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The King's Scottish Revenues and the Covenanters, 1625–1651

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

David Stevenson
David Stevenson
Affiliation:
University of Aberdeen
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Extract

The ordinary revenue of the kings of Scotland in the early seventeenth century was drawn from a wide variety of sources. The comptroller received the revenues known as ‘property’ - fixed revenues and rents from Crown lands, payments from royal burghs, customs duties and the impost of wines. Out of these he met the"expenses of the royal household. The treasurer was responsible .for meeting nearly all other official and royal expenses out of the ‘casualty’, which included feudal casualties (irregular payments such as wards and reliefs), escheats, compositions and other profits of justice. The collector general and the treasurer of the new augmentations received various revenues from former church property. Administration of these revenues was simplified in 1610 when the earl of Dunbar, already treasurer, was appointed in addition comptroller, collector general and treasurer of the new augmentations, thus bringing responsibility for all branches of the ordinary revenue into the hands of one man, though he continued usually to be referred to simply as the treasurer. This amalgamation of offices became permanent, though the four offices all continued to exist in name until 1707, and separate accounting for the different branches of revenue continued until 1636.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , March 1974 , pp. 17 - 41
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1974

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53 S.R.O., PA.14/1, fos. 157r, 221r, 256r–257r.

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55 S.R.O., PA.14/1, fos. 260v–262r.

56 Ibid. fos. 107r; National Library of Scotland, MS Wodrow, Folio LXXIII, fos. 101v–102r.

57 Acts of the exchequer and parliament promised the councillors who had borrowed the money repayment out of the king's revenues as soon as possible, APS, v, 324, 639–40. The money was repaid to Dick (S.R.O., E.27/1, fo. 42r) though when is not clear.

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78 S.R.O., PA.11/7, Register of the Committee of Estates, fos. 43V-44V; S.R.O., PA.7/5/38, Supplementary Parliamentary Papers.

79 S.R.O., E.27/8, Receivers General's Accounts, fo. 27r. By contrast the duke of Hamilton and his brother the earl of Lanark spent about £264,000 Scots (£22,000 sterling) borrowed on their own security in raising the army of the engagement to try to help the king; Foxcroft, H. C., ‘An Early Rescension of Burnet's Memoirs of the Dukes of Hamilton’, English Historical Review, XXIV (1909), 529–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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83 S.R.O., E.5/3, fo. 5V. How these sums, totalling £89,433:12:0 were to be paid out of £80,000 was not explained.

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86 Ibid. VI.ii, 567, 569, 570, 572, 573, 574. Unfortunately there are no surviving exchequer registers or minute books for the period 6 April 1649 to the Cromwellian conquest except for a fragment of a register, 7 Feb.–29 Mar. 1650, S.R.O., E.4/7.

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92 Aylmer, , The King's Servants, p. 30; S.R.O., E.34/50/5, Papers relating to James VI's visit to Scotland; RPCS, 1616–19, P.387; RPCS, 1633–5, P.108.Google Scholar

93 S.R.O., E.31/19, Minute Book of the Board of the Green Cloth; S.R.O., E.27/1, fos. 2IV, 25V.

94 S.R.O., E.31/19, fos. 16V-17V; Aylmer, , The King's Servants, pp. 472–3.Google Scholar

95 S.R.O., E.31/19, fos. 2Ir-21v, 24r.

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100 S.R.O., PS.1/116, fo. 183V.

101 He was ‘bedfast not able to sturr out of his dwellinghous in Perth’ on 30 April 1651, S.R.O., E.31/19, fo. 38r.

102 S.R.O., E.27/1, fos. IIV , 43v–46r.

103 Ibid. fos. 22r, 45r.

104 Ibid. passim.

105 APS, VII, 326–7, 433.