[The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. by David Hume]@TWC D-Link bookThe History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. CHAPTER LVII 4/64
The parliament at Westminster having voted an excise on beer, wine, and other commodities, those at Oxford imitated the example, and conferred that revenue on the king.
And, in order to enable him the better to recruit his army, they granted him the sum of one hundred thousand pounds, to be levied by way of loan upon the subject.
The king circulated privy seals, countersigned by the speakers of both houses, requiring the loan of particular sums from such persons as lived within his quarters.[*] Neither party had as yet got above the pedantry of reproaching their antagonists with these illegal measures. The Westminster parliament passed a whimsical ordinance, commanding all the inhabitants of London and the neighborhood to retrench a meal a week, and to pay the value of it for the support of the public cause.[**] It is easily imagined that, provided the money were paid, they troubled themselves but little about the execution of their ordinance. * Rush.
vol.vi.p.
590. ** Dugdale, p.119.Rush.
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