Taxes

From the earliest times customs duties or, in medieval parlance, the subsidy of tonnage and poundage, had been one of the most staple and lucrative items of the royal revenue. ¹ They were levied at the ports on all merchandise as it was carried to and from the country; for by the beginning of the seventeenth century internal customs duties or ‘tolls’ had practically disappeared, and the organization of customs on sea-borne goods had been welded into a centralized national system. The immediate control which the parliamentary forces were able to exercise over London and the outports at the beginning of the civil wars secured to the opponents of the King that revenue which had long been regarded as his peculiar prerogative. On January 21, 1643, an ordinance was promulgated to legalize the levying of tonnage and poundage for one year and this was renewed at regular intervals throughout the entire interregnum.