Hearth tax and became widespread in the 14th century when the royal finances were unable to bear the rising costs of war and state agents. In particular, "fouages" were levied in 1342 and 1349. The "hearth-penny" was an Anglo-Saxon term for "Peter's pence". In England, hearth tax, also known as hearth money, chimney tax, or chimney money, was a tax imposed by Parliament in 1662, to support the Royal Household of King Charles II. Following the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, Parliament calculated that the Royal Household needed an annual income of £1,200,000. The hearth tax was a supplemental tax to
Pronunciation of English ⟨a⟩ standard English without any vowels in the or area by the late 17th century. However, this putative gap was filled by the following special developments: The of the late 17th century has generally backed to in several varieties of contemporary English, for example in Received Pronunciation. The following table shows some developments of Middle English in Received Pronunciation. The word "gate", which derived from Middle English , has also been included for comparison. The table below shows the results of these developments in some contemporary varieties of English: <nowiki>*</nowiki> May undergo -tensing. Old English (OE) had an open back vowel