TAXES AND CONTRIBUTIONS. 1JJ 



in the disastrous year 1450. A coalition between York and 

 Tresham would have resulted in a reform or a settlement of 

 matters in dispute, and would in all likelihood have obviated 

 the events which were impending, and were precipitated by his 

 murder. The first blood shed in civil war is nearly always its 

 best blood. In the same way one of the greatest misfortunes 

 which the country underwent during the time that civil war 

 was still doubtful in the seventeenth century was the death of 

 the Earl of Bedford. The Parliament of Nov. 1450 was angry 

 and vindictive, and in its proposition that the king's household 

 should be banished, and the memory of Suffolk should be ren- 

 dered infamous, it began a quarrel which was soon to develope 

 into unrestrained bloodshed. 



During the summer of 1452 occurred the revolt of the 

 Gascons, the nomination of Shrewsbury to the lieutenancy of 

 Guienne, and the revival of hopes that Aquitaine might be 

 recovered. We learn that the cause of Gascon discontent was 

 the imposition of taxes, probably on the two principal articles 

 of export, wine and salt, which the French king might have 

 thought as suitable for taxation as the English financier found 

 wool was. We shall see hereafter how serious was the effect of 

 the loss of Guienne on the consumption of French wine. 



The hope was shortlived, and matters were worse than they 

 would have been, had it never been raised. But, in the interval, 

 loyalty, enthusiasm, and confidence in Talbot and the adminis- 

 tration were as vigorous as ever they had been in the best days 

 of Bedford. The Commons elected as their Speaker Thorpe, 

 one of the officials of the Exchequer, and knight for the shire 

 of Essex. In the parliament of 1450 he had been member for 

 Ludgershall, and in that of 1449 he was the colleague of 

 Tresham for Northampton. He became, as time passed, a 

 zealous Lancastrian, was at the first battle of St. Alban's in 

 the retinue of Somerset, and was afterwards, in 1459, a t> aron 

 of the Exchequer, with higher offices in reversion. But he was 

 executed in 1461. 



Thorpe at once set to work on financial expedients. Pariia- 



VOL. IV. N 



