TAXATION AND FINANCE. 163 



The scheme, as is well known, was abandoned, and the 

 estates of the landowners were relieved from feudal dues and 

 aids at the expense of the general public, and by means of the 

 hereditary excise. A struggle was indeed made for equity. 

 It was seen in the first place that the plan of distributing the 

 i 00,000 a year over all lands and tenements would be 

 unfair, as only those held by knight-service were customarily 

 liable to the dues. It was therefore suggested that the lands 

 held by knight-service only should be charged. But it was 

 objected that the levy of these dues had been suspended for 

 half a generation, and that purchases had been made under the 

 belief that the liability had been finally extinguished. Now 

 the Commons had agreed to make the king's annual income 

 up to ;i, 200,000 a year, and Charles was daily informing them, 

 directly and indirectly, that this sum would be far from ade- 

 quate to the maintenance of the establishment which he had 

 gathered about himself. It was necessary to redeem their 

 pledges to the Crown ; it was necessary to redeem their 

 estates ; the landowners found difficulties in redeeming them at 

 their own costs and charges; the land must therefore be 

 ransomed at the cost of other people. Hence they gave the 

 king and his successors for ever that part of the excise which 

 they selected and made hereditary. By a natural inconsis- 

 tency, the landowners who relieved their own estates continued 

 these burdens on their own copyholders, which in origin were 

 similar to their own liabilities, were just as vexatious, and just 

 as indefensible l . 



The Act which satisfied the king's claim and relieved the 

 great landowners' charges is known as the Hereditary Excise 

 Act. In the statute book it immediately follows on that es- 

 tablishing the Temporary Excise (12 Car. II. caps. 23 and 24), 

 and the payments on excised articles are at the same rate in 

 both. They arc is. $d. the barrel of strong beer (36 gallons), 



1 It was even retained in the caic of freeholders. At the present time (1887) 

 Magdalen College pays Merton College a relief on half-a-knight's fee in Chalgrovc, 

 on every occasion when a new President is elected. For the knight's fee, see 

 i p. 653. Of course the sum is fixed, and almost nominal. 



M 2 



