ABSTRACT
Parliament made very few financial grants to assist the standing army in England and what sums they did raise for military purposes were reserved for supporting the mass levies in time of war. The king had to pay, equip and meet the contingencies of the six standing regiments from his own revenues. Throughout the reign the army was a fiscal embarrassment to Charles, stretching his over-extended Treasury to the full, for the army never cost less than £140,000 a year. The Commons granted Charles an annual revenue of £1,200,000 after the Restoration, an amount which might have proved sufficient had the yield not been well below the official value. A trade depression, the plague, and the Great Fire of London all contributed to an annual shortfall on the ordinary revenue of up to £300,000. Added to the cost of the army, the deficit in the 1660s was crippling, leading to the Stop of the Exchequer in 1672. After that, matters improved with Danby's retrenchment and reforms and a more certain return from the customs and excise. When estimating the king's revenue for life Parliament had not considered the possibility that he would maintain an army and it was this factor, added to the inadequacy of his actual income, which led to the deficit spending of Charles's government. In addition to the English establishment, money had to be found for the garrisons in Tangier, Dunkirk, Bombay and the colonies. Fortunately, the establishments in Scotland and Ireland were paid for from their own national revenues. Most of the funds for the English army came from the excise. The Guards, Garrisons, and the Royal Household devoured £59,000 from the farm of the excise in London, Surrey and Middlesex, whilst the Guards and Garrisons took a further £61,000 and Tangier £70,000 from the collection in the remainder of the country. 1 These sums just covered the minimum annual cost of the peacetime establishment in England.
