Page:VCH Staffordshire 1.djvu/279

 POLITICAL HISTORY muster rolls of thirty-seven counties in February, 1339, we see that fewer and possibly better men were picked in that year than in the year of Bannockburn, Staffordshire furnishing 55 men-at-arms, 220 archers, and 220 other armed infantry. 128 During the course of the war the system of indenture came into use by which the king bargained with his baron or knight, as the case might be, for the production of a certain number of men, in return for payments on the part of the sovereign. The men were freely enlisted, and better soldiers than the pressed men, and were largely recruited from old soldiers who pursued the trade of war because they liked it. The sinews of war were provided by the Parliament, which in 1338 129 granted Edward half the wool in the kingdom, amounting to 20,000 sacks. The commissioners appointed to collect the share of Staffordshire were two knights, Sir Robert Malveisin, and Malcolm de Wasteneys (who was also a member for the county in that year), 130 as well as five merchants, Roger Bride, Henry de Tytnesoure, Nicholas Reyner, Thomas the Goldsmith, and John le roter. 131 Many of the men of Staffordshire concealed their wool, and the king appointed William de Myners his sergeant-at-arms to inquire into the matter and seize the wool which had been hidden and send it to the ports named to receive it. At Crecy in 1346 Staffordshire was well represented. Ralph de Stafford, who had been made seneschal of Aquitaine in the previous year, and at the siege of Aiguillon filled the breaches in the walls with wine casks full of stones, 132 had an eminent command in the van of the army under the Black Prince, and was one of those who made the famous report on the number of the French slain : eleven great princes, eighty bannerets, 1,200 knights, and 30,000 common soldiers. 133 Beside him served a great number of the foremost men in the county. In addition to the usual writs to the com- missioners of array writs were sent to the mayors of the towns, and while London was ordered to supply 100 men-at-arms and 500 armed men, Lichfield provided fifteen men, Stafford eight, Tamworth four, and New- castle under Lyme three. 134 The pay of the men who fought at Crecy seems very high allowing for the difference in the value of money ; an earl received 6s. 8</., a knight 2s., an esquire is., a mounted archer, a pauncenar, and a hobelar 6d., a foot archer 3^. per day, the Welsh spearman coming at the bottom of the list with 2</. m About this time Tamworth was visited by one of the fires that were frequent in an era of wooden houses, and was so burnt that the great part of the people of the town described themselves as reduced to beggary, yet in spite of this calamity the tax gatherers demanded of them the full amount of their taxes, a harshness which they petitioned the king to mitigate. 136 "' Oman, Art of War In the Middlt Ages, 593 ; Rymer, Foedera (Rec. ed.), ii (2), 1070. 189 In this Parliament Stafford county and borough only were represented. 150 Par/. Accts. and Papers, Ixii (i), 123. 131 Coll. (Salt Arch. Soc.), viii, 62. Nicholas Reyner and John le roter were members of Parliament about this time. 131 Dugdale, Baronage (ed. 1675),!, 160. I!S Ibid. 134 Coll. (Salt Arch. Soc.), viii, 80. 13i Fortescue, Hist, of the Army,, 30. 136 Rot. Par!. (Rec. Com.), ii, 189, where the date of the petition is 1347, yet in Rymer's Foedera (Rec. ed.), iii, i, 57, the king is stated to have ordered a new assessment in 1345 because the town had suffered from fire. And see Cal. Close, 1343-6, p. 605. 235