Note 290 — Chapter X
Reading edition
The excise was first imposed by an ordinance of both houses in July 1643 (Husband's Collection of Ordinances, p. 267), and afterwards by the king's convention at Oxford. See a view of the financial expedients adopted by both parties in Lingard, x. 243. The plate brought in to the parliament's commissioners at Guildhall, in 1642, for which they allowed the value of the silver, and one shilling per ounce more, is stated by Neal at £1,267,326, an extraordinary proof of the wealth of London; yet I do not know his authority, though it is probably good. The university of Oxford gave all they had to the king; but could not of course vie with the citizens.
The sums raised within the parliament's quarters from the beginning of the war to 1647 are reckoned in a pamphlet of that year, quoted in Sinclair's Hist. of the Revenue, i. 283, at £17,512,400. But, on reference to the tract itself, I find this written at random. The contributions, however, were really very great; and, if we add those to the king, and the loss by waste and plunder, we may form some judgment of the effects of the civil war.