178 TAXES AND CONTRIBUTIONS. 



ment met in the refectory of Reading abbey on March 6, 1453, 

 and on the 2 8th granted a fifteenth and a tenth, less 6000, 

 to be deducted from the assessments of impoverished towns, 

 of which Lincoln and Yarmouth are named, which are entirely 

 quit of the obligation. The export and import duties are re- 

 enacted, and now for the term of the king's life. The tax on 

 exported tin is raised to ten per cent. The tax on wool and 

 woolfells is set at 43,$-. ^d. to denizens, and the last of hides to 

 loos., also for the king's life. These taxes are raised to iocs, on 

 wool and woolfells, and io6s. %d. the last of hides, in the case 

 of strangers exporting them, and the taxes are appropriated in 

 part for the repairs of Calais, and for paying and victualling the 

 soldiers. A third expedient is the licence duty on aliens, of i6*/. 

 in the case of householders, 6d. in that of individuals, with 

 2os. annually on all foreign merchants, factors, and brokers, 

 the nationalities specified being chiefly those of Italian towns. 

 In case any alien desires to become a denizen, he is to pay an 

 annual subsidy of ten marks (6 i$s. 4^.) a year, in equal 

 portions at Easter and Michaelmas, and to be free from 

 further liabilities. The fourth financial expedient is the levy 

 of twenty thousand archers, afterwards reduced to 13,000, to be 

 equipped and paid by the several towns and counties accord- 

 ing to a schedule. The facts have been commented on above, 

 p. 74. On July 2, the Commons granted another half-fifteenth 

 and half-tenth. They were adjourned on July 2 for the usual 

 reasons, till Nov. 12, and from thence to Feb. n. On Feb. 15 

 they complained that their Speaker, and another member, were 

 in prison, and the Duke of York answered, that Thorpe's 

 offence had been a trespass, and that he had been tried and 

 cast in damages in his own court of the Exchequer. The 

 sequel is well known, though most, if not all historians have 

 completely misconceived the facts. His subsequent fortunes 

 are told in a petition presented by his son Roger Thorpe in the 

 first Parliament of Henry VII, Rot. Parl. vi. 294. 



The delay in summoning Parliament was due to the king's 

 insanity, which I make no doubt was caused by the disasters 



