters] 372-3 (LP iv. 1243).
59 See E. Hall, Henry VIII, p. 39; LP iv. 1323; and A. L. Bridge, 'The Amicable Grant Revolt
of 1525' (Manchester BA thesis, 1984), pp. 2-3, 53-7.
60 Hall, Henry VIII, p. 40.
61 See n. 4.

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fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries was marked by resistanc

form of non- or delayed payment.62
Forced loans met with much less opposition, especially wh
were repaid. However, Henry VIII's government was inclined
the promise of repayment. In this way, the device ceased to
an anticipation of revenue and became a source of income i
right - to the tune of £260,000 in 1522-3 and £112,000 in
a revenue-raiser, the individual forced loan in the reign of H
easily outdid the individual subsidy or fifteenth and tenth. But t
of promise involved meant that it could not be employed t
in this manner. It was a device which the government treated w
tutional respect, securing its absolution from repayment in par
On the first occasion, however, six years passed before parli
consent was sought. In that period the issue of the unrepai
1522-3 was a sore point not only in the amicable grant furo
but also in the Kent and Norfolk protests of April 1528.65
Yet another prerogative tax featured in the rebel complaint
Both the Lincolnshire rebels and the Pilgrims objected to th
of Uses which prevented landowners from evading the fiscal im
the king was entitled to exact as feudal overlord.66 A variety of
were given for objecting to the statute, but a basic cause of
was its intention of increasing the crown's income at the e
the landowners. Rather than creating a fiscal innovation, t
reclaimed a traditional right. The latter's evasion, however,
allowed for so long that its reclamation seemed an infringe
liberty. The grievance was the concern of one particular group.
VIII pointed out in his reply to the Lincolnshire articles, th
did not affect the commons, only his 'nobles, knights and gentl
But the latter were prominent in both revolts, alienated by
of grievances, one of which was their newly acquired vulner
fiscal feudalism. Its importance as a grievance merited inclus
Lincolnshire articles and in the articles which the Pilgrims s
to the king in early December.68
The importance of fiscal grievances in early Tudor rebellio
62 For fifteenth-century non-cooperation see Lander, Government and Communi

sixteenth-century non-cooperation see LP xx(l), 604, 641, 674, 799, 999; LP xx
631.
63 1522/3: Bernard, War, Taxation and Rebellion, p. 119. 1542: F. W. Dietz, English Government
Finance, 1485-1558, Illinois University Studies in Social Sciences, ix (1920), 164-5.
64 21 Henry VIII c. 29; 35 Henry VIII c. 12.
65 1525: Ellis, Original Letters, pp. 372 (LP iv. 1243). 1528: for Kent, LP iv. 4173, 4188;
and for Norfolk, LP iv. 4190-2.
66 See Bush, 'Enhancements and Importunate Charges', pp. 415-18.
67 State Papers Henry VIII, i. p. 464.
68 Lincolnshire: article 2 (LP xi. 705(1)). Pilgrimage: article 20 (LP xi. 1246).

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MICHAEL BUSH 395
be measured in two ways: first, by considering their imp

course of revolt and second, by assessing the impact of tax
government policy and the development of the tax system.
With the exception of the amicable grant uprising of 1
insurrections discussed above included non-fiscal complai
in the revolts of 1489 and 1497 were strains of Yorkism;
the revolts of 1536 and 1549 were religious grievances. Yo
ever, was of secondary importance to taxation as a cause
1489 and in the first western rebellion of 1497. In both rebellions the
tax grievance seemed the driving force of revolt. An informative contrast
exists between the Yorkist uprising of 1487, centring upon the pretender
Lambert Simnel and his bid for the throne, and the Yorkshire uprising
of 1489. In the latter, Yorkist hostility probably caused the murder
of the earl of Northumberland, and one of its leaders significantly fled
abroad to the court of Edward IV's sister Margaret; but, in the vital
absence of an associated Yorkist contender, taxation shines forth as
the main grievance. This was evident not only in the original outbreak
but also in the proclamation that the rebels eventually produced. The
most recent account by Michael Hicks notes that this proclamation
'makes no mention of taxation'. However, in all likelihood, it does:
in its exhortation 'to gainstand such persons as is aboutward for to
destroy our sovereign lord the king and the commons of England for
such unlawful points as St Thomas of Canterbury died for'. Hicks inter
prets 'the unlawful points' as relating to the infringement of sanctuary.
But another 'unlawful point' popularly associated with Becket con
cerned his resistance to novel taxes upon the poor.69 This association
suggests that, not only at the inception but also in the later stages,
the rebels' grudge against the government sprang from its fiscal policy.
Another informative contrast exists between the two western uprisings
of 1497, the second led by the pretender Perkin Warbeck, and bent
upon replacing Henry VII, the first eventually led by Lord Audley,
a nobleman of Yorkist family background, but a movement aroused,
directed and sustained not by dynasticism but by the government's tax
policies. The support provided in the West Country for Perkin Warbeck
when he landed in September 1497 offers no convincing proof that the
earlier uprising was Yorkist. In fact, the West Country may well have
supported Warbeck because of the earlier revolt's failure and because
he took the precaution in his July proclamation of condemning 'the
extortions, the daily pilling of the people by dimes, taxes, tallages, ben
69 Hicks, 'Yorkshire Rebellion', pp. 54-5. For the fiscal interpretation of'unlawful points'
see, for example, LP viii. 626. The pardon of St Thomas, as used by pardoners, referred
to 'divers points wherefore he was slain in that he did resist the king'. One of these points,
as elaborated in the pardon, was plans to exact tributes on the schooling of children and
on the eating of 'certain meats' by poor men.

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evolences and other unlawful impositions and grievous ex

to the likely destruction and desolation of the whole realm'.70
In contrast with the tax revolts of 1489 and 1497, non-fiscal
were undoubtedly of prime importance in the rebellions o
the Prayer Book uprising of 1549. Revolt directly stemmed fr
of religion: in the case of the 1536 revolts, the dissolution o
monasteries and the fear that the government's onslaught upo
tical wealth would extend to the parish churches; and, in
the Prayer Book uprising, the explicitly Protestant church ser
duced on Whit Sunday, 1549. But it would be misleading t
the revolts simply in these terms. The Lincolnshire uprisin
niably a tax revolt, since four of its six articles dealt with mat
The Pilgrimage of Grace, moreover, in the early stages ad
Lincolnshire articles; then its December articles, a rag-bag of g
systematically collected from the various strands of revolt, als
four tax complaints. Running through the rebellions of 153
two themes, the subversion of the true faith and the destruct
commonwealth, the latter threatened by the government's
of the clergy and laity, partly through the seizure of chur
and partly through taxation. Conceived as a major threat
monwealth, taxation in its various forms had a central ro
in generating revolt which, after all, began as a capture of sub
missioners and continued after the pardon of 9 December i
to pay the subsidy and the tenth until the promised parliamen
had passed judgement on the rebels' grievances.71
Less complicated in motivation, the Prayer Book uprising was
by the introduction of the new liturgy. The rebels' articl
mainly, if not exclusively, upon the Edwardian reformati
affront to the old religion. However, the predominance of the
grievance did not exclude secular complaints, one of whic
dearth while the other was the short-lived and novel tax on
cloth.72
What impact did the tax revolts have upon the government? On several
occasions they influenced its foreign policy: thus, in 1497 a campaign
against Scotland was stopped; in 1525 a grand design to annex a large
part of France was thwarted; in 1549 another campaign against Scotland
had to be called off. The government's fiscal policies, likewise, were
shaped by revolt, as was the tax system that developed in the course
of the sixteenth century. In general terms the government sought and
70 For Warbeck's proclamation, see Pollard, Henry VII, i. 154. Dr Arthurson's account of
the 1497 revolt stresses the fiscal factor and that it was more than a Cornish uprising but
fails to appreciate the specific offensiveness of the fiscal measures and makes the serious
mistake of running together the two uprisings of that year. See his 'The Rising of 1497:
A Revolt of the Peasantry?', in People, Politics and Community in the Later Middle Ages,
ed. Joel Rosenthal and C. Richmond (Gloucester, 1987).
71 See M. L. Bush, '"Up for the Commonwealth": The Significance of Tax Grievances in
the English Rebellions of 1536', EHR, cvi (1991), 299ff.
72 Rose Troup, Western Rebellion, App. G.

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MICHAEL BUSH 397
found an efficient means of taxing the wealth of the real

rebellious opposition to its reforms and the fear of further r
it to abandon the attempt to ensure a direct correlation betwe
and wealth.
Tax revolts, it is true, frequently failed to secure the redress of their
supporters' specific grievances. The government had its way with the
subsidy of 1489, the reformed fifteenth and tenth of 1497, the unrepaid
loan of 1522, the subsidy levied in 1536, the unremitted fifteenth and
tenth of 1537, first fruits and tenths, feudal incidents and eventually
combinations of direct taxes levied on an annual basis. None the less,
in accordance with rebel demands the amicable grant was terminated
in 1525 and the tax on sheep and cloth was removed in 1549. And
either to pacify revolt or to prevent its recurrence, the government fre
quently resorted to a policy of concession and non-provocation. Thus,
Yorkshire was made to pay the subsidy in 1489 but was excused the
fifteenths and tenths of 1491 and 1497.75 The 1513 tax protest in Rich
mondshire and Craven led to a postponement of the subsidy assessment
in these parts until early 1515; and the full amount of the tax was never
collected. Furthermore, a fifteenth and tenth due for collection in Febru
ary 1513 remained unpaid fifteen years later in parts of the West Riding,
and then was formally abandoned.74 The uprisings of 1525 caused the
government to make several concessions in the hope of salvaging some
thing, before abandoning the amicable grant altogether.75 Likewise,
in protesting against the tax on sheep and cloth, the Prayer Book uprising
persuaded the government to offer several easements in a vain attempt
to make the tax acceptable.76 Moreover, as a result of tax revolt, the
government was dissuaded from using certain devices ever again, or
at least for a very long time. Twenty-five years elapsed after 1489 before
the government next attempted to levy an open-yield subsidy; after 1497
ninety-six years passed before a double fifteenth and tenth exactable
in one year was next granted, and then it was only with the proviso
that it was not to be taken for precedent.77 After the troubles of 1513
twenty-eight years passed before a subsidy and a fifteenth and tenth
were again collected in the same year. Twenty-one years passed before
the government again attempted something resembling the amicable
grant.78 Moreover, after 1536 a Tudor government never again sought
to remove the rebate for poverty from the fifteenth and tenth; and after
1549 it steered clear of taxes on livestock and excises.
The government's determination to reform the tax system produced
several major changes. Thus the directly assessed subsidy on lands and
73 Schofield, 'Parliamentary Lay Taxation', p. 420.

,4 R. B. Smith, Land and Politics in the England of Henry VIII (Oxford, 1970), pp. 198-9.
75 See above, p. 393.
76Seen. 50.
77 35 Elizabeth I c. 13. Equipped with the same proviso, this device was used in every tax
grant for the rest of the reign. See 39 Elizabeth I c. 27 and 43 Elizabeth I c. 18.
The benevolence of 1545, followed in 1546 by the Loving Contribution.

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goods became an integral part of the tax system and the

enacted in 1534 survived the opposition of 1536. As a result,
ment possessed, in the subsidy, a tax liberated from mos
backs of the fifteenth and tenth, and, in the clerical tenth,
in being perpetual and regular, was less subjected to res
any other Tudor tax. Moreover, from the 1540s onward
a fifteenth and tenth and the subsidy within the same y
regular feature of the tax system. Finally, the rated ben
the unrepaid forced loan became well established, though
used. On the other hand, tax revolts ensured that the tax
not simply the product of fiscal planning and retained m
ditional primitiveness. The premier direct tax, if not the
of revenue, remained an unreformed fifteenth and tenth
local allocation fixed as it had been ever since 1336, and e
the £6,000 rebate in spite of the economic and demograp
of the sixteenth century. Under the Tudors the real value of
and tenth was progressively reduced by inflation; and a tax
in the late middle ages by its fixed nature now became
reason acceptably light. Abandoning the attempt to reform
and tenth and desisting from replacing it, in the manner of
regime, by the subsidy, the government eventually soug
by modestly supplementing the unreformed fifteenth and t
subsidy and by securing grants of multiple levies. The s
to be frequently levied from the 1540s as a device to ma
shortcomings of the fifteenth and tenth, but retained an es
teristic, one shared with the fifteenth and tenth to which it
attached in a grant of supply: that is, of being conceived
was not to be granted in each and every year. Furthermo
blance to the fifteenth and tenth increased as the valuations of wealth
upon which its levy rested became gross underassessments of real
wealth.79 The same process of devaluation affected the clerical tenth,
as no attempt was made to update the valuations recorded in the Valor
Ecclesiasticus. As rated taxes, both the subsidy and the clerical tenth
were theoretically well designed to cope with inflation, but in practice
neither could keep up with it. Revolt and its prospect not only preserved
the requirement that direct taxation should depend upon parliamentary
consent and avoid rigorous and rational exaction, but also upheld
another traditional feature of the tax system: its underdevelopment in
the field of indirect taxation. An obvious reform would have been to
increase the number of indirect taxes, but all that was achieved was
"See Dowell, History of Taxation, p. 154; F. C. Dietz, English Public Finance, 1558-1641
(New York, 1932), pp. 384-5, 391—2; J. Guy, Tudor England (Oxford, 1988), pp. 383-4;
D. M. Palliser, The Age of Elizabeth: England under the Later Tudors, 1547-1603 (1983),
p. 139; Williams, Tudor Regime, pp. 74-5; R. Cust, The Forced Loan and English Politics,
1626-1628 (Oxford, 1987), pp. 256-8.

5.150.98.254 on Mon, 10 May 2021 10:24:01 UTC
MICHAEL BUSH 399
to improve the customs, and then again, not sufficiently to pr

devaluation by the price rise.80
While tax revolt was a distinctive feature of the early Tudor
the late sixteenth century it was an extremely rare event. Part
sible were the lessons learned from the tax revolts. But also
was the government's discovery that the frequent use of well-tr
was a much less troublesome way of raising revenue than th
tion of new or seriously revised taxes. In the course of the
century the value of individual fifteenths and tenths and o
fell under the impact of high inflation and underassessmen
of countering with radical reform, the government simply rai
lowered thresholds and increased the number of levies. The
years of Henry VII and Henry VIII produced no more than t
levies of lay direct taxation; whereas the fifty-six years of Edw
and Elizabeth produced seventy.81 The real value of wha
raised in one year remained roughly constant - that is, unti
- but depended upon exacting more taxes within the year.82
the revenue could be increased by levying direct taxes on
basis. Public tolerance was maintained by the government's
servatism, and the prevalence of a second form of resistance: c
lowered thresholds and highered rates were the opportunit
evasion, increased by the failure to revise evaluations of wea
ing with the steep rate of inflation and by the failure to exten
in accordance with the population increase. Such a system
and multiple taxation was first attempted in the last seven year
VIII's reign; it was used again in Elizabeth's reign. It only f
the 1590s when a high rate of inflation meant that an absu
number of direct taxes needed to be levied to maintain the real value
of one year's tax revenues.83 In the circumstances new devices were
found - impositions, ship money, militia taxes, compounding for pur
veyance - and tax protest resurfaced;84 but cushioned by the lightness
and traditionalism of the basic tax system, contained by the national
emergency of the war with Spain, impeded by the development of class
80 For customs, see Williams, Tudor Regime, pp. 70, 72. Opportunities for new indirect taxes
lay with the grant of monopoly patents and the reservation of royalties upon them; but
they were not exploited.
81 Instalment subsidies have been counted as one; repeater subsidies as the multiple of the
occasions upon which they were levied.
82 Around £50-60,000, as adjusted in accordance with the Phelps Brown index (see Ε. H.
Phelps Brown and S. V. Hopkins, 'Seven Centuries of the Price of Consumables Compared
with Builders' Wage Rates', Economica, NS xxiii (1956), 312-13). In the 1590s, it fell to
about £30,000.
83 From the 1540s onwards the annual tax yield normally rested upon the levy of two taxes
in the same year, as opposed to a norm of one tax per annum before that date. In 1593
a statute authorized the collection of three taxes per year for three years (see 35 Elizabeth
c. 13). The triple tax was used again in 1597 (39 Elizabeth c. 27) and in 1601 (43 Elizabeth
c. 18). In fact, for the last decade of the reign three levies were made each and every year
with the exception of the year 1600.
84 Williams, Tudor Regime, pp. 75-7.

5.150.98.254 on Mon, 10 May 2021 10:24:01 UTC
conflicts in the rural community and deterred by improvement

government's means of dealing with insurgency, especially a
of the reform of the militia, the establishment of lord lieut
deputy lieutenants as county officials and the riot legislatio
this protest failed to escalate into rebellion.

5.150.98.254 on Mon, 10 May 2021 10:24:01 UTC

Tax and Rebllion

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Tax and Rebllion

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Tax Reform and Rebellion in Early Tudor England

Author(s): MICHAEL BUSH

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24421380

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rebellions against the government. The first occurred in York

' C. S. L. Davies, 'Peasant Revolt in France and England: A Comparison', Agricultural

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conclusion results from concentrating upon one particular

4 R. Virgoe, 'The Benevolence of 148Γ, EHR, civ (1989) [hereafter Virgoe

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quent protest against actual and imagined innovations in the t

The fiscal system's backwardness lay partly with the inadeq

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consecutive years. Another serious limitation was the levy'

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1435, 1450 and 1472) were simply income taxes, levied on

10 1404: 6 Henry IV c. 9. 1411: 13 Henry IV c. 9. 1431: 9 Henry VI c. 15. 1

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a major revolt in Yorkshire which involved at least 5,000 pa

16 Μ. Α. Hicks, 'The Yorkshire Rebellion of 1489 Reconsidered', Northern Histor

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from the other fifteenth-century subsidies, which had po

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taxes on wages (1513, 1514, 1515 and 1523) and a flat-rat

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end the £6,000 rebate for poverty, to introduce to the fift

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ment. The Great Chronicle of London described the fate o

32 1492: 7 Henry VII c. 11 (first payment due on 1 Apr.; second due on 1

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the revolt was against an unprecedented weight of taxation fr

* 19 Henry VII c. 32.

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1534 Act confirmed the form, first evident in 1497 and u

It was clearly in the government's interest not only to ref

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parliament of the reign, but had added to its limited repertoire

46 2/3 Edward Vic. 36.

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concession which must have delayed the levy.50 Then, in

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In this respect, the benevolences of Henry VIII's reign were v

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fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries was marked by resistanc

The importance of fiscal grievances in early Tudor rebellio

62 For fifteenth-century non-cooperation see Lander, Government and Communi

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be measured in two ways: first, by considering their imp

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evolences and other unlawful impositions and grievous ex

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found an efficient means of taxing the wealth of the real

73 Schofield, 'Parliamentary Lay Taxation', p. 420.

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goods became an integral part of the tax system and the

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to improve the customs, and then again, not sufficiently to pr

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conflicts in the rural community and deterred by improvement

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