TAXES AND CONTRIBUTIONS. 165 



Cambridge, Andover and Alresford in the county of South- 

 ampton. The subsidy of wools and woolfells, the tunnage of 

 wine, and the five per cent, on exports and imports are re- 

 newed. They also impose a personal tax of is. 4d. a year on all 

 denizens not of English birth, and Welshmen, who are house- 

 holders, sixpence annually on other strangers not householders. 

 The tax is not to be levied on persons under twelve years 

 of age. The same Parliament takes cognisance of the great 

 and growing debts of the king's household, and makes the 

 payment of these debts a first charge on the Duchies of Lan- 

 caster and Cornwall. It appears from a document presented 

 to the Commons on the king's part, that the ordinance of his 

 household and the control of his purveyors was business put 

 before them by the king and to which they gave their formal 

 assent in a remarkable document, which may be found at 

 length in the Rolls of Parliament, v. p. 8. 



The Parliament of 1442 granted a fifteenth and tenth, with 

 the deduction of 4000 as before. On this occasion, Lincoln is 

 wholly quitted, Cheltenham rated at a half of its old assessment, 

 as also Alresford, Scarborough, and Headington (Oxfordshire), 

 while Yarmouth is to pay only a quarter of its ordinary 

 liabilities. The other taxes are continued as before, with the 

 licence tax for two years. In the same year, the number of the 

 navy is provided : eight great ships, each with a crew of 150 

 men ; eight barges, each with 80 men ; eight balyngers, each 

 with 40 men ; four spynes, each with 25 men. The wages of 

 each man are to be 2^. a month ; twenty-four masters, each to 

 have $s. ^d. a month ; victualling, is. id. per week ; the whole 

 cost to be defrayed from the tunnage and poundage for eight 

 months, being ^6090 13^. 4^. Of these ships, one, the 

 Nicholas of the Tower, soon to be concerned in a great event, 

 lay at Bristol. In 1444 na ^ a fifteenth and half a tenth were 

 granted, and the old taxes reimposed, but not the duty on 

 aliens. 



In the Parliament of 1445, held at Westminster, in which 

 William Burley was Speaker, in place of Tresham, and a feeling 



