Page:Seventeen lectures on the study of medieval and modern history and kindred subjects.djvu/370

 of good government: and they responded with a liberal vote of tunnage, poundage, and the custom on leather for life; apportioning £14,000 to the household, £10,000 odd to Calais, and £2105 19s. 11d. to the wardrobe; there was likewise an act of resumption.

In the session of 1487 Morton preached on 'Cease to do evil, learn to do well:' a wonderful sermon in four heads, subdivided each into three arguments, illustrated from Cicero and other gentile philosophers, the moral of which was the vote of two tenths and fifteenths, and a poll-tax upon aliens, payable at the next Easter. In 1489 the text was 'The eyes of the Lord are over the righteous;' the sermon a miracle of subdivision: the demand a lump sum of £100,000. To meet this, by a curious departure from the rule which is always supposed to have been long established, the Lords, by themselves, grant a tenth of their income from land; the Commons, with the advice and consent of the Lords, offer to raise £75,000 by a tenth on lands not belonging to the lords, and twenty-pence on every ten marks of goods. This must have been seen to be a dangerous experiment. An attempt to collect the tax caused the outbreak at Thirsk, in which the Earl of Northumberland was slain; the sums collected from the Commons only reached the amount of £27,000, and in the third session early in 1490 the grant of a tenth and fifteenth was substituted for the balance. The object of the budget was the maintenance of the army, which was being raised for the defence of Brittany against France, a design which culminates and terminates in the expedition to Boulogne in October 1493. Before this expedition took place another parliament in the autumn of 1491 and January of 149a was asked for a vote. Morton chose his text from Jeremiah, and his illustrations from Sallust on the war with Jugurtha; the bill was two entire tenths and fifteenths, and a third if the king himself should go to the war. He did go to the war and made peace. And this carried him on to 1495.

I should say here that the parliamentary grants were each year supplemented by ecclesiastical grants made in the Convocations of the two provinces, and generally consisting of one