Page:Seventeen lectures on the study of medieval and modern history and kindred subjects.djvu/286

 discussions were pulled up by the announcement of another visit from the chancellor. Then arose the question, how is he to come; is he to come as chancellor, or as cardinal in state; let him come as cardinal, for then, if there should be a riot, the blame can be laid on his attendants. So he comes in state, and asks an answer about the subsidy. He is met with sullen silence; not even Mr. Marney, who is just going to be made a baron, and whom Wolsey applies to directly, win utter a word. Then poor More, on his knees, has to represent to the cardinal, who had made him Speaker, that this manner of coming, on which, you observe, he and the House had already calculated, was not expedient or in conformity with ancient liberties. So the cardinal had to go away in a rage; the Commons were willing to listen to him, but would not debate in his presence. Still the visit was not in vain; the deliberation was resumed, and a very heavy impost was agreed to, when Sir John Hussey, the member for Lincolnshire, who also was made a peer soon after, proposed a substantial addition on the tax from land; only eleven or twelve members voted for it, but, notwithstanding the abstention of the majority, it was allowed to be added; then the session was prorogued. After the vacation it was proposed by the knights of the shire to extend to goods the tax which Hussey had fixed on the land; a division took place with the curious result that all the county members voted one way and all the burgesses the other; yet, notwithstanding the enormous majority against the tax. More in his capacity of the king's agent, prevailed on the House to pass the bill.

Here you have a very illustrative ease of the way in which even a most unpopular measure could be forced through parliament; well might Cromwell conclude the letter in which he describes the session, 'after seventeen weeks of discussion we have done as our predecessors have been wont to do, that is to say as well as we might, and have left off where we began.' I do not think that any of the fourteenth century parliaments would have stood this; Wolsey can have been no believer in parliaments, for this is the only one that was held whilst he was chancellor.