ABSTRACT
Writers on public finance generally teach us that the difference between public and private expenditure is that whereas an individual determines his outlay by his income, a government raises its income to meet its outlay. The historian is, however, obliged to notice that political considerations invariably place a limit upon the size of a government's income; and Cromwell's income was no exception to this rule. 1 Indeed so pronounced was public resistance to the payment of heavy taxes at the end of the civil wars that the Protector was forced, like any private individual, to reduce his expenditure to meet his income. 2 But even then his budgets were markedly higher than those of either Charles I or Charles II.
