Scutage was only due for foreign campaigns: the feudal aids only on rare and stated occasions: and though the fines from the shire-courts grew with the growth of society the dues from the public lands were fixed and incapable of developement.

But no usage fettered the Crown in dealing with personal property, and its growth in value promised a growing revenue.

From the close of Henry the Second's reign therefore this became the most common form of taxation.

Grants of from a seventh to a thirtieth of moveables, household-property, and stock were demanded; and it was the necessity of procuring their assent to these demands which enabled the baronage through the reign of Henry the Third to bring a financial pressure to bear on the Crown.
[Sidenote: Indirect Taxation] But in addition to these two forms of direct taxation indirect taxation also was coming more and more to the front.

The right of the king to grant licences to bring goods into or to trade within the realm, a right springing from the need for his protection felt by the strangers who came there for purposes of traffic, laid the foundation of our taxes on imports.
Those on exports were only a part of the general system of taxing personal property which we have already noticed.