TAXES AND CONTRIBUTION?. 173 



also softened down some of the statements which he was 

 reported to have made. 



After some delays, on Tuesday, March 17, Suffolk was 

 brought before the king and all the lords in London, into the 

 king's inmost chamber with a Gavill Wyndow over a Cloister,' 

 i.e. probably over the cloister of St. Stephen's chapel, now the 

 cloak room of the House of Commons, and was formally 

 arraigned. The king asked him through the Chancellor why 

 he had not put himself on his Peerage, i.e. demanded a 

 trial by his Peers. Suffolk evaded an answer to this ques- 

 tion, and put himself into the king's hands, probably by private 

 direction. On this he was banished for five years from the 

 first of May, to any place, except France, and other the king's 

 dominions. This action of the king was followed by a prj.est 

 from the peers, through Lord Beaumont. 



The escape of Suffolk from the tower to his estate, his 

 attempted flight, capture, and murder are known to all my 

 readers. The Commons, under Tresham, now proceed to re- 

 gulate the king's household. The debts of the king amounted to 

 372,000, his annual income had sunk to 5000. and the or- 

 dinary charges of the household were .24,000. The Commons, 

 it is alleged, had frequently made grants, and could bear them no 

 longer. There is but one remedy, a revocation of grants. Then 

 follows a long schedule of exceptions, and the king grants the 

 petition. It is not known when the Parliament was dissolved, 

 but probably the rising of Cade hurried on the dissolution 

 or concluded abruptly the Leicester session. 



Cade's insurrection was only slightly agrarian, but it was 

 largely political. It took some colour from the insurrection of 

 Tyler, for the plan of Cade was, like that of Tyler, to get pos- 

 session of the king's person, and to carry on the government 

 under his name. But it had no other likeness to it. It was, 

 like all such insurrections, the occurrence of an age of pros- 

 perity. It seldom happens that discontent breaks into revolt 

 when men are desperate, and when such revolts occur they are 



ildom dangerous, though constantly ferocious. The immediate 



