The Fiscal Military State (2) Consensual States

Question 1

Why was the Stuart Regime pivotal to the outbreak of the Civil War

Answer 1

A political crisis arose as a result of the functional incapacity of the state.

Question 2

When was the English Civil War?

Answer 2

1642-51

Question 3

what was the problem within the English Army in the 1640s

Answer 3

1. tension between soldiers and civilians, violence, military lawlessness and theft.
2. in late 1640s, courts were handing down harsh sentences to soldiers who ‘were in all probability innocent’

Question 4

During 1598 and 1640, name some problems with England’s state and military.

Answer 4

1.the system of supply was extremely complex during this time: e.g swords initially supplied by county by levy but if replaced they were provided by private contractors and deducted from wages
2. in the 1620s and 1630s, the success of the military was dependent on government and the participation of local elites and local communities; meant that institution lost most of its natural authority.
3. the role of episcopacy (government of churches by bishops), was a significant political issue, heightening fears of the godly during the Caroline Regime.

Question 5

In what way was the English Army mobilised after the 1630s?

Answer 5

• new kind of supply system; a system based on prompt payment of cash.
• Army wages were additionally paid upfront.
• The creation of the New Model Army, which represented a mobilisation on an unprecedented scale, funded mainly from a new tax.

-increase in professionalism: The Officer Corps (military officer) and the Ordnance Office became permanent.

Question 6

What does Wheeler argue about the new system of supply in England?

Answer 6

that it was an excellent example of ‘the advances made in the art of war in the seventeenth century’.

Question 7

Why was new taxation good for the mobilisation of the Army in England?

Answer 7

it allowed a guarantee of supply in England

Question 8

In England, why did the Navy revolution occur?

Answer 8

1. shifting patterns in shipbuilding e.g
   increase in number of larger ships
2. predominance of merchant capital due to the Muscovy trade, Virgina Tobacco, seventeenth century east India and Iberian trades
3. Ship Money Fleets: to some extent an attempt to create a publicly funded navy

Question 9

Why did merchantism increase the desire for a Navy?

Answer 9

• attracted by the prospect of profits from both trade and privateering, there was a complex network of part-ownership which involved a great variety of investors.
  It increased the amount of ships and the nature of shipbuilding which created an environment of navel activity.

Question 10

When did the English State seize the Navy? What was the effect of this?

Answer 10

June 1642
transformed leadership, organisation and policy
changed physical employment of fleet
changed Parliament as it established its own Admiralty and naval administration.
led to drop in merchantism

Question 11

In England, what were the military implications of having a Navy?

Answer 11

1.evolution of a professional state Navy out of the Elizabethan amalgam of royal and private enterprise
2. during the restoration period, the navy absorbed up to 20 % of total expenditure in any given year
3.substantial financial commitment requiring full-time administration and reliable tax revenue.
4. The effects of the navy lasted after 1660: Hornstein ‘Cromwell’s offensive and defensive naval programme was adopted virtually in its entirety by Charles II’.

Question 12

What was the nature of military revolution in England

Answer 12

‘gradual’
1640 was merely a stage in a longer transformational period

Question 13

What Does Richard Stuart say about the success and failure of the Battlefield during the Irish Rebellion of 1598-1601

Answer 13

was ‘directly in proportion to the degree of effectiveness’ of supply lines’

Question 14

What was Land Tax

Answer 14

introduced in 1692

granted as an aid to William and Mary of four shillings in a pound for one year for carrying a vigorous war against France

direct tax levied year in year out in peace and war, paid by landowners to the crown.

Question 15

How was the importance of Land Tax exaggerated according to Beckett?

Answer 15

1. Land tax was little more than an extension of earlier levies, with a higher rate of poundage, was more of an accident than design.
2. The idea of raising tax from private property was hardly innovative and the languages of the clauses were hardly new, for instance, the Hearth Tax was introduced in 1662 to try and bring up the king’s revenue.
3. It was only maintained by governments because they were unable or unwilling to access income and property realistically.

Question 16

What were the different types of tax at the end of the seventeenth century due to the 1688 revolution?

Answer 16

Due to the wars that William III brought to England, they country had unimaginable financial commitments:
- Monthly assessments (tax) granted to parliament to help king in suppressing Ireland and maintaining Protestantism.
- Poll Tax introduced same year to help king
-In 1693, the Land Tax raised the largest amount from a single annual extraordinary tax

Question 17

What was the 1688 Revolution?

Answer 17

William of Orange took the English throne from James II
brought to England not just William III, but also his wars.

Question 18

Who did not contribute to the Land Tax?

Answer 18

business and merchant sectors of the community did not contribute to the Land Tax; it was largely sustained by landowners.

Question 19

What did Excites Tax?

Answer 19

-Ale, Beer, Cider and Perry were made excitable by 1643
-salt was added in 1644
-copper in 1645.
- Charles II’s failed commodities in the 1670s, he was given additional excites on alcohol

Question 20

Why did William III’s administration like Excites?

Answer 20

they were relatively easy to collect and were high yielding

Question 21

Why was Excites disliked by the House of Commons?

Answer 21

• once imposed they could not be removed
  -a result of changing attitudes towards consumption taxation.
  -seen as politically unacceptable as they were indirect tax, untraditional.
• was centrally imposed and likely to alienated the political nations from the administration.

Question 22

What did Charles II say about Excite Tax

Answer 22

it was the ‘best and easiest tax’

Question 23

What did the House of Common’s like Land Tax?

Answer 23

1.it should be collected in a routine and pedestrian manner.
2.The tax made substantial contributions to the attainment of political stability, and maintenance of social stability after 1689
3. It was collected locally which helped to attach the political nation to the post-revolution state.
-The Land Tax was based on consent and was not forced
-

Question 24

Which form of Tax in the post-revolution period was the major prop of government finance for the rest of the century?

Answer 24

Excites, more yielding and easier to collect/calculate

Question 25

Was the taxation enough in England according to Beckett?

Answer 25

NO, approximately 75 per cent of the additional finance for the four major eighteenth century wars was borrowed.

Question 26

Why was the Militia ineffective before 1688?

Answer 26

1.The loyalty was far from unconditional
2.They could not train effective soldiers in a few days of the year with amateur and ineffective officers
3.Musters were ineffective and soldiers disliked being drilled
4. it was not levied effectively

Question 27

How did James II neglect the militias?

Answer 27

1. some disloyal sections of the militia in the Monmouth Rebellion-had convinced James that Militias as a whole were unreliable and wished to expanded his army instead of maintain a militia.
2. James II could not convince the parliament to abolish the Militias, so he allowed them to decay instead
   3.He made sweeping and unpopular changes to lord lieutenants and deputy lieutenants of militias.
3. Protestant Lord Lieutenants were far from pleased with the new intrusions of Catholic deputies.

Question 28

Why did the militias fail to mobilise in 1688?

Answer 28

1.after three years of neglect and massive purges of lieutenants, the militia was in a bad state.
2.Two Derbyshire deputies reported that no one would serve under any ‘roman Catholic or not qualified lieutenant’.

Question 29

Why did Britain become a successful military operation in the eighteenth century?

Answer 29

John Brewer stated that ‘state underwent a radical transformation, acquiring all the main features of a powerful fiscal-military state: high taxes, a growing and organised civil administration, a standing army and the determination to act as major European power’

Question 30

Name the two key elements of the financial revolution in England

Answer 30

National Debt and Excites

Question 31

Why was national debt key to English Military Success?

Answer 31

• Taxation alone had never been – and never would be – sufficient to cover the staggering costs of waging war on a worldwide scale.
• William III onwards, ‘the national debt’ became an accepted, sometimes deeply alarming feature of the English political nation and a growing component of annual public expenditure.