‘National’ taxation of England began early in the thirteenth century, and although Cheshire was intermittently included until 1292, by the crucial period of 1340–60 the shire was not part of the ‘national’ bargain of taxation and consent that was central to the late medieval English polity. This chapter explores how Cheshire’s distinct position continued to be demonstrated in the way that it negotiated and paid tax in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

The incidence of the mise

In place of English parliamentary taxation Cheshire payed a subsidy called the mise, developed in the mid-fourteenth century after English lay taxation was allowed to lapse. The mise was based on two different levies, the common fine for a grant of liberties or pardon, and the donum or gift in recognition of a common obligation. The Black Prince concentrated on raising money from the profits of justice after 1346, when a call for £1,000 following Edward III’s feudal aid failed: the 1347 and 1357 forest eyres were aimed primarily at this objective; and the general eyre of 1353 was bought off for 5,000 marks. The occasions on which the mise was paid thenceforth varied widely. In 1368 2,500 marks tax was paid to the Black Prince; and in 1373 he received a further 3,000 marks. Under Richard II, 3,000 marks were paid in 1389 for the confirmation of the liberties of the county. There was a grant at the start of Henry IV’s reign in 1401, and another shortly afterwards, in 1403, a communal fine for involvement in the Percy rebellion. By this time the amount of the levy had settled, usually at 3,000 marks collected over three years. The allocation of the burden of the mise within the county was also now fixed.