382 



records that divers collectors of dismes and quinzismes had by 

 brocage and subtlety absented themselves, so that the honest and 

 true men when they brought their gathering could not get an 

 -acquittance, but on the contrary, were charged to find the whole 

 sum due or in default were sent to prison, or their lands and 

 tenements seized. The remedy conceded was the power to 

 proceed against the dishonest " by action of debt and double 

 damages," a proceeding which must have been as bad, or worse, 

 than the trespass. These difficulties were increased by the 

 exactions of the officers or clerks in the Exchequer. So great 

 was this oppression that in 1455 a prayer was made to the 

 Commons for protection against the extortion of these men who 

 " take fees and wagez of you for theym and their clerkez in 

 grete and outrageous yefts for doyng of thaire offices ayenst 

 all reason and conscience, and their office will not doo to the 

 deliveraunce of your accomptauntz, till they have suche out- 

 rageous fees and yifts. The which causen Shiryves and others to 

 take outrageous and excessive fees for their offices doyng, to the 

 grete hurt and destruction of all your said liege people." The 

 result was a statute by which the fees of the Exchequer were 

 determined, so that the officers and others who " take fees and 

 wages of the King for their work " should not also extort excessive 

 gifts from the sheriffs or others in counties. 



In 1460, after a reign of thirty-eight years, Henry VI. had to 

 give way to Edward IV. In 3 Edward IV., 1463, Andrew 

 Bedford and Thomas Wyther were collectors for Bath of a 

 fifteenth and tenth granted for ten years, the usual £6,000 for 

 poor cities to be deducted. The amount received from the 

 Counts, Barons, Magistrates, Knights, Citizens and Burgesses of 

 Bath, was, as before, £13 6s. 8d.* In 8 Edward IV., 1468, 

 William Walley and William Walker were collectors for two 

 whole tenths, to be collected in moieties in 1468 and 1469, and 



* Subsidies 169—111. 



