NEW SOURCES OF REVENUE 81
At the outset Weston had to overcome opposition to the
payment of tonnage and poundage. By abstaining from trade
merchants could offer a passive resistance to these taxes, but
this course could hardly be prolonged indefinitely, when the
conclusion of peace with Spain opened lucrative markets. One
trader after another yielded and paid his duties. Apart from
the pertinacious Chambers, henceforth the king met with no
further resistance in this direction, even when some additions
were made to the Book of Rates. Moreover the large increase
of trade during this decade meant an expanding revenue from
customs, although the system in vogue of farming them pre-
vented the Crown from enjoying the full benefit.
The royal revenue averaged about £600,000 for the five
years ending 1635, leaving an annual deficit of not more than
£20,000. Thus, if the debt could be ignored, the national budget
was already nearly balanced, and Charles was likely to be free
from all anxiety on the side of finance, provided that he could
avoid any extraordinary expenditures. The additional sources
discovered to augment the royal revenue usually took the form
of the revival of old exactions rather than the invention of brand-
new ones* Among the earliest and most profitable was the fine
imposed upon all owning land worth forty pounds a year, who
had neglected to be knighted. Here there was no question of
legality, for that was indisputable, but the energetic enforce-
ment of high rates for composition gave great umbrage to the
landed classes. Much more questionable was the attempt to
restore the forest laws. By threats and intimidation juries were
induced to inflict large fines for obsolete offences and to pro-
nounce that the forest law held good over large tracts that had
long been in private hands. Thus the earl of Salisbury was
fined £20,000, and Rockingham Forest was enlarged from six
to sixty miles. The antiquary D'Ewes notes that the county
of Essex, with the exception of a single hundred, was found to
be forest, although the inhabitants had lived quietly for four
hundred years free from forest laws.1 Another financial expe-
dient that hurt the larger landowners was the enforcement of
the statutes against inclosures. One of Strafford's correspon-
dents notes that in 1635 money to compound for depopulations
was coming in apace, the guilty being fined various sums rang-
1 jyEwes Autobiography? ii. 136^-7; Victoria County History; J&ssex9 ii (2:907),
227-8.
3720.9