Parliamentary Taxation in Seventeenth-Century England: Local Administration and Response (ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY STUDIES IN HISTORY NEW SERIES)

Taxation has long been seen as an issue of fundamental importance in the politics of seventeenth-century England, debates about taxation being central to the political conflict between crown and parliament. Tax Collection and Tax Resistanceis the first major attempt to study local responses across the country to the demand for national taxation. The analysis covers the period of the civil wars and revolution, during which there was a major change inthe tax regime; it explores the ways in which the total tax burden, and its proportional contribution to the total revenue, increased dramatically, and shows how the growing extractive capacity of the state had a considerable effect on the relationship between centre and locality. Systematic use of the exchequer records is made, providing the most detailed account currently available of the local financial impact, administration and yield of the major parliamentary taxes and of the people who administered them.
MICHAEL J. BRADDICKlectures in history at the University of Sheffield.