The funds for relief were charged on the tax revenues of Cornwall, Rutland, Monmouthshire, Lancashire, Westmorland, and Anglesey authorized by the Taxation Act 1661.

Commissioners were named for each county, who were to examine applicants and provide certificates attesting to the rank, service, loyalty, and indigence of former officers.

This was a response to the commissioners' difficulties in controlling fraud: some of the claimants were accused of having inflated their army rank to receive a greater share of the distribution, or of having made claims based on officers' commissions they never exercised in the field.

However, modern scholars judge the published list to be fairly accurate; contemporary suspicions may have arisen due to regional rivalries, as the £60,000 appropriated proved to be inadequate to relieve the needs of the many claimants.

[3] The act was amended in 1663 to allow the commissioners to examine witnesses in certain cases of suspected fraud and extended the deadline for payment to 24 September 1663.