Henry VII
Page 33
3 R.P., VI, 4–60.
1 Actually some 70 per cent was paid into the Exchequer. Schofield, op. cit. 176.
2 R.P., VI, 420–4. The queen, the counties of Cumberland, Westmorland, Northumberland, and merchants of Castile, Venice, Genoa, Florence, Lucca, and the Hanse were exempt.
3 ibid. 437. The yield so far as can be ascertained was £20,736, but the actual total may have been more. Schofield, op. cit. 178.
4 It was in an affray arising from opposition at Topcliffe, Yorkshire, to this subsidy that the earl of Northumberland lost his life.
5 R.P., VI, 437.
6 ibid. IV, 409; VI, 149–53.
7 See above, p. 197.
8 See above, p. 144.
1 R.P., VI, 513–19.
2 The expedition to Scotland was recalled to combat the Cornish rebellion, and the renewed invasion two months later was abandoned on account of adverse climatic conditions.
3 Schofield, op. cit. 416, table 40. The procedures were similar to those of 1489 but the rules for assessments differed in a number of respects; ibid. 188–9.
4 At any rate this was the Baconian version of the Cornish objections to the tax. Henry VII, ed. Lumby, 148–9; P.V. (ed. Hay), 90 ff.
1 R.P., VI, 532–42; 19 Henry VII, c. 32; S.R., II, 674; Schofield, op. cit. 192–8. It has been suggested (ibid. 193, fn. 94) that Thomas More’s opposition in the commons to the proposal by the Crown may have been prompted by his common-lawyer dislike for an investigation into tenures, and if this were so it might help to explain Henry VII’s vindictive action against his father, John More, who had become a serjeant-at-law in 1503. Roper, Life of More, 7–8; Busch, op. cit. 285; D.N.B.
2 Schofield, op. cit. 416, table 40.
3 ibid. 198 ff.
4 J. J. Scarisbrick, ‘Clerical taxation in England, 1485–1547’, J. Eccles. Hist., II (1960), 50. For this period, the actual (gross) value of the clerical grant is known only for the southern convocation for 1501. The sums accruing to the Crown for the restitution of temporalities and fines, estimated to amount to perhaps £3,500 per annum over the period 1486 to 1533, are, of course, in a different category, and in any event cannot be estimated with any accuracy, as Professor Scarisbrick shows, ibid. 49.
1 Dietz, op. cit. 51–2.
2 G. L. Harriss, ‘Aids, loans and benevolences’, H.J., VI (1963), 1–19, discusses the whole problem. A specimen of such a Signet letter is printed in A. F. Pollard, The reign of Henry VII, II (1914), from the Rutland papers (Hist. MSS Comm., i.13), 44–5. The effective words in this letter, addressed to Sir Henry Vernon, dated 26 April 1492(?), were ‘wherfor we holding for undoubted that ye bere a singular tendreness to suche Thinges as concerne the suretie and universal weale and tranquillite of our saide reame and subgiettes desire and hertily praye you that ye will lene unto us the somme of C li … wherunto ye maye verrailly truste, wherein shal not only doo unto us thing of [grete?] and singulier pleaser, but also, cause us to have you therfor moore specially recommended in the honor of oure grace in such thinges as ye shal have to poursue unto us heraftre’. The further specimen of a request for loan, printed by Pollard, ibid. 45–7, from Christchurch letters (Cam. Soc. n.s. xix), 62, was issued 1 December 1496/7, after a Great Council had sanctioned the raising of a loan for the Scottish war, and is couched in less conciliatory terms.
1 cf. Materials, II, 95, extract from Treasurers’ Receipt Rolls, 2 Henry VII; Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire. ‘From William Creton, Clerk, Thomas Burton, and other commissioners of the king in the said counties of money received under the name of “agreement” from divers persons in the same counties, in respect of letters specially addressed under the king’s signet to the said persons £206 9s.’ Other examples, ibid. 91–2, 95–7, 105–6.
2 Dietz, op. cit. 52, η. n. 11.
3 ibid. 52.
4 See above, p. 144.
5 1 Richard III, c. 2; extract in Chrimes and Brown, Select documents, 355–6.
6 The attribution of the ‘fork’ to Morton rests on Bacon’s assertion only (op. cit. 93). According to Erasmus, who had the story from Thomas More, Fox was its author, and he merely turned the argument of some of the tax-paying clergy against themselves. Busch, op. cit. 421–2. According to Battesta Oldovini, writing 17 March 1475, Edward IV himself invented a dilemma in a rather different form. ‘If the king thought otherwise, he said: “such a man, who is poorer than you, has paid so much: you who are richer can easily pay more”,’ Cal. S.P. Milan, I, 193–4; extract in E.H.D., IV, ed. A. R. Myers (1969), 527–8.
7 There appears to be no evidence that Henry VII ‘had conveniently deemed all Richard III’s statutes to be void’, as alleged (R. L. Storey, The reign of Henry VII (1968), 108). What precisely Richard III’s statute abolished could be open to doubt, and possibly no statute could be deemed to have abolished the king’s right, especially when supported by a Great Council, to act as his did in issuing commissions in the terms, ‘whereas Charles of France not only unjustly occupies the king’s realm of France and his duchies of Normandy, Anjou, Touraine, and Aquitaine, but threatens the destruction of this his realm of England, on which account the king intends to defend her English subjects, and to enter France with his power and vindicate his right, but the king has not sufficient funds for the expedition’ (and therefore the commissioners are) ‘to go to the counties … and require the assistance of the king’s subjects there in this arduous affair, each one according to his means, and to certify the king and council what they do’. C.P.R., I, 353; Foedera, XII, 435. In any case no one, of course, would in 1491 have cited Richard III’s statute against the king’s commissioners.
1 11 Henry VII, c. 10; S.R., II, 576–7. The act asserted that many subjects had granted money, ‘of their free will and benevolence, and had many payments full lovingly’. Others had not, and part of their contributions were still in the hands of the grantors or collectors. Proclamation was to be made for the payment of all arrears within three months, with power of recovery in default or death. Commissioners were to render account under penalty of imprisonment, with due allowance for the costs and rewards.
2 Mackie, The early Tudors (1952), 140; Storey, op. cit. 122; and above, p. 144.
3 Dietz, op. cit. 57. For the treaty, Foedera, XII, 506, 684.
1 Dietz, op. cit. 57, and nn 45, 46.
2 B. P. Wolffe, The Crown lands, 1461–1536 (1970), 30. This work, with the documents provided therein, is indispensable for the subject, together with the same writer’s ‘Henry VII’s land revenues and Chamber finance’, E.H.R., LXXIX(1964), 225–54; and ‘The management of English royal estates under the Yorkist kings’, ibid. LXXI (1956), 1–27.
1 R.P., VI, 270–3.
2 ibid. 376–84.
3 Wolffe, E.H.R., LXXIX, 232–3.
4 R.P., VI, 459–61.
5 Wolffe, The Crown lands, 68.
1 R.P., VI, 522. The net profits of York lands was £928 in 1503–4. Wolffe, op. cit. 143.
2 J. R. Lander, ‘Attainder and forfeiture, 1453–1509’, H.J., IV (1961), 144–8; and tables, 149–51.
3 Some of the profits from the attainders from 1495 to 1504 are known, including those of the earl of Warwick, the earl of Suffolk, Lord Fitzwalter, Lord Audley, Sir William de la Pole, and Sir James Tyrell. The net proceeds from these forfeitures alone amounted to over £6,400. Wolffe, op. cit. 142–6, doc. No. 16, General Surveyors’ accounts, 1503–4. In addition, it is known that from Sir William Stanley’s possessions over £9,000 in cash and jewels had been obtained. W. C. Richardson, Tudor chamber administration, 12.
1 See above, ch. 6.
2 Wolffe, The Crown lands, 74–5, and see ibid, docs 16 and 17. The court of General Surveyors, however, never became a court of record and following council advice to Henry VIII to abolish such ‘by-courts’ (ibid. doc. 18) its work was absorbed into the Exchequer by 1510 (ibid. doc. 20).
1 See G. R. Elton, ‘Henry VII: rapacity and remorse’, H.J., I (1958), 21–39; J. P. Cooper, ‘Henry VII’s last yea
rs reconsidered’, ibid. II (1959), 103 ff; and G. R. Elton, ‘Henry VII: a restatement’, ibid. IV (1961), 1–29. On the general question of Henry VII’s character, see also below, p. 298.
2 Prerogativa regis, ed. S. E. Thorne (Yale, 1949), v. This work is indispensable for the subject.
3 See refs in ibid. fn. 1, and x-xi.
4 See above, p. 129.
5 See above, p. 113.
1 cf. Chrimes, English constitutional ideas in the fifteenth century (1936), 44–5.
2 ed. S. E. Thorne, op. cit.
3 ibid.
1 Examples are listed in Thorne, op. cit. xii.
2 Such as advowsons, rents, annuities, stewardships, wardenships, warren, wreck, markets, fairs, and other franchises. See ibid. xiii.
3 ibid. x–xi.
4 ibid. ix.
5 ibid.
1 For the later history, see J. Hurstfield, ‘The revival of feudalism in early Tudor England’, History, XXXVII (1952), 131–45.
2 Wolffe, E.H.R., LXXIX (1969), 252, n. 1, and 237; Crown lands, 48–69.
3 W. C. Richardson, Tudor chamber administration, 143–4.
4 See generally, ibid. 141–58; Dietz, op. cit. 33–49.
1 ‘The essential factor common to them all is that they represent personal arrangements reached with the king himself’, Wolffe, E.H.R., loc. cit. 246. In one of the chamber books at the bottom of a page of recognizances Heron entered a revealing reminder ‘aboute certain persons which are not yet through with the king’s grace. And his said grace hath a list of their names’. Cited, ibid.
2 Dietz, op. cit. 33–4; Richardson, op. cit. 144.
3 Dietz, op. cit. 44.
1 Heron’s chamber accounts were audited only by the king. He himself personally handled many transactions and received cash. The account book for 1502–5 is prefaced with four folio sides of memoranda written by Henry himself. His signature or sign manual appears on every page, sometimes five or six times. Wolffe, loc. cit. 244, fn. 6, and 245–6.
2 E.H.R., LXXX (1963), 153–4.
3 C.C.R., II, viii–ix.
1 ‘Bonds, coercion, and fear; Henry VII and the peerage’, in Florilegium historiale: essays presented to Wallace K. Ferguson (Univ. of Toronto Press, 1971), 328–67.
2 ibid. 339.
3 ibid. 347–8; P.V., 126–31.
4 e.g. the humiliating treatment of Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland; the very severe conditions imposed on Thomas Grey, marquis of Dorset; the enormous financial penalties accorded to George Neville, Lord Burgavenny, were doubtless whittled down to comparatively modest actual payments, but it seems to be going rather far to have added another bond for £5,000 to the £100,000 for retaining and for allegiance already imposed as a penalty should he enter Kent, Sussex, Surrey, or Hampshire without the king’s licence at any time for the rest of his life. Richard Grey of Ruthin, earl of Kent, was doubtless a spendthrift, but a bond for £10,000 to make no sale or lease or grant of any land or offices or annuities without the king’s consent, to attend daily upon the king so as to be seen once daily in the king’s house, with no departure therefrom without licence except for eight days each quarter, seems to be remarkably arbitrary.
1 See below, p. 313.
1 Dietz, op. cit. 39; Richardson, op. cit. 158.
2 Wolffe, E.H.R., loc. cit. 249–50.
3 ibid. 521.
4 ibid. 253; Dietz, op. cit. 78–87.
5 Wolffe, loc. cit. 253–4.
6 Bacon, op. cit. 210.
1 Wolffe, loc. cit. 254.
Chapter 12
ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL POLICY
No doubt Professor Elton was justified in his exhortation to historians to ‘get away from impressionism too common in these matters’,1 but as he well realized, lack of much pertinent evidence or investigation in the matter of Henry VII’s economic and social policies makes it difficult if not impossible to avoid some degree of impressionism. The impression one gets from the scattered and not at all comprehensive work done so far is that Henry VII, although clearly interested in some economic and social matters, had no consistent policies and took few measures in these fields that were not conventional or repetitive of actions taken by previous governments. He was interested in bringing commercial interests into his diplomatic relations with other countries; he was interested in reforming the coinage and in encouraging shipping, exports, and maritime exploration. He took some initiative in these matters; he gave his assent to a variety of measures for the regulation of merchant companies, trade, wages and prices, weights and measures, for the restraint of enclosures, and the treatment of vagabonds and beggars. Some of these measures were precedents for more far-reaching governmental action in later decades, but many though not all of these appear to have been initiated by others than the government in Henry VII’s time, and how far the mere giving of assent to proposals for minor regulations amounted to acceptance as serious government policy is a matter for speculation rather than dogma. We can scarcely accuse Henry VII of adopting ‘paternalistic’ attitudes. Whatever else Henry VII was, he was essentially an opportunist and sought to achieve few broad or far-reaching aims in either economic or social matters. We may well attribute to Henry VII especially the characteristics that have been attributed to the Tudor monarchs generally – perhaps too generally. Of him we may well believe that ‘economic problems were always secondary, and that economic measures often served non-economic ends’.2 The paramount aims were peace and security. His policies always remained primarily political, not economic, and any economic aims that he may have cherished (other than the strengthening of his own economic position) were subordinated to his political and diplomatic objectives.1 As for social policy, it is difficult indeed to see that he had any other than those of the conventional late mediaeval type, i.e. broadly speaking, those tending to the support and fulfilment of the existing social structures.
If we first review generally the measures taken by Henry VII’s government in these spheres, we can then examine in more detail those which appear to be of some importance for our present theme. The proclamations need not detain us, for, apart from a number concerned with coinage matters,2 only six proclamations dealt with the regulation of trade; all were devoted to regulating exports, mostly consequential upon treaties with other countries.3
Approximately fifty statutes of the reign may be said to impinge in some way upon the economic and social spheres, but only about a third of these at most appear to have been initiated by the government. The great bulk therefore originated either in the petitions of interested parties presented, usually to the commons, or in the petitions or prayers of the commons themselves. These included some enactments of importance which have often been spoken of as though they represented government initiative;4 many of them dealt with somewhat trivial matters, some of which were of little more than sectional interest.
Nearly all the statutes relating to shipping, alien merchants, trade regulations, weights and measures, prices, and usury were based upon petitions in or by the commons, and are a tribute to the vigilance and activity of the interested parties or the commons rather than of the government, and call for a brief survey.
The oft-quoted but narrow ‘navigation act’ of 1486 was the result of a petition by the commons asking the king to enact that no person should buy or sell wines from Gascony but such as ‘be aventured and brought’ in English, Irish, or Welsh ships, with mariners of the same complexion or men of Calais, on pain of forfeiture, half to the king and half to the finder. But this act was to endure only until the next parliament, and saving always the king’s prerogative.5 The act apparently lapsed until re-enacted with some additional points in 1489.6
A petition to the commons sought to prohibit protection in actions between merchants of the Staple before the mayor of the Staple or some other court at Calais.1 A petition of the commons obtained a recital of statute 17 Edward IV, c. 1, and a perpetuation of its provision that alien merchants were to employ within the realm2 the money they obtained
by the sale of their goods. The commons prayed that corporate companies should not make ordinances without the approval of the chancellor, treasurer, and chief justice of either bench or of both justices of Assize on circuit, and no such ordinances in restraint of suits in the king’s courts were to be made.3 The Merchant Adventurers successfully petitioned the commons that Englishmen should have free passage to Flanders, Holland, Zealand, and Brabant and the adjoining ports under the authority of the archduke, without any exactions by Englishmen.4 The commons prayed that the freemen of the City of London might go to any fairs or markets in the realm notwithstanding any ordinance of the City.5 The merchants of Italy petitioned the commons to get statute 1 Richard III, c. 8, repealed as unduly restrictive of their trade.6 During the trade dispute with Venice the commons prayed the king to extract an additional customs duty on malmsey wine whilst the Venetians maintained the like additional duty on export.7
A considerable number, some twenty or so, of the statutes initiated by or through the commons sought to regulate trade or trade practices and few or none appear to warrant special mention here.8 The most important of these perhaps was the statute 4 Henry VII, c. 23 (S.R., II, 546) made, at the prayer of the commons, reciting 17 Edward IV, c. 1, which expired after six years, prohibiting the export of gold bullion, money, jewels, and plate without the king’s licence, and the payment or delivery of these articles to any alien merchant under penalty of forfeiture of double the value, half to the king and half to the seizor.
The fixing of prices of woollen cloth,1 and of hats and caps,2 was probably initiated by the interested parties, and the commons asked for the lifting of customs duties on imported bowstaves until the next parliament because of the shortage of that important commodity.3 It was likewise the commons who petitioned for the establishment of standard weights and measures of brass in the City of London and other boroughs and that the officers should seal all weights and measures.4 This act, it was complained four years later, was not being observed, and the unusual expedient was resorted to of providing that standards ‘should be sent to every community by the members of parliament themselves and be enforced’.5 But a year later the Crown appears to have taken a hand on complaints that the standard weights and measures had proved defective, and enacted that a new standard bushel and gallon should be kept in the Treasury, and new measures by these standards should be issued.6