A HISTORY OF CORNWALL 



loggerheads with the king, on account of its 

 refusal to delegate its contracting powers to a 

 select committee who were to be summoned to 

 Whitehall and overawed into signing a contract 

 for the preemption. 1 On the whole, however, 

 the relations with the crown seem to have been 

 friendly enough. There would, in any case, be 

 little cause for friction, the main flurries between 

 the stannaries and royalty being conflicts of 

 courts, while the proclamations and statutes 

 which the parliaments were called upon to dis- 

 allow seem seldom to have, been numerous or 

 unreasonable. As time advanced, the occasions 

 for the calling of parliaments grew less and less 

 frequent, and for the last one, that of Devon, in 

 1822, our sole information is that the mem- 

 bers, having been sworn in at Crockerntorre, 

 adjourned to a neighbouring town. 2 



The exemption of tinners from ordinary taxa- 

 tion seems, excepting the case of ship money in 

 the year of the Armada, 3 to have been recog- 

 nised as absolute. 4 Occasionally the privilege was 

 attacked and attempts were made by royal officers 

 to tax the tinners illegally, 6 but these were usually 

 repudiated by the crown and the liberties up- 

 held. Such an instance took place in 1338, 

 when a levy of the tenth and fifteenth was 

 answered by the miners refusing to operate their 

 works until their grievance had been redressed. 6 

 Legal protection from collectors was also sought 

 by the tinners in their courts, and the bailiff, cus- 

 tomer, or sheriff, who included tinners in his lists, 

 came under the operation of the penal statutes of 

 the stannaries. 6 



The tinners, however, were subject to assess- 

 ments of their own. Of some of the older im- 

 positions we have already had occasion to speak. 

 Even at that period, when the production of tin 

 was low, we find the king's mark for both stan- 

 nary counties totalling 600 in H99, r 668 in 

 I2i a, 8 and 799 in 1214,' amounting to more 

 than the combined revenues from Cornwall and 

 Devon. 10 It was this importance of tin as a 

 source of royal income which guaranteed the 



'Add. MS. 6713, fol. 387. 



8 De la Beche, Geo/ogy of Cornwall, Devon, and Weit 

 Somerset, 586. 



3 Acts of P. C. 1588, 198 ; S. P. Dom. Eliz. ccxii, 

 53 ; ccxvi, 48 ; cclxii, 73. 



4 Pat. 12 Edw. Ill, pt. i, m. 23^ ; I Edw. IV, 

 pt. iii, m. 13; Close, Edw. Ill, pt. ii, m. 20 ; 12 

 Edw. Ill, pt. iii, m. 13 ; Add. MS. 24746, fol. 92 ; 

 Convoc. Cornwall. 1 6 Hen. VIII, c. 10. 



* Close, 12 Edw. Ill, pt. iii, m. 13. 



6 Add. MS. 6713, fol. 253. This exemption 

 from ordinary taxation gave rise to continual frauds 

 on the part of men who wished to become tinners 

 merely to escape payment of rates. P. R. O. Lay 

 Subs. R. bdle. 95, Nos. 12, 22 ; Pat. 12 Edw. Ill, 

 pt. i, m. 23^; 16 Edw. Ill, pt. iii, m. zd ; 17 

 Edw. Ill, pt. i, m. 40^, pt. ii, m. s,d, 32^; Close, 

 1 1 Edw. Ill, pt. ii, m. 20. ' Pipe R. i John. 



8 Ibid. 14 John. " Ibid. 16 John. 



10 About j$oo per annum at this date. 



tinners the continuity of royal support, and em- 

 boldened them in their stand against manor and 

 shire. 11 



With the development of stannary taxation 

 during the thirteenth century, and the establish- 

 ment of a hierarchy of collectors, on the lines 

 which De Wrotham had laid down in 1 1 98, we 

 need not concern ourselves. Those curious to 

 learn of the different expedients to which 

 Richard of Cornwall and his son Edmund re- 

 sorted, to raise money, can find enlightenment 

 in the sources, 12 but most interest is centred 

 upon the devices by which revenue was raised 

 from the Cornish stannaries from the fourteenth 

 century onward. 



There were, in the first place, sums accruing 

 from various miscellaneous perquisites. The 

 duke had his share in the profits of the stewards' 

 courts, the amounts in no case being over 20 

 from any one district, and usually much less. 13 

 Dublet, a small tax in Penwith and Kerrier, 

 brought in n*. Sd. per annum, 14 while the 'fine 

 of tin,' collected in Blackmore stannary, and in 

 Pyder hundred, contributed usually a lump sum 

 of 65*. 8^. 15 Occasionally receipts are found 

 from the sale of tin forfeited because sold un- 

 stamped, orfraudulentlymarked. 16 In likecategory 

 we may mention a profuse coinage of tin half- 

 pennies and farthings undertaken by James II, 

 and by William and Mary, for the purpose of 

 profiting by the high seigniorage ; 17 the smelting- 

 houses which the Black Prince ran at Lost- 

 withiel ; 18 and the small sums which Edward IV 



11 The chief forms assumed by the taxation in the 

 Derbyshire mines were ' lott ' and ' cope,' the former 

 the thirteenth dish of ore as toll to the lord of the 

 soil (in most of the mines the king), and the latter 6J. 

 per load of nine dishes {Compleat Mineral Laws of 

 Derbyshire, pt. i, art. 12, 13, 20). 'Lott lead 'in 

 Mendip was the tenth pound blown at the hearth. 

 (' Peculiarities in the Old Mining Laws of Mendip,' 

 by C. Lemon, Trans. Roy. Geol. Soc. Cornw. vi, 329.) 

 In Dean, the miners of ' beneath the wood ' supplied 

 each week twelve charges of ore to the king's forges at 

 \d. per charge (Houghton, The Compleat Miner, pt. ii, 

 art. 19). Every miner, besides, paid a royal tax of 

 \d. per week (Houghton, The Compleat Miner, pt. ii, 

 art. 15). 



11 Exch. K. R. Bailiffs' Accts. of Edmund of Corn- 

 wall, 24-25 Edw. I ; Pipe R. 20, 23, 27, and 34 

 Edw. I, Devon ; Aug. Off. Duchy of Cornw. Accts. 

 part 5. 



B In 1450 only 3 all told (Receiver's Roll, 29 

 Hen. VI). 



14 It appears first in 1302 (Pipe R. 30 Edw. I, 

 Cornw.), and vanishes after 1507 (Ministers' Accts. 

 Duchy of Cornw. 22 Hen. VII). 



15 See Ministers' Accts. Duchy of Cornw. 16 

 Edw. III. 



16 Receiver's Roll, 21-22 Eliz. ; 4 Jas. I. 



" Cal. S. P. Dom. 1651, 313-315 ; S. P. Dom. 

 Chas. II, xxxvii, 19 ; ccxxx, 75 ; Treas. Papers, 

 Ixxxvi, 102; vii, 73 ; Ixxxiv, 138. Collins, A Pica 

 for the Bringing in of Irish Cattle. 



18 White Book of Cornwall, 32 Edw. Ill, c. 89. 



536 



