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I. Aids, Loans and Benevolences1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

G. L. Harriss
G. L. Harriss
Affiliation:
University of Durham
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Extract

In the later Middle Ages English kings borrowed to an increasing extent from their subjects rather than from foreign bankers. This development, often remarked, has usually been interpreted as both a sign and a cause of the Crown's weakness. Dependence on its subjects' goodwill is thought to have compromised the Crown's political authority, while its financial embarrassment enabled subjects to make a profit at the Crown's expense. Repeated borrowing thus brought not only an inexorable decline into insolvency, but increasing distrust of the Crown's promises and contempt for its rule. Such an interpretation derives much of its force from the view usually taken of these loans. They were, we are told, not ‘forced’ but freely made; not offered disinterestedly, but for profit.

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Articles
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The Historical Journal , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , March 1963, pp. 1 - 19
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1963

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References

2 Steel, A., The Receipt of the Exchequer, 1377–1485 (Cambridge, 1954), 121Google Scholar. This book embodies his earlier articles.

3 McFarlane, K. B., ‘Loans to the Lancastrian Kings: The Problem of Inducement’, Cambridge Historical Journal, ix (1947), 51–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Steel, op. cit. 122–3, I88, 195–7.

5 Pickthorn, K., Early Tudor Government, Henry VII (Cambridge, 1949), p. 20Google Scholar; Ibid.Henry VIII (1934), pp. 390–1; Elton, G. R., The Tudor Constitution (Cambridge, 1961), pp. 43–4Google Scholar; Ashton, R., The Crown and the Money Market, 1603–1640 (Oxford, 1960), pp. 35–6Google Scholar.

6 Sir N. H. Nicolas, Proceedings of the] P[rivy] C[ouncil, v, 414, 201. The commissioners were, with one exception, those named by the council in March 1442 to raise a loan ‘ for the king in his present necessity’, C.P.R., 1441–1446, pp. 61–2.

7 Ibid. VI, 322.

8 Ibid. VI, 46.

9 P.P.C.y, 187; vi, 236. On 14 May 1442 the King was at Shene, not Westminster, while he was at Westminster on that day in 1455. The names of the commissioners are appropriate only for the later decade. Finally, in the manuscript of the ‘ 1442’ commissions (B.M. Cleopatra F. VI, fo. 294) the last letters of the date are erased.

10 Ibid. iv, 352 b. Dated by reference to letters of similar phraseology sent to peers on 117 April 1454, which follow these instructions in Cleopatra, F. VI, fo. 304.

11 ‘The Struggle for Calais: an Aspect of the Rivalry between York and Lancaster’, E.H.R. LXXV (1960), 34 ff.Google Scholar

12 Rothwell, H., ‘The Confirmation of the Charters, 1297’, E.H.R. LX (1945), 34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 Post, G., ‘Plena Potestas and Consent in Medieval Assemblies’, Traditio, 1 (1943), 370–5Google Scholar.

14 Pollock, and Maitland, , History of English Law, 1, 330Google Scholar.

15 I have reviewed this development in a paper to be published in a forthcoming volume of Studies presented to the International Commission for the History of Representative and Parliamentary Institutions.

16 P.P.C. iv, 352 b; vi, 48.

17 Powicke, F. M., The Thirteenth Century (Oxford, 1953), 505–6Google Scholar; Willard, J. F., Parliamentary Taxes on Personal Property, 1290–1334 (Camb. Mass., 1934), 33, 131–4Google Scholar.

18 C.C.R., 1206–1302, 461–3.

19 C.C.R., 1333–1337, 354–6.

20 T. Rymer, Foedera, iii, 428; v, 576–7.

21 Rymer, Foedera, v, 491.

22 Elton, op. cit. 58, prints a privy seal for the loan of 1591; and cf. Ashton, op. cit. 35.

23 For the loan of 1496, Christ Church Letters, ed. J. B. Sheppard (Camden Soc, 1877), 62, and P.R.O., E 34/2. For that of 1522, Polydore Vergil, Anglica Historia, ed. D. Hay (Camden Soc, 1950), 300–3; L[etters] &f P[apers] Henry VIII, ill, 2483; Hall, Chronicle, ed. Ellis (1809), 652. For that of 1525, Tanner, J. R., Tudor Constitutional Documents, 1485–1603 (Cambridge, 1940), 621–4Google Scholar. For that of 1542. L- & P- Henry VIII, xvn, 188–90, 193–4.

24 For the benevolence of 1473, Hall, Chronicle, 308; The Great Chronicle of London, ed. Thomas, A. H. and Thornley, I. D., 223Google Scholar; The Coventry Leet Book, ed. Harris, M. D. (E.E.T.S., 1907–13), 409Google Scholar. For that of 1491, Statutes of the Realm, 11, 576Google Scholar; Foedera, xII, 446, 464; Great Chron. 244; Polydore Vergil, 49. For that of 1545, L. & P. Henry VIII, xx, 17, 52, App. 4. See also Gray, H. L., Facts and Factors in Economic History (Harvard, 1932), 90Google Scholar.

25 Powicke, M. R., Military Obligation in Medieval England (Oxford, 1962), 136Google Scholar, 166, 183, 214. I have revised the following paragraph in the light of Powicke's study, chapters vi—xi of which, in particular, suggest many analogies between the obligation to service and the obligation to lend.

26 Ibid. 141. P.P.C. 1, 103–6.

27 Powicke, op. cit. ch. x. Cf. Knighton (CViroracon, 11,5), who describes how in 1338 Edward took an aid from ‘ bishops, abbots, priors, rectors, vicars, justices and other magnates who could not go with him to the war, from some £100 and others £200 according to what they could afford’.

28 P.P.C. v, 418–21. The troops raised under commission in York in 1481 for the Scottish expedition were described in the town records as a benevolence: York Records, ed. R. Davies (1843), 115—16, 130. Commissions of array were also issued at the time of the benevolence of 1491: Foedera, xi, 524.

29 There are lists for 1313 (C.C.R., 1313–1318, 66–7), 1346 and 1347 (Foedera, v, 491, 577). 1379 (C.P.R., 1377–1381, 635), 1403 (P.P.C. 1, 199–203), 1412 (Ibid. 11, 31), 1430 (C.P.R., 1429–1436, 60–2), 1436 (P.P.C. iv, 316–29), 1519 (L. & P. HI, 562), 1522 (Ibid. 2483).

30 P.R.O., Privy Seals for Loans, E 34/1.

31 H.M.C. MSS. ofBeverley (1900), 24.

32 Wriothesley's Chronicle, ed. Hamilton, W. D. (Camden Soc, 1875), 151Google Scholar.

33 Rot. Parl. in, 547.

34 P.P.C. v, 13, 313.

35 P.P.C. ii, 72–6. Cf. C.P.R., 1401–1403, 114, 126–9, 137–8.

36 C.P.R., 1436–1441,299; P.P.C. vi, 238–44.

37 E 34/1. E 404/19 /248, 318; E 404/17 /344. Moleyns was thanked and rewarded for his skill in raising loans, E 404/60 /247.

38 C.C.R., 1346–1349, 386.

39 Tanner, Const. Docts. 623.

40 Beverley MSS. loc. cit.

41 H.M.C., gth Report, part 1, p. 139.

42 E 34/2.

43 L. & P. iv, 1266.

44 Rot. Parl. In, 62.

45 C.C.R., 1346–1349, 284–6, 360, 375–80, 390–2.

46 E34/1 B.

47 Thus in 1379 the Commons asked that the recipient of a privy seal for loan should be able ‘to excuse himself reasonably’ from contributing. Rot. Parl. III, 62.

48 Rot. Parl. Iii, 96; P.P.C. v, 220.

49 P.P.C. i, 273; IV, 214. Tanner, loc. cit.

50 P.P.C. IV, 214; v, 25, 199, 204, 217. Rot. Parl. Iv, 95, 117, 130, 210, 277, 300, 317, 339, 374. 426, 482, 504; v, 6, 39, 135, 143.

51 C.C.R., 1346–1349, 360. L. & P., Henry VIII, xvn, 194; XX, App. 4.

52 E 34/1 B.

53 J. de Trokelowe et Anon. ChronUa et Annales, ed. Riley, H. T., 200. The passage is quoted by McFarlane, op. cit. 54Google Scholar.

54 For a good example see the commissioner's instructions of 1542 quoted by McFarlane, op. cit. p. 59, n. 44, from L. & P., Henry VIII, xvII, no. 194.

55 Rot. Part, iii, 122–3.