In May 1689 the English Crown declared war on an aggressive France, thus
commencing an exhaustive and, at times, desperate conflict that was to last
for over two decades. The impact of the Nine Years’ War (1689–97) and
the War of the Spanish Succession (1702–13) was enormous. The fight against
France dramatically augmented the fiscal scope of the English state, which struggled
to meet the costs of warfare and war-related debt; it increased the clout of
the legislature, with Parliament meeting to vote supply; and its economic and
social costs pinched every level of society. As a result of the wars, the army grew
to an unprecedented size. At the start of James II’s reign in 1685, the English
army had consisted of 8,865 men, with its numbers strengthened by the Irish
army of 7,500 men and the Scottish army of 2,199. By the time of the Nine Years’
War, the British army stood at an estimated average annual strength of 76,404
men; by the War of the Spanish Succession it had risen to an estimated average
annual strength of 92,708 men.1 Possibly one in seven men who were capable of
military employment served in the British army between 1689 and 1697.2
How voters, taxpayers, and communities financed and manned this major war
effort has been a key theme of research into this formative period of British history.
