TAXATION AND FINANCE. 165 



parliamentary party were treated with less consideration than 

 similar purchasers among the old royalists. Charles soon 

 squandered these sources of revenue among the women of his 

 harem and their offspring. The next source of income was 

 the hearth-money, a tax of 2s. a year on every fire-place, 

 collected half-yearly, from all houses whose rental was 20.?. 

 and upwards. The tax was exceedingly unpopular, but sup- 

 plied a sure revenue. Davenant says that at the epoch of its 

 abolition it produced about 250,000 a year 1 . He states how- 

 ever in his table of assessments that the number of hearths 

 was 2,563,527, and it appears that the average of hearths to a 

 house was 1-9432, the first number apparently containing all 

 the hearths, those which paid and those which were exempt 

 from the tax. But even these taxes were insufficient, and both 

 customs and excises were raised. 



The situation at the Restoration required, beyond the 

 settlement of the civil list, extraordinary taxes to meet emer- 

 gencies. A poll-tax, graduated according to the rank and re- 

 puted means of individuals, was imposed by 12 Car. II. cap. 9, 

 under which the five ranks of the peerage paid 100, 80, 60, 

 50, and 40 respectively, their eldest sons half the amounts ; 

 baronets and Knights of the Bath 30, knights bachelors 20, 

 esquires 10, and an infinite number of officials, municipal, 

 legal or civilian, varying sums, down to a charge of 6d. on every 

 person over sixteen years of age. Again, 70,000 a month for 

 two months was levied on the Commonwealth principle for 

 the purpose of paying off the army and part of the navy, 

 70,000 was voted as an immediate present to the king, and 

 in the same year, cap. 27, 70,000 a month for six months 

 was levied for the payment of the army, by an income-tax of 

 twenty per cent, on all estates down to those of 5 yearly. 



By 13 Charles II, statute II. cap. 3, the Parliament granted 

 the king i, 260,000 2 in six quarterly payments spread over 

 eighteen months, a schedule of the rate payable by each county 



1 Ways and Means, p. 20. 



* In this assessment, the old exemption of Oxford, Cambridge, Winchester, Eton, 

 and the schools was revived. 



