by Charles Ross
It is probable that similar efforts were made for the long-lasting parliament of 1472–5, which was required to finance the invasion of France. Thirty-nine royal servants sat in the commons, forming about 14 per cent of the house, and again most of them were members of the royal household. Its controller and twelve knights or esquires of the body between them sat for twelve English shires. These proportions are certainly much higher than for the only assembly of the 1460s for which full returns survive: in 1467–8 only twenty royal servants were returned, fourteen of them household men, but forming no more than 5 per cent of the house. For 1461–2 and 1463–5 we know the names of less than a quarter of the M.P.s elected, but it is unlikely that for this important first parliament the government and their supporters would have spared their efforts to return likely men to Westminster, and in 1463 Edward cancelled all the elections on the grounds that they had been irregular, but his real reason may have been that he did not fancy the composition of the house they would have produced. The fact that three of his six parliaments sat for several sessions suggests that, having found the temper of a particular assembly to his liking, he preferred to keep it in being rather than risk facing a less sympathetic body. But although the influence of king and peers on the composition of the commons is likely to have been considerable, it should not be overestimated: even in 1472–5 and in 1478 it is doubtful whether committed ‘government supporters’ were numerous enough to deprive the commons of all independence or initiative.
An increasingly important part in the management of the house of commons under the Yorkists was played by successive speakers of the house, who played a dual role, combining that of a modern speaker with that of a modern leader of the house. With the partial exception of Sir James Strangways in 1461–2, Edward’s speakers were prominent royal servants and councillors, and all were rewarded handsomely for their ‘diligence’ in serving the king in that office. (This practice of rewarding speakers, like the similar one of large rewards to sheriffs to ensure their loyalty and good service, was largely a Yorkist innovation.)1 Sir John Say, speaker in 1463–5 and 1467–8, had been under-treasurer of the exchequer and became chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. He is also an example of the group of competent Lancastrian servants who chose to take service under the House of York, for he had been speaker in 1449 and chancellor of the Duchy from 1450. Sir William Allington, speaker in 1472–5 and 1478, was a tutor and councillor of the prince of Wales, became a councillor of the king, and had links with the queen and Earl Rivers. The last speaker of the reign (January 1483), John Wood, had also been an under-treasurer of the exchequer. By this time the speaker had probably become largely a nominee of the Crown. At all events the willingness of the commons to choose as speakers such outright ‘king’s men’ strongly suggests that their primary function was to present and direct the king’s business before the assembled knights and burgesses.2
Apart from these methods of managing parliament, there were others of which we know comparatively little. The ‘Fane Fragment’ tells us something of behind-the-scenes operations by king and lords which could not be learnt from the official Rolls of Parliament. It shows, for example, that two bills, one concerning restrictions on the import of certain kinds of merchandise to protect native producers, the other a sumptuary law against ‘excessive apparel’, were discussed by the king and his advisers in 1461–2, and one was ‘put in’ by the king’s own hand; but they were afterwards enacted in 1463 in the guise of ‘commons bills’ (preceded by the rubric ‘Prayen the Commons …’). Government inspiration played a part in the amendment by the lords of commons bills: on one occasion in 1461 ‘it was thought that divers lords should declare unto the Commons that the king’s pleasure is that he will not authorize their said franchises and liberties by authority of parliament …’.1 Indeed, one of the features of Edward’s reign is the effort which the Crown made to remove tension by itself promoting legislation on issues which in the Lancastrian period had had to be forced on government by the angry commons. Conspicuous amongst these were the three Acts of Resumption of 1465, 1467 and 1473, each more stringent than the last. At least in part these were intended to improve the king’s finances and hence not to ‘burden his poor commons’.2 ‘Most important business’ (Professor Myers tells us) ‘was initiated by the government and prepared in advance by his councillors, who were represented in both houses’, a tendency which became still more marked in the early Tudor period.3 But not all these devices of management quite served to ensure complete harmony between king and commons, for the latter could be stubborn where their own interests and pockets were involved, and their confidence in the king’s honesty and fair dealing was by no means unbounded.
In all, Edward met six parliaments in the twenty-three years of his reign. Together they sat for a total of 84½ weeks. These may seem infrequent by comparison with the almost annual parliaments of the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries – Richard II, for example, summoned twenty-four parliaments in a similar length of time – but infrequency did not mean short duration. Three of Edward’s assemblies sat for more than one session. That of 1472–5, with its seven sessions lasting a total of 44 weeks, was the longest parliament held up to that date and longer than any of its successors until the Reformation Parliament. As in many other matters, there is here a close comparison with Henry VII, whose seven parliaments in twenty-four years sat for a total of 70 weeks. In summoning a parliament, Edward had one or both of two main reasons – the need for a subsidy, and the desire to get the consent of the assembly for measures not usually held to be fully valid or lawful without it. These include a number of important acts of attainder and resumption, together with others sanctioning arrangements and endowments for the royal family. Several of these latter were clearly dubious under the common law, and could only be regarded as legal when blessed with the overriding authority of the high court of parliament.
‘The king’s business’ in this sense formed the main concern of parliament, for the other legislation of the reign is not of great importance. Taking under review only those acts of parliament which were later enrolled as statutes (that is, measures which were of permanent importance and which were thought ‘to modify the common law and to be applicable in the ordinary routine of the courts’),1 the entire reign produced only fifty-four statutes. By far the largest group concerned commerce and industry, dealing with wages and prices, weights and measures, imports and exports, and bullion regulations: these numbered twenty-eight in all. Twelve more were primarily legal, four of which involved the office of sheriff, but only two of these were of any great significance. Two were sumptuary laws, three concerned with administration, and the remaining eight were of miscellaneous character, mostly dealing with minor matters such as the prohibition of unlawful games or regulations concerning swans.2 A few more might have been added, if the king had not rejected the commons’ bills proposing them; and some of these were of greater importance than those he accepted.3 These Edwardian statutes form an unimpressive body of legislation, and it would be hard to refute the claim of Hallam that his reign was the first in our annals in which not a single enactment was made for increasing the liberty or security of the subject.4
Relations between king and commons in the first decade of the reign were far less harmonious than some historians have supposed, especially where matters of taxation were concerned.5 Edward was heir to a tradition whereby the king was expected so far as possible to ‘live of his own’ and not to levy taxation except for such ‘great and urgent causes’ as resistance to foreign invasion or war against France and Scotland. The commons of the 1460s showed no disposition to open their pockets for the benefit of the new king. His first parliament ratified his title to the throne and approved a massive act of attainder against the supporters of the House of Lancaster. Yet, though the king had a pressing need of money and was largely dependent on loans for immediate cash, it is noticeable that he did not ask his commons for a grant of taxation, presumably because he
would have been unable to persuade them that the profits of these vast forfeitures were insufficient for his immediate livelihood. But it is worth observing that Edward had already started to collect the customs duties entirely on his own authority and without waiting for the usual sanction from parliament: they were said to be ‘due to the king of his inheritance’, a claim which represents a complete break with precedent.1
Not until two years later, in response to Edward’s promise to lead an army against the invading Scots, did the commons make their first grant of money. The normal form of a parliamentary subsidy was a grant of a fifteenth and tenth of the value of movable property levied according to a very outdated system of assessment. This was calculated to yield £37,000, but in the Lancastrian period it had become usual to remit £6,000 of this sum from places too impoverished to pay. In the first session of the 1463 parliament, the commons promised the king what they called an ‘aid’ of £31,000, to be levied in the manner of a fifteenth and tenth, but they also undertook to raise a further £6,000 chargeable on those inhabitants of the shires and incorporated boroughs who could best afford to pay. This was to be the first of a series of experiments in Edward’s reign to develop new methods of taxation, attempts largely frustrated by taxpayers’ resistance. The commons specified that the money was to be used ‘only for the said defence’ of the realm. Edward, however, defaulted on his promises, and the widespread resentment which followed was reflected in the mood of the commons when next they met in November 1463.2 In consideration of the great charges they had borne – such was the burden of their complaint – they now demanded that the £6,000 be remitted, and that collection of the second half of their grant should be deferred. Their mistrust of the king appears in a curious passage on the Parliament Roll in which they protested that they delivered their ‘paper’ only as ‘a remembrance of their intent’, reserving their right to alter it as they wished.3 In the final session of this parliament (January-March 1465), however, they relented sufficiently, probably in response to the king’s acceptance of a body of mercantilist legislation favouring native merchants, to grant him the wool-subsidy and tunnage and poundage for life.1
The experience of 1463–5 was repeated in the parliament of 1467–8. In its first session, Edward made his well-known declaration that he intended to ‘live of his own’, which effectively precluded any demand for taxation. Then in 1468 he appealed to them for money to finance his projected invasion of France, the only issue on which they could be expected to respond with enthusiasm. They answered, generously enough, with a grant of two fifteenths and tenths, less the usual remission. Again Edward defaulted on his promises, but continued nevertheless to collect the monies voted by parliament. In this parliament, too, the speaker made a pointed demand that the king should tackle urgently the abuses of livery and maintenance and the misbehaviour and ‘heavy lordship’ of his own great men. It is not altogether surprising that in 1469 the rebels could appeal to popular discontent on these counts, claiming that ‘the laws were not duly ministered’, that there were ‘great maintenances’, and that the king had taxed his subjects heavily, even though he had as great a livelihood as any king of England ever had.2
The 1472–5 parliament witnessed a legacy of this mistrust. The main reason for its extraordinary length was the king’s wish to get sufficient finance for the planned invasion of France. After various unsuccessful attempts to raise money by new methods, the commons eventually granted the king four whole fifteenths and tenths, more than he had received from them in all the previous part of his reign; but they made a point of insisting that the money when collected should be delivered only when they were quite sure he was going to France. Such heavy taxation to be levied in so short a time as three years was certainly not popular with everyone, as John Paston put on record.3 The commons also countered the bishop of Rochester’s assurance that the laws would be put into execution by firmly reminding the king that disorder was rife and oppression by the powerful went unpunished. Eventually, the outcome of the 1475 expedition proved so unpopular that Edward thought it politic to remit to his subjects three-quarters of the last fifteenth and tenth they had voted, but which had not so far been collected.1
The king’s improved finances after 1475 enabled him to go for several more years without seeking further subsidies from his reluctant commons, until the mounting costs of his war with Scotland made his needs urgent. How little he relished the prospect of once again confronting them with further demands is shown not only in his recourse to benevolences but also in his ill-judged demand in 1481 for payment of the three-quarters of the subsidy he had remitted after his return from France in 1475. The ‘adverse turmoil’ which resulted was one of the reasons for his postponement of the invasion of Scotland for that year.2 However, by January 1483, his desire to continue the war with Scotland or to renew the war with France compelled him to summon his last parliament. Whether this assembly was as heavily packed as its predecessor in 1478 we have no means of knowing, since the returns of members are highly defective, but it proved compliant enough to grant him a further subsidy and a tax on alien merchants and to approve several bills highly favourable to members of the royal family. Yet before parliament was dissolved, the commons again returned to their persistent grievance, when the speaker in the final session most urgently (instantissime) requested the king to attend to the enforcement of a number of existing statutes for the maintenance of law and order.3
In all, Edward persuaded his lay subjects to vote him the equivalent of 6¾ subsidies, or about £272,000. Although this was less than half the yearly incidence of direct taxation enjoyed by Henry V and Henry VI, it may be compared with the sum of £282,000 raised by Henry VII over a similar period.4 Both kings faced the same problem, the reluctance of their commons to vote taxes, even for foreign conquests. Both were therefore driven to seek as far as possible to raise money from other sources of income. For Edward this was perhaps the major problem of government with which he had to contend; but – as this survey of his relations with his commons may suggest – in the eyes of his subjects a no less urgent task was the better maintenance of law and order. Much depended on his finding solutions to both problems.
(iii) Merchants and Commercial Policy1
Edward IV has some claim to be regarded as the first ‘merchant king’ in English history. From the beginning of his reign he sought to improve his finances by indulging in personal trading ventures, an example followed by many of his great men. Already by the spring of 1463 he was actively engaged in the wool trade. Soon after he was exporting a variety of other merchandise, notably cloth and tin, and by 1470, if not before, he was active as an importer. Thus in May 1464 one of his Italian factors, James de Sanderico, was commissioned to ship no fewer than 8,000 cloths on the king’s behalf, and 3,000 of these, exported soon after, were valued at £6,589. The tin trade was largely dominated by the king, especially at the trade’s chief port of Southampton. In 1467–8, for example, the entire export of 160 mwt (a measure of 12,000 lbs) was shipped for the king by another Italian agent, Alan de Monteferrato, and was valued at £1,600. In February 1470 no fewer than twenty-five ships entering or leaving the port of London contained goods of the king, shipped by one or more of his various factors and their sub-agents. This activity continued throughout the reign. In his later years he also made use of the royal ships, when not engaged on other business, as commercial charter vessels. In August 1478, for example, the Antony was sailing to the Mediterranean with a wool cargo on behalf of the London alderman, William Heryot.2
Some scholars have expressed doubt as to the degree of the king’s direct interest in this trading activity. The late Eileen Power claimed that some at least of the shipments made in the king’s name were in fact made by his factors on their own behalf. H. L. Gray believed that trading ventures from which the king, like any ordinary merchant, hoped to profit by the direct sale of goods abroad were uncommon, and that in general Edward made his profit by selling licences to alien or native
merchants to export at a reduced rate of custom, or without paying customs at all.1 But such scepticism about Edward’s direct interest seems unjustified. Though his business was handled by a variety of factors, nearly all Italians, who bought, shipped and sold on his behalf, the fact that the king was a principal in these transactions is suggested not only by the constant references to the king’s cloth, wool and tin in the English customs accounts, but also in foreign business records, like those of the Medici.2 Nor should one disregard the very explicit statement of the Croyland Chronicler, whose author, Bishop Russell, was in a good position to know: his slight clerical sense of impropriety that a king should behave so comes through in his comment:
This same king in person, having equipped ships of burden, laded them with the very finest wools, cloths, tin, and other products of his realm, and, like a man living by merchandize, exchanged goods for goods, both with the Italians and the Greeks, through his factors.3
Throughout the reign we have evidence of the king’s intelligent and individual interest in the commercial affairs of his nation, and of his readiness to welcome innovation. In February 1483, for example, he granted a licence to John de Salvo and Antonio Spinola, two naturalized Italians, to introduce some twenty craftsmen into England from abroad in order to instruct the English in new methods of finishing and dyeing cloth. He was always anxious to promote the development of the English merchant marine. In 1474, when visiting Bristol, he offered rewards to any man in the town who would build a new ship, and in 1476 he rewarded a London mercer who had just built at his own expense a ship called le George Cobham. On one occasion at least, in order to promote long-distance commerce in English ships, he equipped a ship (not a galley) to sail to Porto Pisano, where it was known as ‘the nef of the King of England’.4 He was interested, too, in developing new markets for English commerce. There are clear signs that in the 1460s he was encouraging his merchants to break into the trade of the Barbary Coast of North Africa, an area in which the Portuguese claimed a monopoly. Lions were being bought for him there by two English merchants, John Lokton and Richard Whitington, as early as 1465, and English penetration into this region in the 1470s provoked a Portuguese counter-reaction. In return, Edward attempted to undermine the Portuguese position by appealing to the pope to authorize English trade in Africa: this, in February 1481, refers to the Guinea coast of Africa. This interest in new markets also led him to encourage, even if he did not provide either the initiative or the finance, straightforward voyages of exploration. In the summer of 1480 he granted a licence to Thomas Croft and three Bristol merchants to trade for three years ‘to any parts’, and it has been suggested that this licence to explore may have resulted in the discovery of America in 1481.1 Another innovation, sometimes claimed for Henry VII, which belongs to Edward’s reign was the practice of ‘wafting’, or providing protection vessels for English ships at sea. Royal ships were in demand to convoy the wool fleets to Calais in 1474–5. The practice of privately hiring wafters to protect fishing vessels is known as early as 1473, but in 1482 it received official authorization and was extended to include ships of any nation fishing off the east coast of England.2
