tonnage and poundage

▪ English history

      customs duties granted since medieval times to the English crown by Parliament. Tonnage was a fixed subsidy on each tun (cask) of wine imported, and poundage was an ad valorem (proportional) tax on all imported and exported goods. Though of separate origin, they were granted together from 1373 and were used for the protection of trade at sea. From 1414 they were customarily granted for life to each successive king.

      Prior to the English Civil Wars (1642–51), their collection became an important issue in the constitutional struggle between Charles I and Parliament. James I (reigned 1603–25) had levied surcharges (known as impositions) on customs, and the Parliament of 1625 delayed voting on tonnage and poundage until their grievance that those surcharges were illegal had been addressed. Plague in London caused an early prorogation of Parliament in 1625, and Charles simply continued to collect tonnage and poundage and impositions as though he had a prerogative right, and not parliamentary consent, to do so. Other pressing issues prevented the Parliaments of 1626–28 from addressing the issue, but in 1629 the House of Commons passed two resolutions forbidding the collection and payment of tonnage and poundage. Those resolutions strengthened Charles's determination not to summon another Parliament, at least until compelled to do so in 1640 by his defeat at the hands of the Scots in the Bishops' Wars. Meanwhile, he continued to collect and to extend the collection of tonnage and poundage by prerogative action and with judges' support. In 1641, when the Long Parliament granted tonnage and poundage for two months, it declared their levying to be illegal without Parliament's consent. At the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, they were again granted for life to the crown and under Anne and George I were made perpetual and mortgaged to the public debt. They were finally abolished in 1787.

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