1549.]
FALL OF THE PROTECTOR.
399
should be brought to the butcher's stall.' 'It was said by the evil report of soldiers that had come out of England, that men there were more ordered like beasts than Christians, both in the scarcity of victual and payment.'[1]
April.The restoration of the currency, which had been twice feebly intended, was again postponed. When the time came for the bad coin to be called in, a proclamation was put out instead, ordering that bad coin and good should be received at a uniform price; and coiners and multipliers were threatened with forfeiture of life, lands, and goods; while Sir William Sharington, who had added treason and breach of trust to forgery, was pardoned and again employed. The daily supplies for the common necessities of the Government were provided by loans from the Antwerp Jews. The borrowing system commenced by Henry in the war had never ceased. The Government, since Henry's death, had run the usual course of spendthrifts—making promises of payment, and when they could not keep them, renewing their bills with increasing interest, and progressing from the open money-dealer to the usurious Jew. A Lazarus Tucker and an Erasmus Schertz were now the principal feeders of the English treasury. When Lazarus would lend no more, books were opened with Schertz; and then Lazarus, 'for malice of the other, and for his own profit,' would untie his purse, and lend again at thirteen per cent., deducting, however,- ↑ Dymock to the Council. MS. Germany, Edward VI., bundle 1 State Paper Office.
