46 Constitutional History. [chap.
of his fathers should not be lost in his days ; and he must
Proposal for have a grant of money. The speaker answered that if he would
a new tax on j 1 ,
the land. have a grant he must reduce the customs ; the king insisted
that he must have both. The customs were indeed safe, having
Close of the been QTanted for more than a year to come. The commons
session, o v
March 20, held out until March 20, when they broke up after discussing a
somewhat novel tax on the land ; it was proposed that a shilling
should be paid on every pound’s worth of land, to be expended,
not by the ministers, but by four treasurers of war, three of
whom were citizens of London1. The grant was probably voted
in this session2, but the final enactment was postponed to the
next parliament ; possibly that the constituencies might be
Settlement consulted meanwhile. The settlement of the succession on the
of the suc-
cession. prince of Wales and the heirs of his body, and in default on
the other sons of the king and the heirs of their bodies, in order3,
ςompleted the important business of a session which must have
been exceedingly unsatisfactory to the king, especially as
another parliament must be called within the year to renew
the grant of the customs. The influence of the archbishop,
which the details of this session prove to have been still very
great, obtained an increased grant from convocation in May4;
a measure which, viewed in connexion with the later history of
the year, seems to have the air of precaution. Possibly the
commons were meditating, probably Arundel was anticipating,
an attack on the church, to follow the attack on the royal
administration.
1 Eulojy. iii. 400 ; Otterbourne, p. 246 ; Adam of Usk, p. 83 ; Ann. Henr.
PP- 379, 380.
2 t Carta script» sed non sigillata ; ’ Eulog. iii. 400. The subject,
although circumstantially discussed by the annalists, does not appear in
the Rolls until the next session. The persona, however, nominated as
treasurers were recognised as such by the Council, and the subsidy is
spoken of as granted in this parliament; Ordinances, i. 220. Stow, Chr.
p. 33o, says that the record was destroyed lest it should make a pre-
cedent.
3 Rot. Parl. iii. 525.
4 The convocation of Canterbury met April 21, and granted a tenth and
a subsidy (Wilk. Cone. iii. 280) /»n condition that their rights should be
respected. Ann. Henr. p. 388 ; Dep. Keeper’s Rep. ii. App. ii. ρ. 182.
The subsidy was a grant of 2s. on every 20s. of every benefice or office
ecclesiastical untaxed, over loos, per annum.
χvτιι.] The Unlearned Parliament. ⅛]
In other respects the year was one of preparation and antici- Work ɑr
pation. The French were threatening tlɪe coast; the fleet, 4°4
under Somerset was vindicating at great cost the national re-
putation at sea; the Welsh were gaining strength and forming
foreign alliances ; the sinister rumours touching Bichard were
obtaining more and more credit. In the summer Northumber-
land visited the King at Pomfret, and surrendered the royal
castles which had been in his charge. Serie, a confidential
servant of Richard, was given up to Henry and executed1.
But little else was done. Iu October at Coventry the ‘ Un-
learned Parliament ’ met.
311. This assembly acquired its ominous name from the fact The
that in the writ of summons the king, acting upon the or- Parliament,
dinance issued by Edward III in 1372 2, directed that no law- 0ctl4°4∙
yers should be returned as members. ‘He had complained more
than once that the members of the House of Commons spent
more time on private suits than on public business; and the
idea of summoning the estates to Coventry, where they would
be at a distance from the courts of law, was perhaps suggested
by his wish to expedite the business of the nation3. In the
opinion of the clergy the Unlearned Parliament earned its title
in another way, for, although the rolls of parliament contain
no reference to the fact, a formidable attempt was made to
appropriate the temporalities of the clergy to the necessities of
the moment. The estates met on the 6th of October ; the
chancellor reported that the grant of the last parliament was
entirely inadequate, and the commons replied with a most Money
liberal provision ; two tenths and fifteenths, a subsidy on wool, grants,
and tunnage and poundage for two years from the following
Michaelmas, 1405, when the grants made in 1402, would expire ;
lords and. commons confirmed the land-tax voted in the last
ɪ Otterbourne, p. 248 ; Ann. Henr. p. 390 ; Kymer, viii. 364.
2 Rot. Karl. ii. 310 ; Statutes, i. 394.
* Ann. Henr. p. 391 ; Otterbourne, p. 294 : ‘ nomen parliament! laicalis.’
Cf. Eulog. ɪii. 402 ; Wals. ii. 265. The writ runs thus—‘ nolunɪus autem
quotftu seu aliquis alius vicecomes regni nostri praedicti apprentices sive
aIiquis alius ,homo ad Iegemaliqualitcr sit electus;’ Lords’ Report, iv. 792.
On Coke’s denial of this fact see Prynne, Second Register, ρp. 123 sq.