158 TAXES AND CONTRIBUTIONS. 



liquidated in three parts. At the same time, this estate paid 

 a sixteenth on its lay tenements. 



Some of the taxes, however, appear to have been imposed 

 either at the king's discretion or for some special purpose. 

 Can we trace the original of Noy's ship-money in the con- 

 tiibution for the "ward of the sea" from Basingstoke in 1296, 

 in a similar payment from Letherhead in 1338 and 1339, and in 

 the archer from Cambridge in 1344, and from Ibstone in 1346 ? 

 Several payments, too, are specified to be for the Scotch war, 

 as in 1316, 1321, 1322, 1336; and, in particular, one payment 

 " for the burial of the dead in Scotland," in the year 1321, must 

 have been relative to those events which happened just before 

 the battle of Boroughbridge and the fall of Lancaster, for we can 

 hardly suppose that such an office could have had reference to 

 Bannockburn, seven years before b . Similarly, the payment for 

 the king's forces "trans mare" in 1324, the contribution for 

 the party marching to relieve St. John's (Berwick on Tweed) in 

 1338, the payment made for hoblers on several occasions, and 

 to eight men of Cambridge, and fifteen archers from the same 

 town in 1346, would scarcely have been fixed by parliament. 



There are a few tallages, one in 1339, others quoted towards 

 the end of the period ; at which time also we meet with a sub- 

 sidy. A scutage is also found in 1305, and in 1320, p. 612. i., 

 in which latter case it is received by Merton College from its 

 estate in Farley. The wool- tax of 1341 will be found, but paid 

 in money, and a similar tax is quoted under 1347. 



The wages of the parliamentary representatives and the 

 proctors in Convocation are some of the most characteristic 

 among these imposts. The earliest case, it will be seen, in 

 which the payment is recorded, is that of the latter class of 

 representatives in 1295, while the first case quoted of paying 

 knights of the shire is in 1313. It may be true that the payment 

 was made at an earlier date, it is probable that it was, when 

 it began, an imitation of the general practice of paying those 



b There is an allusion to Robert Bruce, and his relations to the English crown, in the year 

 1315, ii. 611. i. 



