Hearth tax significant proportion of householders were not liable to pay at all. The hearth tax was much resented because it often entailed inspection of the interior of dwellings by the sub-collectors and petty constables, who had legal authority to enter every property to check on the number of hearths. Some people stopped up their chimneys so that the tax was not due on them, but where this was discovered by the assessors the tax was doubled. On 31 July 1684, a fire in Churchill, Oxfordshire, destroyed 20 houses and many other buildings, and killed four people. It was apparently caused by
John Rhodes (17th century) John Rhodes (17th century) John Rhodes (fl. 1624 – 1665) was a theatrical figure of the early and middle seventeenth century. He rose to a brief prominence in 1660 when the London theatres re-opened at the start of the English Restoration era. Rhodes was connected with the King's Men during the final phase of the development of English Renaissance drama. On 6 December 1624, Sir Henry Herbert, the Master of the Revels, listed Rhodes among the "necessary attendants," the hired men of the company, who could not be arrested or "pressed for soldiers" without the consent of the Master of