Page:Englishhistorica36londuoft.djvu/181

 1921 THE WAR FINANCES OF HENRY V 173 the grants of November 1415, March and October 1416, sums were collected amounting, with the ordinary revenue, to £216,868 95. 10c?. 1 No subsequent year of the reign, despite the Norman campaigns, saw such heavy taxation. 2 Nevertheless, the cost of maintaining Harfleur, of negotiating with Sigismund and Burgundy, of organizing the naval expedition of 1416, and of preparing that of the subsequent year, brought the total expenditures up to £256,885 15s. 10d., thus causing a deficit of over £40,000. The session of October 1416 had voted two tenths and two fifteenths to be levied in February and November 1417, with authority to raise loans on this prospective income. 3 The convocation of Canterbury voted two tenths and that of York voted one. 4 1 Public Record Office, Receipt Rolls 672, 675. The figures utilized are those entered in the Receipt and Issue Rolls, and the years are financial years, i. e. from Easter to Easter. It is notorious that the clerks of the exchequer manipulated their accounts and made the entries on the rolls to suit their book-keeping (see Antiquary, viii. 96-7 and Proceedings of Soc. of Antiq., 2nd series, xxv. 37). The actual figures, therefore, must always be taken with reservations. Since, however, our interest lies in the fluctuations of taxation, borrowing, and expenditure in relation to events, rather than the investigation of individual items, an attempt to correct the figures in the rolls by addition or subtraction would be more likely to produce confusion than to bring us nearer to the truth. Certainty that all the manipulations of the record had been discovered would be impossible even if the records were complete, and some of the rolls are fragmentary, with the official totals preserved but not all the entries. It seems, therefore, that for the purposes of this study the recorded figures must be considered the best available. a Financial summary : Revenue. 1416. 1417. 1418. 1419. 1420. 1421. 1422. £ £ • £ £ £ £ £ Laity 101,893 50,121 38,794 38,373 8,237 15,098 15,100 Clergy 34,837 22,984 17,580 19,578 5,291 14,198 1,424 Loans 23,425 34,766 322 5,353 3,451 40,899 14,126 Miscellaneous 56,712 48,031 82,227 66,264 63,452 73,089 49,530 Total 216,868 155,905 138,925 129,570 80,433 143,284 80,181 Deficit 40,017 10,676 38,954 5,726 Surplus 4,616 45,661 5,160 Expenditure. Household 97,483 26,490 11,768 14,242 18,076 45,519 26,660 War 125,571 95,123 120,993 41,559 75,562 55,662 26,652 France 81,185 70,637 77,001 8,536 41,419 23,099 8,912 Navy 26,138 6,725 10,548 8,988 7,653 2,326 1,084 Total 256,885 151,288 149,601 83,908 119,387 138,124 85,908 The Receipt Roll for Easter term 1419 goes only to 25 August, and that for Easter term 1421 goes only to 3 August, consequently the revenues for those years, and the resulting surpluses, must have been larger than the figures indicated. In like manner the roll for Michaelmas term 1422 covers only the period from 5 October 1422 to 4 March 1423, so that there may have been no deficit at all. In the table of expenditures the sums under France and navy are included in those under war. Receipt Rolls 672, 675, 677, 680, 683, 686, 689, 692, 693, 694, 696, 698, 701, 702, 703 ; Issue Rolls 624, 629, 630, 633, 636, 638, 640, 643, 645, 646, 649, 652, 655, 659. 3 Rotuli Parliam. iv. 95; Kingsford, ante, xxix. 511-13.
 * Wilkins, Concilia, iii. 377, 380.