Amazing & Extraordinary Facts About Great Britain by Stephen Halliday Page A
Authors: Stephen Halliday
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granted the wool subsidy, a measure by which a customs duty was levied on exports of English wool. The revenue from this trade accounted for between half and two thirds of royal revenue in Chaucer’s time. The tax on exports was attractive because it was easy to administer and the demand for English wool in the later middle ages was so great that the trade could bear it. However as it became evident that it wasn’t exactly a trade promotion measure other methods had to be found.
Morton’s Fork
The crafty cardinal and the lost monasteries
J ohn Morton (1420–1500), who judiciously changed sides during the Wars of the Roses, became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1486 and Henry VII’s Lord Chancellor the following year. Francis Bacon (1561–1626), who was one of his successors as Lord Chancellor, left an account of Morton’s tax-raising methods which passed into history as ‘Morton’s Fork’. According to Bacon, when Morton visited one of the king’s subjects and was lavishly entertained he would conclude that the host was well-placed to make a generous tax payment or loan to the king; and when Morton was thriftily entertained he would arrive at the same conclusion by declaring that the host’s modest lifestyle must have enabled him to accumulate a large fortune. Whatever the truth of Bacon’s claim, Henry VII’s ability to raise taxes and keep the royal finances in good shape was legendary and owed a good deal to his Lord Chancellor for whom he secured a Cardinal’s hat in 1493. In the following reign Henry VIII, a more extravagant monarch than his father, filled the royal coffers by dissolving the monasteries and confiscating their wealth.
Stamping Out the Smugglers
British efforts to prevent trade in untaxable contraband
I n the 18th century the costly wars with France led the government to try to raise money by taxes on imports of products like brandy, wine, tobacco and above all the increasingly popular tea. Unfortunately for the government these were all high-value low-volume products which were easy to smuggle and the taxes spawned a huge alternative economy, especially around the south-east coasts of Britain which faced the continent. Large contingents of customs men fought gangs of smugglers who were so numerous and well-organized that they amounted to well-financed small armies. The most notorious was the Hawkhurst Gang which, from 1735–49, operated from the village of Hawkhurst in Kent, conveniently close to the flat coastline of Romney Marsh which was a favoured landing for smugglers. The gang was put out of business when its two leaders, Arthur Gray and Thomas Kingsmill, were hanged in 1748 and 1749. Others replaced them and they were merciless in their dealings with the customs men who hunted them. One customs officer who was captured by brandy smugglers was forced to drink as much brandy as he could before passing out, whereupon a further two and a quarter pints were poured down a funnel into his mouth, after which he was tied to a horse and set loose. The smugglers’ trade was eventually ended by two developments. First, the chain of Martello Towers constructed to oppose Revolutionary and Napoleonic French landings provided convenient bases for the national coast guard which was established in 1824.
MARTELLO TOWERS
In 1794, during the wars against France, the Royal Navy with great difficulty captured a small fortification at Cape Martella in Corsica. Impressed by its simple but effective design, the British government built a chain of 103 similar forts around the south-east coast of England from Suffolk to Sussex to resist a potential invasion by Napoleon. They were built of brick, 13 feet thick on the seaward side to withstand bombardment, less sturdy on the landward side, with a garrison of one officer and 24 men to man one gun in each Martello Tower. Oval in shape, they were designed so that most cannon balls would be deflected away. They were never tested in war. More than forty of them
Morton’s Fork
The crafty cardinal and the lost monasteries
J ohn Morton (1420–1500), who judiciously changed sides during the Wars of the Roses, became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1486 and Henry VII’s Lord Chancellor the following year. Francis Bacon (1561–1626), who was one of his successors as Lord Chancellor, left an account of Morton’s tax-raising methods which passed into history as ‘Morton’s Fork’. According to Bacon, when Morton visited one of the king’s subjects and was lavishly entertained he would conclude that the host was well-placed to make a generous tax payment or loan to the king; and when Morton was thriftily entertained he would arrive at the same conclusion by declaring that the host’s modest lifestyle must have enabled him to accumulate a large fortune. Whatever the truth of Bacon’s claim, Henry VII’s ability to raise taxes and keep the royal finances in good shape was legendary and owed a good deal to his Lord Chancellor for whom he secured a Cardinal’s hat in 1493. In the following reign Henry VIII, a more extravagant monarch than his father, filled the royal coffers by dissolving the monasteries and confiscating their wealth.
Stamping Out the Smugglers
British efforts to prevent trade in untaxable contraband
I n the 18th century the costly wars with France led the government to try to raise money by taxes on imports of products like brandy, wine, tobacco and above all the increasingly popular tea. Unfortunately for the government these were all high-value low-volume products which were easy to smuggle and the taxes spawned a huge alternative economy, especially around the south-east coasts of Britain which faced the continent. Large contingents of customs men fought gangs of smugglers who were so numerous and well-organized that they amounted to well-financed small armies. The most notorious was the Hawkhurst Gang which, from 1735–49, operated from the village of Hawkhurst in Kent, conveniently close to the flat coastline of Romney Marsh which was a favoured landing for smugglers. The gang was put out of business when its two leaders, Arthur Gray and Thomas Kingsmill, were hanged in 1748 and 1749. Others replaced them and they were merciless in their dealings with the customs men who hunted them. One customs officer who was captured by brandy smugglers was forced to drink as much brandy as he could before passing out, whereupon a further two and a quarter pints were poured down a funnel into his mouth, after which he was tied to a horse and set loose. The smugglers’ trade was eventually ended by two developments. First, the chain of Martello Towers constructed to oppose Revolutionary and Napoleonic French landings provided convenient bases for the national coast guard which was established in 1824.
MARTELLO TOWERS
In 1794, during the wars against France, the Royal Navy with great difficulty captured a small fortification at Cape Martella in Corsica. Impressed by its simple but effective design, the British government built a chain of 103 similar forts around the south-east coast of England from Suffolk to Sussex to resist a potential invasion by Napoleon. They were built of brick, 13 feet thick on the seaward side to withstand bombardment, less sturdy on the landward side, with a garrison of one officer and 24 men to man one gun in each Martello Tower. Oval in shape, they were designed so that most cannon balls would be deflected away. They were never tested in war. More than forty of them
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