2nd, and, being under the influence of Arundel, showed itself
liberal and forbearing¹. The archbishop preached the opening
sermon, on the text ‘ Honour the king.’ Thomas Chaucer was
speaker. On the 9tl1 of November Arundel announced that
the accounts of the recent grants had been spontaneously sub-
mitted by the council to the inspection of the commons ; that
the council had been obliged to borrow large sums², and wished
to be relieved from the oath drawn up in the preceding year.
On the 2nd of December a grant was made of a fifteenth and
tenth, and a half of the same³ ; of the subsidy on wool, and
tunnage and poundage for two years ; the king undertaking
not to ask the nation for money for two years from the next
March⁴. The statutes and petitions of the session were mostly
devoted to the reduction and pacification of Wales. The mer-
chants were relieved from the defence of the sea, and severe
measures were taken against extortionate purveyors⁵. Itwas
enacted that foreigners should be compelled to contribute to
the fifteenths and tenths⁵. One discussion, and that histo-
rically an important one, disturbed the harmony of the session.

The principle that money grants should be initiated in the
house of commons, involved the reasonable doctrine that the
poorest of the three estates should be left to state the maximum
of pecuniary exaction, and that the representatives of the
great body of payers should fix the amount of taxation. That
principle had grown into practice but had not yet received
authoritative recognition. This session saw a long step taken
towards that recognition. On the 21 st of November the king
in consultation with the lords put to them the question what
amount of aid was necessary for the public defence ; the lords

¹ Kot. Part. iii. 608.

² A loan of £10,900 was contracted for the payment of the Calais
garrison, on the credit of the lords of the council, June 27, ¹4⁰7 > Rymer,
viii. 488.

³ Dep. Keeper’s Rep. ii. App. ii. p. 184; Rot. Parl. iii. 612 sq. The
clergy of York voted a tenth in December 1408 ; Wilk. Cone. iii. 319.

¹ On the ι⅛t of February, 1408, the king by letters patent undertook to
retain for the expenses of the household all proceeds of the alien priories,
vacant sees, wardships, marriages, forfeitures, escapes and fee farms;
Rymer, viii. 510.

⁵ Rot. Parl. iii. 609.                                     ⁶ Statutes, ii. 161.

in reply mentioned the sums that were subsequently granted ;
the king then summoned a number of the commons to hear and
report to the house the opinion of the lords. Twelve of the
commons attended and reported the message. The house at
once took alarm ; ‘ the commons were thereupon greatly dis-
turbed,’ saying and affirming that this was in great prejudice
_and derogation of their liberties. Henry, who had certainly no
object in derogating from the rights of the commons, and who
had probably acted in mere inadvertence, as soon as he heard
of the commotion, yielded the point, and with the assent of the
lords gave his decision to the effect that it W’as lawful for the Ruieestab-
Iords to deliberate in the absence of the king on the state of
the realm and the needful remedies ; that likewise it was lawful
for the commons to do the same ; provided always that neither
house should make any report to the king on a grant made by
the commons and assented to by the lords, or on any nego-
tiations touching such grant, until the two houses had agreed ;

and that then the report should be made through the speaker
of the commons¹. This decision has its important relations to
earlier and later history ; here it appears as a significant proof
of the position which the house of commons had already won
under the constitutional rule of Lancaster.

316. For two years Arundel retained the great seal, and the Rebellion
,   .        .    ,           .           . ,                                 and death

country, as it had desιreα, remained without a parliament, of the eaɪ-i
The great event of 1408 was the final effort of the old earl of umberiand,
Northumberland to unseat the king : an attempt more desperate ⁴°^s'
than the last². In February, in company with lord Bardolf,
the abbot of Hales, and the schismatic bishop of Bangor, he

¹ Rot. Parl. iii. 611.

² * Infausta hora, nempe Conceperant tantum de odio vulgar! contra
regem, et tantuɪn praesumpserunt de favore populi penes se quod oɪnnis
plebs ɪllis Concurreret et adhaereret relicto rege, ita quod, cum pervenerunt
ad Thresk, fecerunt proclamari publice quod ipsi Venerunt ad consola-
tioneɪn populi Anglicani et iniquae Oppressionis Subsidium qua noverant
^se jam Iongo tempore oppressum Otterbourne, p. 262. From Thirsk
they marched to Grimbald bridge near Knaresborough, where they were
Lrbidden to cross the Nidd, and so passed round Hay Park to Wetherby,
⅛e sheriff continuing in Knaresborouah. The next day, Sunday, the earl
Went to Tadcaster, and on the Monday the battle took place ; ib. pp. 262,
²⅛; cf. Fulog. hi. 411 ; Wals. ii. 278.

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