Constitutional History.
[chap.
Assign-
ments to
the king,
to Calais,
to the
household.
Separation
of the
household
charges
from those
of the king-
dom.
Increasing
poverty of
the crown.
Acts of re-
sumption.
grants were made from the other sources of national income to
enable the king to pay his expenses ; and, even before Calais
had become the only foreign possession of the crown, a certain
portion or poundage of the subsidy on wool was regularly
assigned to it1. But it was the exigencies of the household
which gave the commons their greatest hold on the crown, and
it was a hold which the kings rarely attempted to elude or to
resist. One result of their interference in this respect was the
separation of the household or ordinary charges, the civil list
or king’s list, as Fortescue calls it, from the extraordinary
charges of the crown ; a point which the commons attempted
to secure in 1404, by apportioning revenue to the amount of
£12,100; in 1406 it was proposed to vote £10,000 for the
purpose, and in 1413 the sum was assigned to the king as a
payment to take precedence of all others, in consideration of
the great changes of his hostel, chamber, and wardrobe. The
attempts made to regulate the lavish expenditure and to relieve
the poverty of Henry Vl have been enumerated in our survey
of the history of his reign. They show, by the diminution of
the sums apportioned to him, either that the royal demesnes
were alarmingly reduced and the royal estate abridged, or else
that the distinction between royal and national expenditure was
more clearly seen, and the different departments more indepen-
dently administered. The acts of resumption which had been
urged by the commons from the very beginning of the century
were, first in 1450, adopted by Henry VI as a means of re-
cruiting his treasury, but they contained invariably such a list
of exceptions as must have nearly neutralised the intended
effect of the acts. The crown continued very poor until
Edward IV and Henry VII devised new modes of enriching
themselves, and in its poverty the commons saw their great
opportunity of interference.
1 For example, in 1449, the commons petition that 20s. from each sack
of wool taxed for the subsidy may be assigned to Calais, ɪos. for wages,
55. for victualling, 55. for repairs. The king alters this, and assigns
135. 4t?. for wages and victuals, and 65. 8d. for repairs; Hot. Park v. x46,
j47. A similar arrangement had been made in 1423 by the Council;
Ord. iɪi. 19, 95.
XVIiI.] Interference with HxpendUvre. 273
Very signal examples of such interference force themselves interference
• 1 ⅜ mi , . θf the COMi-
on our notice both early and late. Ihe request made in 1404 monswith
that Henry IV would dismiss his confessor, was followed up the king,
with a petition for the removal of aliens from the household 1.
In 1450 Henry VI was asked to send away almost all his
faithful friends2. He was told that his gifts were too lavish
and must be resumed 3. In every case he had to yield, and it
was his unwillingness as well as his inability to resist that
caused the nation to conceive for him a dislike and contempt,
from which the goodness of his intentions might have saved
him. Where the private affairs of the household were thus
scrutinised, it could not be expected that the conduct of public
officers could escape. The practice of impeachment directed Practice of
ɪ t t ' impeach-
against Michael de la Pole in 1386 was revived in 1450 for the ɪɪɪeɪɪt.
destruction of his grandson. But the process of events during
the wars of the Roses was too rapid to allow the parliaments,
imperfect and one-sided as they were, to be regarded as fair
tribunals. The constitution receives from such pɪ Oceedings
more lessons of warning than of edification. The impeached
minister, like the king who is put on his trial, when he has
become weak enough to be impeached, may remain too strong
to be acquitted; and the majority which is strong enough to
impeach is strong enough to condemn. In Suffolk’s case, as we
have seen, neither king nor lords had strength enough to insure
a just trial ; Henry’s decision was an evasion of a hostile attack
rather than the breach of a recognised rule. The bills ofB∏⅛<>f
attainder, which on both sides followed the alternations of
fortune in the field, illustrate political and personal vindictive-
ness, but contribute only a miserable series of constitutional
precedents. The prohibition of appeals of treason made in
parliament, which was enacted by HenryIV in 1399 4, was a
salutary act, although it did not preclude the use of the still
more fatal weapons. The rejected petition of 1432 5, in which
the commons prayed that, neither in parliament nor council,
should any one be put on trial for articles touching freehold and
1 Rot. Part. iii. 524, 527.
4 Above, p. 24.
VOL. III.
2 lb. V. 216. 3 lb. V. 217.
δ Rot. Parl. iv. 403 ; above, p. 119.
T