Parliament assembled on 5 November 1380 at Northampton. Many of the magnates were absent, mustering for the Scottish campaign or abroad in France, although the king's uncle, John of Gaunt, was present. The government was still in severe financial difficulties, caused, according to the chancellor, by the disruption of the wool and cloth trade due to unrest in Flanders. The army had not been paid for months and the desertion of important fortresses was imminent; the king was in debt and his jewels in hock. Yet the commons were unwilling to accede to the chancellor's demand for a grant of taxation, and he postponed the session until 9 November, making it clear that all members of parliament would be detained in Northampton until the king obtained satisfaction.

When the session resumed, the commons asked to be informed what sum was required, and were presented with an itemised account of projected expenditure totalling £160,000 - a sum which they rejected as outrageous. They asked the lords to consider ways in which a more moderate amount could be raised, and were offered three alternatives: a poll tax of four to five groats (16d or 20d) per person; a tax on all sales and purchases within the realm; or multiple fifteenths and tenths. Of these three scenarios, the commons chose the first and only viable option, and the one also favoured by the lords. Accordingly, a subsidy was granted which took the form of a poll tax on all persons of both sexes over 15 years of age, except for beggars, though at a lower rate than that suggested by the lords. The level of taxation was still unprecedently high, however, and may reflect a growing belief among the ruling classes that the peasantry had become disproportionately affluent by evading the wage legislation of the 1350s.

All individuals were to pay 12d (or 3 groats), but the more affluent of each vill were to assist the less well-off, provided that no one had to pay more than 60 groats for himself and his wife, nor was allowed to pay less than 1 groat (4d) for himself and his wife. A tax of 12d was an average, therefore, rather than a fixed amount. Artificers, labourers, servants (including those who served members of the clergy), and other lay persons were each to be taxed according to their estate, but the rates to be charged were not laid down in the statute. The commons estimated that this tax would raise 100,000 marks for the king, but made its grant conditional upon the contribution from the clergy of an additional 50,000 marks. They also insisted that the money be used for the maintenance of the Duke of Buckingham's army, and that the tax not be considered a precedent.

The parliamentary record makes it clear that all stages of the negotiations and deliberations over this matter were lengthy and difficult, and states that final agreement to the levy was not reached until 6 December. The commons were apprehensive about popular reaction to the tax, and as in 1373, one of the conditions of the grant was that no one who had sat in the parliament in which it was granted was to be involved in its levy.

On the next day, 7 December, two sets of commissions were issued in each county and city. One commission was to the assessors, and the other to the collectors, and the same procedure was to be followed as for the levy of the poll tax of 1379. Separate commissions to the sheriffs to assist in collection, a feature of previous poll taxes, were issued on 12 December. The first two-thirds of the tax was due to be paid by 27 January 1381, and the remaining third was payable by 2 June 1381.

The vagueness of the instructions on how to implement the graduation according to income may have been due to pressure of time: parliament had already been sitting for over a month, and the government was anxious to set the collection machinery in motion as soon as possible. Soon after the initial commissions were issued, however, the government was forced to make substantial changes to them. Additional members were appointed to them, and 'insufficient' and 'infirm' collectors were replaced. In all, 83 changes to the personnel of the commissions issued in December were made. Despite these alterations, widespread evasion occurred. As McKisack noted, the returns absurdly suggest a fall of one third in the adult population between 1377 and 1381: Dr. Saul's figure for those who had 'disappeared from the rolls' since 1377 is 450,000.

On 2 January 1381, the sheriffs and escheators were ordered to enquire into the number, abode and wealth of the laity in each county and certify their findings to the Exchequer, bypassing the commissioners appointed earlier to assess the tax. On 20 February, suspecting that many collectors had in fact already received all the proceeds of the tax, the king ordered the entire grant to be paid by 22 April. It was clear, however, that in some counties the process of assessment and collection had broken down completely. Fresh commissions were therefore issued in certain counties on 16 March 1381, which instructed the collectors to levy the whole by 21 April, and conferred powers of indefinite imprisonment of 'contrariant or rebellious' persons refusing to pay. Nevertheless, the extent of evasion and resistance to the tax must not be exaggerated. For example, the writs issued to the sheriffs on 8 April instructing them to hasten the collectors' payment of the tax into the Exchequer were part of the normal process of lay taxation.

The second attempt to levy the tax led to enormous resentment in some counties. The abandonment of the duke of Buckingham's planned invasion, after the defection to the French of his ally, the duke of Brittany, in mid-January 1381, meant that the |raison d'etre| for the grant of the tax and the continuation of its levy were eliminated. Moreover, there may have been a popular misconception that the collection of both payments of the tax at one time in fact represented an entirely new tax, which had not been authorised by parliament. It was this collection, in the early summer of 1381, which sparked the Peasants' Revolt.

As well as the numerous documents for this tax in the E 179 series, an assessment for Williton hundred in Somerset is now at LR 11/30/428.

(|Rot. Parl|., III, pp 88-90; |CFR 1377-1383|, pp 224-234, 249-250; McKisack, |Fourteenth Century|, p 407; Saul, |Richard II|, pp 55, 57; Fenwick, |The Poll Taxes of 1377, 1379 and 1380|, I, introduction)

enrolled account: E 359/8B, rots 13-14; E 359/8C, rots 1-3