116 Constitutional History. [chap.
Parliament
of x43x.
Grants of
money.
was chiefly occupied with the financial difficulties. The country
was becoming more convinced of its own exhaustion, and debt
was annually increasing1. New methods of taxation were tried
and failed. This year, besides fifteenths and tenths, tunnage
and poundage, and the continued subsidy, a grant was made
of twenty shillings on the knight’s fee or twenty pounds rental2 ;
and security authorised for a loan of £50,000 3. The payments
for Beaufort’s services were a large item in the national account ;
Gloucester was still more rapacious, and he did not, like his
uncle, hold his stores at the disposal of the state.
Discussions
in council
on Beau-
fort’s posi-
tion ;
On the 6th of November the duke again mooted in council
the removal of the cardinal4, this time directly. The king’s
serjeant and attorney laid before the lords in general council a
series of precedents by which it was shown that every English
bishop who had accepted a cardinal’s hat had vacated his see ;
the duke of Gloucester asked the bishop of Worcester whether
it was not true that the cardinal had bought for himself an
exemption from the jurisdiction of his metropolitan; and the
bishop, when pressed to speak, allowed that he had heard this
stated by the bishop of Lichfield who had acted as Beaufort’s
proctor. The bishops and other lords present professed that
their first object was the good of the kingdom, and said that,
considering the cardinal’s great services and near relation-
ship to the king, they wished justice to be done on a fair trial,
and ancient records to be searched. The bishop of Carlisle
voted that nothing should be done until the cardinal’s return5.
Notwithstanding this, on the 28th of November the council
ordered letters of praemunire and attachment upon the statute
to be drawn up, the execution of them being deferred until the
king’s return. The same day there was a brisk debate on the
held Oct. 6, 1430, OpenedJan. 12, 1431 ; Rot. Parl.iv. 367 ; Ainund.!. 57 ;
Ordinances, iv. 67. John Tyrell was again speaker. The grants were
made on the 20th of March.
1 In a great council, Oct. 9, 1430, the bishops and abbots lent large
sums, and soon after a fifteenth was levied; Amund. i. 55. On the 12ih
of July, 1430, orders were issued for constraint of knighthood; Ord.
iv. 54.
'j Rot. Parl. iv. 368, 369 ; Amund. i. 5 S. s Rot. Park iv. 374.
4 Ordinances, iv. 100. 5 lb. iv. 103 ; Rymer, x. 497.
XVIII.]
Parliament of 1432.
ιi7
ɑuestionof the protector’s salary, in which the chancellor and liad °a tl>β
ɪ v protector’s
treasurer, supported by the bishop of Carlisle, lords Harington, salary,
De la Warr, Lovell, and Botreaux, were outvoted by Gloucester’s
friends1 led by the lord Ie Scrope. Before the king’s return Beanfort⅛
• jewels
additional offence was given by the seizure of the cardinal’s seized.
plate and jewels when they were landed at Dover. Beaufort change of
I υ *, . ministers
himself was still abroad2, and Gloucester took the opportunity ɑn the king’s
, .. return, 1432.
which his absence offered, and which perhaps an increasing
personal influence over the king helped him to seize, to remove-,
the ministers and make a great alteration in his nephew’s
surroundings. The king landed on the 9tl1 of February, 1432 ;
on the 26th Hungerford had to resign the treasurership to
John lord Ie Scrope of AIasham ; on the ɪst of March lord
Cromwell the chamberlain was dismissed, and lord Tiptoft was
relieved from the stewardship of the household 3 ; on the 4th of
March, the great seal, which the archbishop of York had
resigned on February 25, was confided to John (Stafford, bishop
of Bath4 ; other minor changes followed. As might be
expected, the cardinal speedily returned home and the next
parliament was a stormy one.
337. It met on the 12th of May at Westminster before the Parliament
king in person5, and was opened by the new chancellor with a 43
speech on the text ‘Fear God, honour the King;’ the three
points of application being the defence of religion, the main-
tenance of law, and the relief of the national poverty ; the last
a new feature in such addresses, but probably introduced now
in consequence of a real pressure. On the second day Gloucester
spoke, in the idea, he said, of assuring the commons that the
1 Ordinance?, iv. 103,
2 Beaufbrt had returned to Eagland Dec. 21, 1430, and attended the
parliament of 1431, but went back to France after Easter ; Amund. i. 56,
58, 62 ; Rymer, x. 491.
a Rymer, x. 402 ; Ordinances, iv. 109. Hardyng speaks highly of lord
Cromwell’s wisdom, perhaps referring to his money-getting craft, p. 395.
4 Rymer, x. 500, 501.
5 Rot. Parl. iv. 3S8. John Russellwas speaker; the grants were re-
ported July 17. The council had on the 7th addressed writs to the duke
of Korfolk, the earls of Suffolk, Huntingdon, Stafford, Northumberland,
and lord Cromwell, forbidding them to bring up more than their ordinary
retinues; Ordinances, iv. U2.