Henry VII

by S B Chrimes

  But whether it was a wise policy to pursue is another question. It was, at bottom, a policy that set itself to meet the expanding financial requirements of the state ‘by means of a set of rules framed for his tenants-in-chief by a feudal suzerain’.4 It may well be that it was followed because it was easy to follow; it rested upon the king’s will alone and involved no other sanction or consent. It was easier to get financial profit by these means than it was to get adequate supplies from parliamentary grants. What the political possibilities really were is a matter that was doubtless more manifest to Henry VII than it can be to us, but we need to remember that the effects on English law of this artificially prolonged emphasis upon the feudal incidents were profound.5 In any event, what Henry VII found acceptable in this policy found favour also with his successors.1

  That the land revenue policies of Henry VII found favour is not surprising when the spectacular increase in the sums from these sources reaching the chamber is considered. If under this heading the proceeds from estate receivers, fee-farmers, and sheriffs, fee farms of towns, bailiffs of liberties, wardships, marriages, vacant temporalities, fines for alienations and other feudal incidents are totalled – it is not possible to differentiate the various items – the figures are, in terms of annual average for 1487–9, £3,000 out of £17,000 reaching the chamber; for 1492–5, £11,000 out of £27,000; for 1502–5, £40,000 out of £105,000.2 From these sources alone, therefore, Henry VII acquired annually in his later years sums equivalent to more than he would have got from an annual parliamentary grant of one and a third tenths and fifteenths.

  Before we can view the state of Henry VII’s finances as a whole, we need to consider the matter of bonds, whether in the form of obligations or of recognizances, which not only brought further supplies of cash into the chamber, but constituted something like an instrument of State policy, as well as being matters very closely under the king’s personal control.

  Both obligations and recognizances were bonds binding a person to a liability of one kind or another, but although the precise nature of the liability is not always made clear in the accounts, there was a distinct difference between the two. Obligations were bonds with specific conditions for the payment of money, the fulfilment of an undertaking, or the performance of a specific duty. Recognizances were obligations which recognized or acknowledged a previously established debt or agreement, often made contingent on future conduct. If the recognizer did not fulfil the terms of his bond, he was liable to forfeit the sum specified in the bond. The full penalty, however, might be compounded for a fine. Most, but by no means all these bonds, were for payment, usually by instalments, of legally justified debts to the king.3

  The reasons for the giving and taking of bonds were extremely varied and are not susceptible of any logical classification.4 The clue to the whole device is to be found, if anywhere, in the fact that all the bonds were given by the king’s favour, and all were the result of a bargain entered into with the king’s agents or directly with the king himself. All such bargains were closely scrutinized by him and there could be no finality about any of them without his personal sanction.1

  Many of the bonds entered into represented no more than routine or even commercial transactions. Payments for the restitution of episcopal temporalities, for loans by the king to Italian and English merchants, for arrears of accounts in the hands of the king’s receivers, for the purchase of the king’s wards, for licences to export wool and import wines, for the deferred payment of customs duties, and for hire of the king’s ships; all these were no more than routine obligations. But other bonds fell into a different and more doubtful category. Recognizances for fines imposed in the courts for various offences might be a legitimate means of getting the lawful penalties into the king’s hands, but a large element of arbitrariness and undue favour entered into the bonds made for the release of culprits from prison, for the pardon of murderers and other felons, and for the pardon of rebels, especially after the Cornish rebellion.2

  The financial screws were undoubtedly tightened to supplement the machinery of the law courts. Much could be done by the king’s agents to oblige wealthy law-breakers to come to terms and enter into a bond for the king’s pardon, conditional perhaps upon future good behaviour, without waiting for the slow machinery of the common law to operate, or even without reference to that machinery at all.3 Something could be done in this way to uphold the laws against retaining, to enforce respect for the king’s prerogative rights. Not only was such procedure expeditious, and comparatively secret, it was also highly lucrative. Even though some of the very large sums assessed were never collected in full, substantial fines could be extracted and the spectre of the whole liability could be threatened in a bond inveighing good behaviour in future.

  In this sphere then Henry VII found not only a rich source of income, but also an instrument for enforcing the law which supplemented the creaking machinery of the common law courts, and possibly diverting business from the tribunal and the statutory ministerial council set up in 1487. A far more detailed study of the evidence known to exist for these transactions is needed before their full import and impact can be adequately assessed. Such a study would be worth making, for in this sphere is to be found the clearest manifestations of Henry VII’s personal interventions in finance and in law enforcement. Here Henry could at once gratify his desire to increase his revenues effectively and in terms of hard cash, whilst at the same time browbeat some of his recalcitrant and defaulting subjects into subjection and obedience. No doubt the bulk of the transactions made were grounded in the law; no doubt Empson and Dudley, again very prominent for their activities in this sphere, are not to be regarded as mere extortioners, but the arbitrary and secret character of the ‘bargains’ struck was bound to incur odium and produce a vigorous reaction in the end. A number of kings before Henry had used similar methods, but few if any of his predecessors had taken such a close personal part in wielding the whips and scorpions of financial pressures to attain their ends. The sovereign lord the king could not play the part of Shylock without incurring loss of prestige.1

  The extraordinary scope and frequency of Henry VII’s exaction of recognizances became more apparent with the publication of the Calendar of Close Rolls for 1500–9 in 1963. The number of recognizances on the rolls for these years, as the late Mr K. B. McFarlane observed, was the most remarkable new feature of these enrolments. After examining these entries McFarlane felt obliged to assert that ‘the point had almost been reached when it could be said that Henry VII governed by recognizance. In this he was neither mediaeval nor modern, but sui generis&rsquo.2

  Over one third of the entries on these rolls after 1500 consist of recognizances in favour of the king, and over fifty of them bear the condition that those so bound should keep their allegiance to Henry VII and his heirs, and probably most of the others had the same intent. Examination has shown that many original recognizances survive in unsorted Chancery files and that the great majority were not enrolled,3 and the scope of their exaction was much greater than has been supposed.

  Professor J. R. Lander’s recent study1 has focused attention on what Henry VII’s policy in this sphere meant to the nobility. Between 1485 and the end of 1499, eleven peers gave bonds and recognizances in amounts varying from £100 to £10,000. After 1502 the number rose sharply to thirty-six.2

  Out of sixty-two peerage families in existence between 1485 and 1509, a total of forty-six or forty-seven were for some part of Henry’s reign at the king’s mercy. Seven were under attainder, thirty-six, of whom five were also heavily fined, gave bonds and recognizances, another also was probably fined, and three more were at some time under subpoenas which carried financial penalties. Only sixteen (possibly only fifteen) remained free of these financial threats. Furthermore, not only did the number of peers concerned increase sharply, but also the number of them who were obliged to give more than one bond; twenty-three gave more than one; five gave five or more, two gave twelve or one (Lo
rd Mountjoy) twenty-three. A situation arose in which a majority of the peerage were legally and financially in the king’s power and at his mercy … so that in effect people were set under heavy penalties to guarantee the honesty and loyalty of their fellows. The system was so extensive that it must have created an atmosphere of chronic watchfulness, suspicion, and fear.

  Polydore Vergil reported that in 1502 the king began to treat his people with more harshness and severity than had been his custom before in order to make them more thoroughly obedient to him. But the people generally attributed his motives to greed.3 It may be that ‘this policy of financial terror was eminently successful’, and that the amount of cash actually received by the king was comparatively moderate, nevertheless there were some remarkably arbitrary conditions attached to some of the bonds,4 and the exaction of these was by no means confined to the peerage.

  It could be argued that there was a good deal of ‘policy’ behind the binding of most of the peers to their allegiance and good conduct especially after the death of Arthur in 1502. But what might be high policy in this sphere could easily turn to greed if the same methods were turned against lesser or even quite humble people who could be harshly treated by such exactions without adequate reason. We know that Edmund Dudley was very well aware that such things did in fact occur, that he confessed as much, and provided a list of such cases whilst he was a prisoner in the Tower under sentence of death. In this place, however, we are concerned with policy. Greed is a theme we must postpone until later.1

  Just how much cash actually found its way into the royal coffers as a result of payments derived from obligations and recognizances during the reign cannot even be guessed at. But from such figures as are ascertainable for a few years it is clear that the potential profit was very large. One says ‘potential’ advisedly, for the totals that can be calculated relate to liabilities incurred, not to actual cash received, and since many of the payments made were by instalments and often spread over many years, the actual proceeds in any one year cannot be stated. But for what the figures are worth, the extant accounts show that Dudley alone brought in bonds and cash (to the nearest hundred pounds) to the tune of £44,900 in 1504–5; £60,700 for 1505–6; £65,400 for 1506–7; and £48,400 for 1507–8. Of this impressive total of nearly £219,400, however, only just over £30,000 was in cash. Many bonds were cancelled by the king; others were suspended during pleasure, so that the eventual cash accruing was certainly a good deal less than the face value. But what that cash actually amounted to can only be left to surmise.

  Finally, it is equally difficult to know what the total revenues or expenditure of Henry VII were on the average or during the reign as a whole. No one at the time attempted to draw up a statement of total income or total expenditure. Attempts have been made by historians to supply the deficiency for at least some years. Fairly reliable figures are obtainable for the actual amounts of cash reaching the chamber during the years for which the treasurer of the chamber’s accounts survive, which were checked and initialled by Henry VII himself – these were the figures which interested him most – the figures of ready cash. But these figures by no means corresponded to all the revenues from all sources, nor was all expenditure recorded in the chamber. All attempts at estimates of total income and expenditure are hazardous. Those made by Dietz have been shown to be erroneous in some respects,1 and no reliable estimates of a comprehensive nature can be made. An indication can perhaps be got from the latest calculation, which asserts that the total revenues during the last five years of the reign probably averaged £113,000 a year, excluding however the proceeds of lay and clerical subsidies but including some items which were no more than temporary or casual windfalls.2

  More pertinent, and more feasible perhaps, is to consider how far Henry VII succeeded in obtaining revenue in excess of expenditure. There is enough evidence, mainly from the chamber accounts surviving – and these accounts, after all, came to include the great bulk of revenue and expenditure – to show that Henry VII did become solvent quite early in the reign, and was able to secure some considerable surplus annually during his later years. The cessation of short-term loans by 1490 suggests that the government no longer had need of hand-to-mouth methods. The chamber accounts at the end of September 1489 appear to show a surplus of £5,000. From 1492 at least Henry found himself able to put by substantial sums in the purchase of jewellery, plate, cloth of gold and the like, and to spend money on building. From 1497 onwards, but not before, foreign ambassadors began to allude to his apparent wealth. Between 1491 and 1509 he appears to have spent between £200,000 and £300,000 on jewels and plate – clearly his favourite form of ‘investment’, even though some of these purchases were doubtless intended to be gifts or for normal use and personal display.3 But at the end, he was left with little but what he had so ‘invested’. At the end of the reign the chamber cash balance was exhausted, and the issues of the new reign had to be used to pay the debts of the old. Whether he expected to get any return from another quarter of a million pounds he had invested in loans to the imperial family is not knowable, but in fact he got nothing but some political advantage. More probably he did expect to get return from the £87,000-odd that he loaned to English and Italian merchants, but information is lacking.4

  Henry VII did, then, no doubt enjoy ‘the felicity of full coffers’ for the last few years of his reign5 but the other Baconian tradition that he left behind him a surplus of some two million pounds6 cannot be maintained. At most, it seems, his legacy to his son and heir amounted perhaps in jewels and plate to something like the value of two years’ gross yield of his permanent revenues.1 No mean achievement, but it was accomplished at great cost in terms of personal application, of the distortion of administrative machinery, and the straining of the royal repute. It was an achievement that would never be repeated in anything like the same form.

  1 B. P. Wolffe, The Crown lands, 1461–1536 (1970), 16–17; and now more fully in the same author’s The royal demesne in English history (1971).

  2 Henry VII, ed. Lumby, 213.

  1 See below, p. 204.

  2 R.P., VI, 268–70.

  3 N. S. B. Gras, The early English customs system (1918), 84, and refs. therein.

  4 The ‘custom and subsidy’ as it was sometimes called, consolidated the ancient custom of 1275, part of the new custom of 1303 and the later parliamentary subsidy, on wool, woolfells, and hides. The ‘petty custom and subsidy of tunnage and poundage’ covered duties in wine, cloth, corn, wax, spices, and most commodities of import or export (ibid. 85–6).

  5 A book of rates was promulgated, 15 July 1507, for the port of London, mostly on imports, by the King’s Council by the advice of the surveyors and collectors and the Merchant Adventurers of London, said to be the earliest known, and is printed in Gras, op. cit. App. C, 694–706.

  6 e.g. the parliament of 1485 included in its grant a provision that alien merchants becoming denizens should continue to pay the duties at the higher rates applicable to aliens. S.R., II, 501–2.

  1 See above, p. 191 ff.

  2 Dietz, op. cit. 25; G. Schanz, Englische Handelspolitik gegen ende des mittelalters, 2 vols (Leipzig, 1881). It should be remembered that these figures are by no means necessarily valid. Schanz’s methods of calculation are open to considerable objections, such as those set out in Studies in English trade in the fifteenth century, ed. E. Power and M. M. Postan (1933); but these studies did not reach the reign of Henry VII.

  3 Schanz, op. cit. II, tables, 37–47.

  4 For what follows I am greatly indebted to Dr R. S. Schofield of Clare College, Cambridge, for his kind generosity in lending me a copy of his valuable unpublished Cambridge Ph.D. dissertation (1964), ‘Parliamentary lay taxation 1485–1547’; and to Professor G. R. Elton for his good offices in this connection. Dr Schofield’s thorough and meticulous research on all the available record material puts the whole subject on a footing of lucidity and accuracy far exceeding any published account.

  5
Schofield, op. cit. 65.

  1 ibid. 413–24; and table 40, p. 416. The gross yield never rose above £31,171, and only once (the second grant leviable in 1492) fell below £31,000 (to £28,964). The net yield at its highest was £29,874 and only once fell below £29,000 (to £27,735, corresponding to the lowest gross yield). The difference between the gross and net figures is accounted for by collectors’ remuneration, permitted exemptions and deductions, and bad debts. The actual sums known to have been received were less than the net yield in every case, but never by more than a few hundred pounds. The difference between gross and net yields was generally about 2½ per cent, but 99 per cent of the net yield was actually received.

  2 R.P., VI, 400–1.

  3 ibid. 442–4.

  4 ibid. 513–19.

  5 See below, p. 200.

  6 A subsidy which the commons were willing enough to grant without reservations was a poll tax on aliens. Five of these had been granted before 1485; in 1439, 1442, 1449, 1453, and 1482. In 1487 such a subsidy was granted along with the grant of two fifteenths and tenths. The rate varied according to occupation and residential status, from 2s for the alien artificers who were not householders, to 40s for merchants, factors, and attornies who were householders or resided for three months. Denizens, aliens engaged in husbandry or born in Ireland, Wales, Berwick, Calais, Gascony, Guyenne, Normandy, or the islands, were exempt. R.P., VI, 401–2. No enrolled accounts of this tax exist, and the gross yield can only be roughly guessed, at about £774. Schofield, op. cit. 165.

  1 ibid. 4.

  2 In 1404, 1411, 1427–8, 1431 (withdrawn), 1435, 1450, and 1472 (withdrawn).