English currency is in disarray in the…
1696 CE
Hand struck silver coins from prior to 1662, which comprise most of the coinage in circulation, have been clipped around the edges and thus their value (weight) reduced so that they are no longer a viable tender, especially abroad.
The machine-struck silver coins produced by the Royal Mint in the Tower of London after 1662 are protected from clipping by an engraved, decorated and milled edge, but are instead forged, both by casting from counterfeit molds and by die stamping from counterfeit dies.
Forged coins by 1696 constitute around ten percent of the nation's currency.
The currency also has a third problem: its value as silver bullion in Paris and Amsterdam is greater than the face value in London, and thus vast quantities of coins are melted and shipped abroad—an arbitrage market.
New Acts of Parliament are passed in order to create the Bank of England and protect national military security.
This situation also triggers William Lowndes of the Treasury to ask the warden of the Royal Mint, Isaac Newton, for help.
Branch mints are established at Bristol, Chester, Exeter, Norwich, and York to assist with the work of recoinage.
Old coin is taken back by weight rather than face value.
On June 10, 1696 a Proclamation is issued, requiring all Receivers and Collectors of the Publick Taxes to take hammer'd Silver Money at five shillings and eight Pence an Ounce (Mr. Salmon, The Chronological Historian, London 1723, p. 220, 224) The British government, which had already relaxed censorship following the Bill of Rights in 1689, grants freedom of the press.
Technically, freedom of the press comes about because Parliament decides not to renew its Licensing Act in 1695.
It is from this time that sport is increasingly reported.
At this time, many people in Britain oppose income tax, on principle, because they believe that the disclosure of personal income represents an unacceptable governmental intrusion into private matters, and a potential threat to personal liberty.
Under King William III, the Window tax is introduced in England and Wales in 1696 under An Act for making good the Deficiencies of several Funds therein mentioned and for enlarging the Capital Stock of the Bank of England and for raising the Publick Credit.
It is designed to impose tax relative to the prosperity of the taxpayer, but without the controversy that surrounds the idea of income tax.
When the window tax is introduced, it consists of two parts: a flat-rate house tax of two shillings per house (£11.12 as of 2012), and a variable tax for the number of windows above ten windows in the house.
Properties with between ten and twenty windows pay a total of four shillings (£22.25 as of 2012), and those above twenty windows pay eight shillings(£44.5 as of 2012).