l68 TAXES AND CONTRIBUTIONS. 



minister of the day. He framed budgets, to use a modern 

 phrase, and announced grants. He not only maintained the 

 discipline of the House, but was responsible for its conduct. 

 If it offended the king, he bore the brunt of the royal wrath. 

 If it roused the anger of some powerful man outside the House, 

 the Speaker was the obvious object of attack and vengeance. 

 This great responsibility, implied to this day in the Speaker's 

 claim for the undoubted privileges of the Commons, and his 

 humble deprecation of offence given and taken, continued from 

 the earliest times at least to the age of Lenthall. There were 

 occasions on which the Speaker was constrained, as the mouth- 

 piece of the Commons, to use uncourtly language, to complain 

 of excesses in government, of extortion and oppression, of royal 

 promises broken, of royal debts unpaid, of an impoverished 

 revenue, of insolent favourites, of public dishonour at home 

 and abroad. There were occasions on which this great official 

 of the Commons had even to undertake the dangerous duty, 

 at the instance of those whom he governed and served, of 

 impeaching a powerful minister. Tresham must have assuredly 

 counted the cost before he undertook the office which, now put 

 upon him anew, was one of extreme difficulty and danger. 



The financial scheme of Tresham was propounded at 

 Leicester, to which town the Commons had removed, in con- 

 sequence of the unhealthiness of Westminster, on Mar. 30, 1450. 

 He proposed a graduated income-tax, taking the precedent of 

 1435, for going much lower in the taxable unit. All persons 

 having freehold estate in 'lands, tenements, rents, services, 

 annuities, offices, fees, pensions, or temporal commodities,' to 

 the value of twenty shillings yearly, all persons having a similar 

 income for term of life, or in an annuity not issuing from 

 a certain place, all persons having occupation to the same 

 amount in ancient demesne or elsewhere, all having estates 

 by copy of court roll or custom of the manor, are to be liable 

 to a tax of 2^ per cent. The limit of this charge is 20 annual 

 income. Between 20 and 200 annual revenue, the tax is to 

 be 5 percent. On incomes of ^200 and upwards it is to be 



