16.—Scutage Levied only by Consent of Parliament.

By statute 25 Edwd. I. cc. 5 and 6 (1297), and several subsequent statutes, it was enacted that the king should take no aids or tasks but by the common assent of the realm. "Hence it is held in our old books," observes Blackstone, "that escuage or scutage could not be levied but by consent of Parliament; such scutages being indeed the groundwork of all succeeding subsidies, and the land-tax of later times" ^o. We shall see presently how far the land-tax of modern times can be considered as an adequate representative of escuage.