James I (r. 1603–25) revived the practice of benevolences in 1614. After the relaxation of benevolences in Elizabeth's reign, benevolences were not raised again until near the end of James I's reign. Faced with an unyielding Parliament, James I resurrected the practice in 1614.
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During Elizabeth I's half-century long reign, benevolences were only raised a few times in the 1580s and 1590s, and then only to small subsets of the population, and raising small amounts. Benevolences had grown increasingly unpopular, criticised by contemporary writers to the ire of Elizabeth's government. The last benevolence of the Tudor period was levied in 1599. Benevolences were revived when James I, meeting with an obstinate Parliament, used them to augment his treasury extra- parliamentarily in 1614.
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The government was expected to levy another soon after, but instead the Crown sold off some of its land, generating a healthy sum of £212,000. Benevolences, alongside other forms of extra-parliamentary taxation, grew increasingly unpopular in Elizabeth's reign. Elizabeth used benevolences much less often than her predecessors, with the notable exception of those gifts expected of her subjects during Royal Progresses. Her government was also quick to deny the accusation of gratuitous exactions; Lord Burghley asserted, in a heated debate, that Elizabeth would never "accept any thing that had been given to her unwillingly", including benevolences "she had no need of".
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Richard's benevolences were not carried out and Parliament ultimately outlawed the practice in 1484. Richard's deposer Henry VII freely sidestepped these statutes in imposing a benevolence in 1491. His actions were supported by Parliament, although not by the whole populace, and earned him £48,000. Henry VIII levied yet more benevolences in 1525 and 1545: the first ending in rebellion and withdrawal, and the second ending with a profit of £120,000.
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Elizabeth I (r. 1558–1603) was more averse to benevolences than her forerunners, demanding only a handful in the 1580s and 1590s. The first benevolence to be raised in Elizabeth I's reign was foisted upon the clergy in the 1580s.
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Benevolences allowed the king to raise money outside of Parliament, which traditionally had to authorise any tax the king proposed. A benevolence was first imposed in 1473 by Edward IV. It ended lucratively for the king, and he made similar demands leading up to the 1482 invasion of Scotland which yielded yet more for the royal coffers. Despite this, the benevolences were extremely unpopular and gained Edward a "reputation for avarice". Richard III attempted to make similar exactions, but met with stringent condemnations of the taxes from Parliament which described them as unjust and unprecedented impositions.
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Benevolences were exacted from the public by methods essentially the same as those of forced loans. Commissioners, typically gentlemen, would travel from town to town supplied with rationales for the benevolence, often relating to the safety of the kingdom, and approach the men of the town to hear this justification and ask for a gift. Alternatively, letters under the monarch's authority were sent to the town's wealthiest individuals emphasising this danger. Benevolences were usually put forth as an alternative to military service in a time of crisis, the subject obliged to help the king in other ways.
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He had earlier imposed forced loans, but the term "benevolence" allowed Edward to jettison the expectation of having to repay his subjects. Additionally, forced loans were expected to only be imposed within the bounds of reason, while good will to a king was supposed to be limitless. Benevolences were, for Edward's purposes, a new form of extra-parliamentary taxation, by which he could compound the already heavy taxes of the 1470s. These benevolences were justified with reference to the supposedly looming threat of France to the realm, for which the king proposed to lead his army in person.
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This more progressive form of taxation enabled Wolsey to raise enough money for the king's foreign expeditions, bringing in over £300,000. He also raised considerable capital through other means, such as "benevolences", and enforced loans from the nobility, which yielded £200,000 in 1522.
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Chinese open-work charms that depict the Qilin symbolise a wish for good fortune, longevity, charity, prosperity, and for benevolences to befall the wearer. Qilins are depicted as having a dragon-like head and a deer-like body but with scales instead of fur.
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This proved successful, but a further benevolence in 1620 to support Frederick V of the Palatinate did not, forcing James to call Parliament the following year. No further benevolences were collected, though both James and his son Charles I took preliminary steps to implement them during their reigns.
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This did not save it from the satires of contemporary writers. Thomas Heywood, in his anonymously published play Edward IV (1599) depicted the benevolences of Edward's rule as tantamount to extortion, a demand which, historian Andrew Whittle comments, would be "all too familiar to Heywood's audience". Sir John Hayward's history The Life and Raigne of King Henrie IIII (1599) was considered to have satirised the crown on similar grounds, leading to an interrogation by Attorney General Sir Edward Coke where he forced a confession out of the middle-aged lawyer, asserting he had "selected a story 200 years old, and published it last year, intending the application of it to this time." Among the seditious points criticised by Coke in the work was the anachronistic portrayal of benevolences in Henry IV's reign.
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Robert Pentland (ed.), Calendar of the state papers relating to Ireland preserved in the Public Record Office. 1625-[1670] (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1900), p. vii. The Act was "for a speedy contribution and loan" towards the relief of the King's subjects in Ireland. The Act empowered churchwardens and overseers to collect benevolences in their parishes that would be handed to Parliament.
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The Mabee Center has been home to the Golden Eagles since 1972. The arena bears the name of John and Lottie Mabee, who established the Tulsa-based Mabee Foundation in 1948. The benevolences of this foundation are evident throughout the Southwest where many edifices bear the name. Mabee Center was built as an elliptical cable- suspension structure with basketball in mind.
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Dominic Mancini, an Italian who visited England at the close of Edward's reign, commented that Edward had acquired a "reputation for avarice" for his unending pursuit of riches through such methods, a reputation which was by then "publically proclaimed". Richard III attempted to make a similar demand several times, but met with the stringent opposition of Parliament. In Parliament, the benevolences were disparaged as "a new imposicion [...] wherby dyvers yeres [in various years] the subgettes and Comens [subjects and Commons] of this londe [land] agaynst their willes and fredome have paid grete sommes of money to their almost utter destruccion"; this sentiment was echoed by the ecclesiastical Croyland Chronicle, which chronicled "the laying of the new and unheard-of services of benevolence, where everyone gives what they want to, or more correctly do not want to." In 1484, one of the first acts to pass in Richard's only Parliament outlawed benevolences.
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Edward IV (r. 1461–83) was the first English king to impose benevolences. According to English medievalist G. L. Harriss, the concept of benevolence in financing the king's activities goes back to the early 14th century, when the exhortations to pay taxes or loans to the crown first exhibited a common "emphasis on these twin features of obligation and benevolence." The first English king to impose a benevolence proper was Edward IV in 1473.
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It was expected to raise a whopping £333,000. This proved extremely unpopular, as it deviated controversially from previous benevolences; these had been restricted to the wealthiest in the population, with the size of payments settled on an individual basis. It did not help that the Grant followed two large, and as yet unrepaid, forced loans the king had taken out in 1522 and 1523, together amounting to an owed £260,000. Thus, many opposed the Grant on constitutional grounds.
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Consequently, Wolsey devised a grand plan of administrative reforms, incorporating the notorious Eltham ordinances of 1526. This reduced the members of the Privy Council from 12 to six, removing Henry's friends such as Sir William Compton and Nicholas Carew. One of Wolsey's greatest impediments was his lack of popularity amongst the nobles at court and in Parliament. Their dislikes and mistrusts partly stemmed from Wolsey's excessive demands for money in the form of the Subsidy or benevolences.
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Plant was especially distinguished for philanthropic spirit, one of his pet benevolences being to send bright young people to school. His most notable philanthropy was his assistance in founding Connecticut College for Women at New London. His gifts to this institution included $25,000 towards the purchase of the site; $1,000,000 for the endowment; two dormitories, Plant and Blackstone halls, in memory of his father and mother and costing $60,000 each; and a legacy of $250,000. As first chairman of the college's board of trustees, he assisted it through the most trying periods of its history.
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This is one of the reasons that became most popular among the populace. In addition, it references that benevolences expecting the reward do not have good deeds, and suggests that good and evil may be interchanged in the difference of one's situation. Hence, it was thought that menial persons could be released from the underworld like Hell and arrive at Pure Land easily depending on their good deeds in one's lifetime. However, because this teaching includes extremely difficult subject matter, various denominations or sects appeared over the interpretation.
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John Morton was credited with an argument for Henry VII's first benevolence, known as Morton's Fork. Having deposed Richard, Henry VII freely ignored this law, making substantial use of benevolences during his reign, under the guise of "loving contributions". In 1491, seven years after the law had been passed, he employed commissioners to procure such gifts from his subjects. Additionally, earlier that year, Henry had called a Great Council to authorise him to levy this benevolence, giving the "contribution" at least the semblance of legitimacy and popular consent.
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Wood further supposes that he studied at Hart Hall, Oxford, but whether or not he took a degree does not appear. Brigham became a teller of the Exchequer in 1545, and was promoted to first teller in 1555. In the spring of 1558 the queen appointed him receiver of the loan made her by the City of London, and general receiver of all subsidies, fifteenths, or other benevolences. Part of Sir Henry Dudley's conspiracy, for which many suffered death in 1556, was to seize the money of the exchequer in custody of Brigham.
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The benevolence was proposed as an alternative to military service. This action garnered retrospective support from Parliament, who used a 1496 act to enforce benevolence on threat of death. According to historian Roger Schofield, in the early Tudor period, benevolences were used only to anticipate or supplement "the collection of duly authorised taxes from a small number of wealthy subjects", rather than as a means of "superseding parliamentary grants". Indeed, the Great Chronicle remarked that the toll caused "less grugge of hys comons" than previous taxes, as only "men of good substaunce" were asked to contribute.
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Each year > churches reported the number of active members, the number of members added > and removed from the church roll, church school enrollment, and the > expenditures for benevolences and local church needs. The reports included > the names of pastors and the year they were called to the church. Random > checks reveal that Martha’s Chapel had thirty-two members in 1876, sixty-two > in 1913, ninety-four in 1934, and sixty-four in 1955. In its last recorded > report to the Southern Conference of the United Church of Christ in 1972, > Martha’s Chapel reported fifty-six members. Martha’s Chapel ceased its > affiliation with the Southern Conference of the United Church of Christ in > 1972 or 1973.
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674 With as many as 13 of such feoffees, there was much confusion over the title to land following a lord's death, as evidenced by the case of Sir John Fastolf, which lasted from 1459 to 1476.Turner (1916) p.441 While this was a problem that needed correcting, the actual motivation of the Statute was not to do so, but instead to bolster the finances of Henry VIII. For several years prior to the Statute, Henry had been struggling with the need to raise revenue; his royal lands did not provide enough, loans and benevolences would have destroyed his personal popularity; as a result, simply increasing the size of his royal lands was the best option.
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In total, despite this apparent public support, James received only £30,000, less than half of what he had earned previously, and so was forced to call the Parliament of 1621 to raise taxes. However, once this Parliament had dissolved, James imposed another benevolence in early 1622. This met with opposition—one contemporary pamphlet reported the populace not only opposed it on the basis of their own poverty but the laws of Edward IV, which they still upheld—but managed to bring in over £116,000 in total, almost as substantial as the funds Parliament had raised the previous year. After this, no further benevolences were collected, though they were proposed two more times near the end of James' reign, in 1622 and 1625.
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This was particularly remarkable because Conference ministers, and associates, undertook these aims in addition to the daunting task of servicing the needs of churches spread over a seven-state region, which entailed much time and expense in travel and meetings distant from the Atlanta headquarters. Some churches were quite enthusiastic about all of these programs, engaging in experimental ministries and worship; others, mostly those outside the major metropolitan areas, resisted what they saw as an intrusion upon their traditions and autonomy, and these gradually began keeping to themselves, often only supporting their associations or customary benevolences. By the 1990s, many congregations simply decided to withdraw and form their own groupings or, just as often, become totally independent, a trait increasingly noticeable also among recently established churches of fundamentalist or charismatic persuasion in the region. Those moves reduced the six associations down to four.
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In raising the £21,000 needed to repair Dover Harbour, which had deteriorated steadily since its construction by Henry VIII, Elizabeth's Privy Council resolved to find a way to extract this sum from the nation. Alongside taxes on recusants, ships and alehouses, the Privy Council sent forth a benevolence to the church, urging wealthy clergymen to donate at least one tenth their income for 3 years to fund the repairs. Ultimately, the benevolence took 5 years to collect, and the funding of the repair came to rely predominately on ship tariffs. However, the idea of benevolences on the clergy did come to inspire future financial actions in Elizabeth's reign. Prompted by the financially taxing French campaigns of the 1590s, Elizabeth's chief advisor and Lord High Treasurer Lord Burghley drew up plans for a benevolence in 1594 of 3,000, expected to net the Queen £30,000, but these plans were never put into practice.
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The boroughs were placed under the control of a corporation headed by a mayor, and in most cases leading to no concept of popular control, the whole system of appointment to the corporation being one of co-option by existing members. Absence of popular protest to this may in part be due to old popular control being more nominal than real, and the new charters gave as a rule two councils of considerable size. These councils bore a heavy burden of taxation in meeting royal loans and benevolences, paying per capita, like the magnates of the 12th century, and for a time there is on the whole little evidence of friction between the governors and the governed. Throughout, unpopular changes or neglect in the closest of corporations had a means of official protest, though no means of execution, in the presentments of the leet juries and sessions juries.
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