with restrictions and disqualifications.[1] Having thus conciliated at least one powerful party, the Duke, on the 6th of March, introduced his Subsidy Bill in the House of Commons.[2] The preamble was drawn by himself or under his immediate direction. It repeated, as the occasion for the required grant, the words of his own letter; and the exhaustion of the exchequer was attributed exclusively to the recklessness of the Duke of Somerset, and the wars into which he had plunged the country. To relieve the country of the debt which had been thus increased, two fifteenths and tenths were demanded of the laity, to be paid in two years; with an income-tax of five per cent, on the rents of their lands for an equal period. The clergy were required to give ten per cent, for three years on their benefices or other promotions.[3] The debates are lost. It is known only that the bill was long argued, notwithstanding Northamberland's precaution, and was carried with difficulty.[4] Carried it was at last; but the House of Commons was far from complaisant. The retrospective examination of the public accounts had been abandoned, or if not the examination, yet the prosecution of defaulters. A measure, however, was introduced for an annual audit
- ↑ Note for an Act be prepared for the Parliament: MS. Domestic, Edward VI. vol. xvi. Ibid.
- ↑ Commons Journals, 7 Edward VI.
- ↑ 7 Edward VI. 12, 13.
- ↑ Burnet.
retailer shall occupy only his retail, and the Merchant Adventurer his feat accordingly, to be at their liberty betwixt this and then to take to one of them which they shall seem most to their profit, which in my poor opinion seems to me a thing most reasonable.'—Gresham to the Duke of Northumberland: Flanders MSS. Edward VI. State Paper Office.
