Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/32

12 the country with. Charles V.; while France was 'the antient enemy,' the usurper, as men still had not forgotten, of the fair provinces on the Continent which had once been the inheritance of the English sovereigns.

In this spirit the public relations of the country were accepted by Parliament with the expenses which those relations would entail. When the war broke out the exchequer was empty. The first payment of the subsidy which had been granted in the year preceding had not as yet fallen due, and the King, in anticipation of the approaching return, had applied for a loan which had been raised in graduated proportions from the ordinary tax-payers. He had in fact required and received a portion of the parliamentary grant a few months before its time. The people, who were aware that a war involved a war taxation, submitted without complaining to a proceeding which was manifestly necessary. On the meeting of Parliament the accounts of the expenditure were produced for inspection; and the legislature being prepared, as a matter of course, to find supplies, and knowing that the subsidy in itself would now be insufficient, by a retrospective sanction converted the loan into an additional tax, and left their original grant still to be collected in its integrity. The King of France, they said, in justification of their resolution, owed a large debt to England which he refused to pay. He had betrayed Europe to the Turks; he had provoked the Scotch to break their engagements. 'His Majesty, therefore, was forced, and could of his honour no less do but determine himself, by the help of Almighty God, to