Henry VII
Page 30
2 ibid. 278; out of the 1,804 prosecutions in the Exchequer for the whole reign, 1,140 were for customs violation, i.e. smuggling. 990 informers can be identified, but in 891 cases out of the total of 1,804 the informers were Crown officers, and in addition 322 informations were laid by the attorney-general. Some two-thirds of the total cases were thus initiated by Crown activity in one form or another; 84 per cent of the cases were for offences committed within a year, and there was no question of ‘reviving’ old statutes for prosecution purposes. In 1,359 cases a formal conclusion was reached, but of these 40 per cent ended in dismissal. In 682 cases judgment for the king was reached. The total monetary award to the king was £7,965 5s 512d, and informers’ moieties amounted to £3,062 os 4d, see Guth, op. cit. 167–75. As Dr Guth observes, ‘the entire system of Exchequer penal enforcement war therefore limited in effectiveness, very narrow in application, and hardly harsh when successful’.
3 Prosecutions in the Exchequer against local officers for failure to observe statutory regulations were remarkably few, and these all belonged to the 1490s and later. Only two prosecutions of justices of the peace occurred, and both were dismissed. Far more attention was given to escheators, with twenty-eight prosecutions in all. Of these twenty-three were initiated by the attorney-general, on two occasions only in 1493 and 1499. Eight cases ended in pardons and thirteen were unresolved. Five charges were entered against one sheriff, all unresolved, and twelve other sheriffs were prosecuted (nine of them after 1505); of these five were dismissed, five unresolved, and two acquitted by jury. Some other sheriffs were prosecuted, on the initiation of private informers, under St. 23 Henry VI, c. 9.
Chapter 11
FISCAL AND FINANCIAL POLICY
The division of royal revenues into ‘ordinary’ and ‘extraordinary’ is a distinction drawn by historians rather than fifteenth-century commentators.1 Fortescue used this distinction with reference to expenses, not revenues. The important difference then was not between ‘ordinary’ and ‘extraordinary’ revenues, but between certain and casual. Another distinction which can usefully be drawn is between the revenues, whether certain or casual, which the sovereign received as king, or as landowner, or as feudal overlord, and this kind of classification so far as practicable is the one attempted here.
As king, Henry VII from time to time obtained taxation, indirect or direct, by parliamentary grant or grant of the convocation of the Church; he could obtain loans and benevolences, and payments from a foreign potentate; he got the profits of justice, whether in fines or fees, and financial advantages from purveyance and similar royal rights. As a landowner he got land revenues similar in kind to those that any large landowner got, but as king he could enlarge these by acts of attainder and forfeitures for treason or felony, and as overlord by the falling in of escheats. As overlord he could exploit his prerogative rights and secure the feudal incidents due from tenants in chief – reliefs, wardships, marriages, aids, escheats – and could find here a sphere in which careful and thorough exploitation could greatly improve his income. In the manipulation of bonds, whether obligations or recognizances, he could obtain further financial advantages both as king and overlord. A survey of these various categories will enable us to form a picture of his finances and some conclusions as to his financial position. This was a subject which, next to his life, throne, and dynasty, lay nearest to Henry VII’s heart. Whatever modern research may have done to modify or destroy Baconian phrases, there is no reason to revise the one which asserts ‘of nature assuredly he coveted to accumulate treasure’.2
Each of Henry VII’s parliaments made a contribution to his revenues in one form or another, even though the fifth parliament (1495) had little to offer beyond giving statutory authority to tighten up the collection of the arrears of the benevolence previously sanctioned.1 Most of the parliamentary grants of taxation were paralleled by the usual corresponding grants by the convocation of the Church. The parliamentary grants of fifteenths and tenths (a tax on movables in the shires and boroughs, respectively) were conventional in character and followed well established form and procedure, but in 1488 the grant of an aid to be assessed on individuals followed a precedent set in Edward IV’s time, and although a failure at the time nevertheless it formed a link in the chain of experiments that was to lead on later in the Tudor period to the all important development of the subsidy as distinct from the old fifteenths and tenths. The form of the grant in 1504 of a lump sum in lieu of the levy of two of the ancient customary feudal aids may have shown novel features, but the basic principle behind it was not new.
Henry VII’s first parliament (1485) only followed the precedent set by Richard III’s first and only parliament in the previous year when it granted for the king’s life both the subsidy on wool, etc., and the subsidy of tunnage and poundage.2 Both subsidies had been granted for the remainder of the lives of Henry V in 1415, of Henry VI in 1454, and to Edward IV in 1465, but not, of course, in the first parliament of their reigns, whilst Richard II had obtained in 1398 for the short remainder of his reign only the subsidy on wool.3 Having obtained this life grant of customs duties, in effect on almost all the commodities of import and export from the start of his reign,4 there was little he could do to improve the yield except to encourage the necessary commerce as far as possible, to improve the book of rates for London,5 to increase in certain respects the rates payable by alien merchants,6 and to show a greater activity in enforcing the law in this sphere than in any other statutory field.1 Even so, if the calculations that have been made are valid, the increase in receipts from the customs during the reign, though useful, was not very striking. The average annual receipts for the first ten years of the reign are put at about £33,000, and for the remainder at about £40,000.2 The proceeds apparently could vary greatly from as little as £11,500 (1491–2) to as much as £27,500 (1503–4) from the port of London alone, and from as little as £25,000 (1491–2) to as much as £48,200 (1508–9) overall, according to fluctuating circumstances that would be hard to identify. During the reign as a whole rather less than £900,000 was derived from this source, half of which came from London.3
The grants of fifteenths and tenths by the second, fourth, and sixth parliaments were levied in the form that had been standard for a hundred and fifty years and which was to be resorted to again many times up to 1623, even after the newer ‘directly-assessed’ subsidy had come into more frequent usage.4 A grant of a fifteenth and tenth was the grant of a specified sum of money fixed in 1334, little altered since, from every vill and urban ward, levied first on the communities, each of which then decided how the tax was to be assessed on individuals. Four of Henry VII’s parliaments (1487, 1490, 1491, and 1497) granted respectively two, one, three (the third was never levied), and two, fifteenths and tenths. The levy when made was still based on the movable goods and chattels of all persons, secular and clerical, and remained traditional, except that it was apparently a Tudor innovation to allow the nomination of the collectors by the commons themselves.5 But the total sum levied remained stereotyped and the yields, gross or net, stayed remarkably constant throughout the reign. The gross yield of each fifteenth and tenth was just over £31,000; net approximately
£29,000; the actual sums known to have been received never fell short of the net yield by more than a few hundred pounds, about one per cent on average.1 Henry VII was evidently very successful in obtaining, usually with expedition and efficiency, the most that could be got out of the traditional subsidy of fifteenths and tenths. No opposition in parliament to these grants is apparent.
The grant of two fifteenths and tenths in 1487 was said to have been partly in lieu of the uncollected balance of a fifteenth and tenth granted to Richard III in 1484.2 The grant of two fifteenths and tenths in 1491–2 was in aid of the war impending with France, and was payable in two instalments; if the army remained abroad for more than eight months, a further fifteenth and tenth was granted,3 but this was never levied. Two more fifteenths and tenths were granted in 1497,4 specif
ically to finance the war impending with Scotland, and was to be void if peace were made. In the event this grant proved to be insufficient and recourse was had to a different form of subsidy, to amount, however, to the equivalent of another two fifteenths and tenths.5
There were, therefore, grants of seven fifteenths and tenths between 1487 and 1497, the total gross and net yields of which may be put at about £217,000 and £203,000 respectively. The collection of these stereotyped sums by the traditional methods carried out smoothly and with little apparent difficulty or friction clearly offered advantages to both Crown and taxpayers, but being for fixed sums, the Crown did not obtain revenue that would reflect that growth in local wealth which it had some justification in looking for, nor could it by these means attempt to procure a more equitable distribution of tax among the different classes of the population. It was moved, therefore, to seek other fiscal policies.6
The history of parliamentary taxation from 1485 to 1547 is, Dr Schofield says, the history of a successful attempt to replace the fifteenth and tenth as the main form by the directly assessed subsidy.1 In this history, Henry VII’s reign made a small, but very significant contribution. This took the form of a grant of a tax fixed at varying rates levied on each individual according to prescribed criteria, with the yield unfixed, open, and according to rates and results. Such subsidies had been granted seven times before 1485;2 of these, two were failures and withdrawn, and the others were not very successful. The proposals were viewed with suspicion and hostility in parliament. The commons not unnaturally did not like fiscal proposals which would raise an unfixed total yield, and likely to exceed the product of a fifteenth and tenth. They were prone to impose conditions of one kind or another, including its insistence that no precedents were to be set and no returns were to be made to any court of record.
When in 1489 the government proposed such a subsidy to help finance the military expedition pending to aid Brittany, it is clear that the model in mind was that of 1472, and the reactions of the commons (and of the taxpayers) were very similar to those manifested then.3 The Crown’s proposal in 1489 was for £100,000 to defray the costs of 10,000 archers for one year. After a good deal of controversy, the commons eventually agreed to raise £75,000, and the convocation of Canterbury agreed to raise the remaining £25,000. As in 1472, the parliament insisted on the appropriation of the proceeds to the specific military operation, and if the military need were reduced, the grant was to be reduced in proportion; but if the forces remained abroad for longer, and the expenses rose above £100,000, then the tax was to be renewed up to another two years, provided not more than £25,000 was raised in any one year. The details of private wealth that would be assessed were never to come into the possession of the Crown, and no records of assessment were to be returned to the Exchequer or any other court of record. The total amount from any area was not to be certified to the Exchequer but to parliament. The very cash raised was not to be paid into the Exchequer or any other central treasury but was to be deposited in designated repositories until the king should send for it.1 The grant was never to be a precedent.
As in 1472, the subsidy was in the form of two separate grants, by the commons and the lords respectively. The commons granted the tenth of annual income from all honours, castles, lordships, manors, lands, tenements, rents, fees, annuities, corrodies, and other pensions, fee farms and the temporal lands of the clergy, and 1s 8d for every 10 marks worth of goods and chattels. The lords confined their grant to a tenth of the income of lands and offices (including persons enjoying the use even though not seised thereof). Commissioners were to be appointed under letters patent to discover the value of net incomes and the capital value of goods, after their discretions. Some administrative rules were laid down, and the actual collectors were to draw up indentures of payment for all payers.2
But despite the elaborate and cautious procedure, the grant was a failure. The eventual yield was estimated by parliament itself to be no more than £27,000, and even this may have been an exaggeration.3 The reluctance of parliament to make the grant was matched, it seems, by the reluctance of the people to pay,4 and probably neither commissioners nor collectors over-exerted themselves. The same parliament in January 14905 persuaded the king to accept in lieu of the balance the grant of one fifteenth and tenth as had been done in 1431 and 1472.6
Failure of the attempt in 1489 to raise an open-ended subsidy was so great that the experiment was not repeated in the same form for twenty-five years. But by 1497, with the war against Scotland impending, the need for substantial taxation was again pressed upon parliament. In addition to the two fifteenths and tenths which parliament granted in the usual way,7 it was asked to ratify a grant of £120,000 which a Great Council had previously sanctioned.8
Ratification took the novel form of the grant of an aid or subsidy equal in total amount to that of two fifteenths and tenths, but the usual division of the county total among the vills was abandoned in favour of the assessment of individual contributions by specially appointed commissioners.1 This aid was thus based upon a compromise between the traditional fifteenth and tenth with its assured total yield and the subsidy with its direct assessment on individuals. At the same time the tax within each county was spread more proportionately to the wealth distributed within the county even though the total for each county remained the same, and the commissioners undertook their duties without prejudice to the total yield that the Crown would get. The advantages to both Crown and taxpayers were manifest, and the device of 1497 set an important precedent for the future. The levy of the second half of the aid, equal to one fifteenth and tenth, was made conditional upon the prosecution of the military campaign against Scotland, but as this condition was not fulfilled,2 it was not in fact levied. The gross net yields were slightly higher than the usual fifteenth and tenth and the sum actually received by the Crown was as high as £30,088.3
The grant of 1497 provoked the Cornish rebellion, not, apparently because of any novelties in the tax, but because of the unwillingness of the Cornishmen to contribute to the cost of a campaign in Scotland, for which they thought a scutage or land tax on knight’s fees, especially in the northern counties, was more appropriate.4
It may well have been the unhappy repercussions in Cornwall of the 1497 aid that induced Henry VII to come to terms quickly when confronted with parliament’s opposition to his proposal in 1504 for the grant of the customary feudal aids for the knighting of his eldest son Arthur and the marriage of his daughter Princess Margaret. Although in principle the request was in accordance with ancient custom the occasion was not auspicious. Arthur had first been knighted in 1489 and had been dead for nearly two years, and Margaret had married James IV in the previous year. It may well be therefore that Henry’s motive was not primarily to raise money which he did not specially need at that time, but to set on foot a far-reaching enquiry into tenures in capite as part of his policy of exploiting his prerogative rights. He may have envisaged a sort of Tudor Domesday Book. The commons declined the proposal on the ground of the uncertainty of tenures, and did not welcome the prospect of a far-reaching investigation. After prolonged discussion and the emergence of an opposition such as Henry VII had not before experienced, the commons offered an aid of £40,000, of which the king discreetly agreed to accept £30,000 only, roughly the equivalent of one fifteenth and tenth.1 The procedure and assessment decided upon were nearly the same as for the subsidy of 1497 and the yield received slightly higher at £30,873.2 The total received by the four subsidies of the reign was about £80,000.
The subsidies of 1497 and 1504 were thus essentially similar. Both had fixed yields but the taxes were assessed and levied by statutory commissioners. Both were successful, and the precedents thereby set led on to the development of the directly assessed, open-yield subsidies aimed at from 1513 onwards.3
To the total figures received by the Crown from parliamentary grants must be added the sums received from the clerical grants of the tenths by the convocat
ions, which paralleled some of these grants. But the value of these grants is not known for this period. An estimate recently made suggests that the average yield per annum from this source during the years 1486 to 1534 may have been about £9,000.4 How far this figure can be used for 1486 to 1504 does not appear, and at present it seems that the value of the clerical contribution must remain speculative.
In view of the comparatively moderate receipts from parliamentary and clerical grants, it is not surprising that Henry VII and his advisers turned their attention to other possible sources of income which offered better prospects of financial advantage.
The advantages from borrowing were mostly of the short-term kind, since at least a considerable proportion had to be repaid, with or without interest, but a benevolence, if it could be extracted, was in a different category since it was in effect a tax not subject to repayment in any form.
The fiscal machinery in any event worked slowly, and Henry VII’s financial needs were inevitably most pressing from the moment the battle of Bosworth was won. Recourse was had at once to short-term loans. He could not avoid incurring some debts from the start. Hostages were left in Paris as pledges for money borrowed before the expedition was launched; the duke of Brittany had been given promises for the repayment of 10,000 crowns as soon as the kingdom had been won. Richard III had pawned the royal jewels and these had to be redeemed, and some of his debts had to be met. Within his first year Henry VII borrowed from individuals, from Italian merchants, the merchants of the Staple at Calais, and the City of London, sums amounting to rather more than £10,000, mostly for short periods, all of which were repaid.1
But there were to be other loans of a less voluntary nature. These were, if not exactly ‘forced’, extracted from individuals under the pressure of Signet letters, which might be repaid, and did not require parliamentary or other sanction. Better still a benevolence or ‘benevolent loan’, although it did require some sanction and the excuse of some dire military need, spread the net much more widely and involved no question of repayment.