which it produced was not sufficient to cover the estimate of the King's advisers. In 1380 they repeated the levy, making it still more stringent by lowering the minimum age to fifteen. It was in the midst of this fatal political blundering that John of Gaunt, who seems to have been largely responsible for it, thought it wise, as no doubt it was from his own point of view, to associate the head of the English Church with his financial policy. On the 4th of July, 1379, Archbishop Sudbury was nominated to the Chancellorship; and in accepting this post the unlucky prelate, who had so faithfully adhered to the fortunes of the Duke of Lancaster, signed his own death-warrant. He held office in the Parliament which granted the second poll-tax, and at a subsequent meeting of the King's Council he had the courage to oppose the suggested withdrawal of the tax in face of the resistance of the people. It is clear that he shared with the Duke, and with Sir Robert Hales, the Treasurer, a burden of fierce hatred from the exasperated tax-payers.
Hitherto the taxes had been levied on land, on knight's fees, movables, wool and leather, which affected the serfs not at all, and the free labourers very little. Talliage, indeed, had fallen on the demesne lands as well as on the towns, and this was virtually a poll-tax; but it had scarcely touched the labouring classes. Nevertheless its unpopularity was so great that it had been finally abolished in the
more after a particular tax had been authorised. We are expressly told that the tax imposed by Parliament in 1380 was still being collected in June, 1381.
