DISPOSITION OF THE PENALTIES 123 



the full payment of the tax quietly to levy the penalties and 

 pocket them, there is frequently evidence pointing in that 

 direction. A more elaborate method of concealing their 

 misdoings is as follows : after levying and appropriating 

 the penalties they would fabricate a detailed memorandum 

 of their distribution, district by district, and this memoran- 

 dum they would turn into the exchequer when rendering 

 their account of the tax/ The weakness of this scheme, 

 if suspicion of their conduct arises, lies in their inability to 

 produce the receipts of the subcollectors or of the constables 

 for the allowances itemized in their falsified accounts. The 

 energetic desire of the taxpayers to obtain their share of 

 relief goes as far as petitions to the king, and results in the 

 appointment of commissions of investigation; but even if 

 the findings are against the collectors, the taxpayers do not 

 get much satisfaction; for it usually happens that the whole 

 matter is not settled until after the end of the subsidy, and 

 under these circumstances the defaulting collectors are forced 

 to make restitution not to the communities but to the crown, 

 though it is added that the former have an action for dam- 

 ages against the collectors.^ 



Recourse is sometimes had to the court of king's bench 

 in order to check the iniquities of the collectors. In one 

 instance a justice of labourers brings action against the 

 collectors in order to obtain his salary; the latter are 

 convicted of having embezzled the penalties, under cloak 

 of the phrase " not even enough for the salaries of the 



' C/. Mem. L. T. R., 31, Trin., Recorda, rot. 6, Ebor', " De collector- 

 ibus XV* et x*^ triennalium de secundo anno solucionis earundem in West- 

 rithyng attachiatis ad recitandum compotum inde;" the collectors are 

 " sine die." In an exactly similar case against the collectors of the 

 third year in the same county (app., 306-312) the latter are imprisoned 

 and fined. 



"App., 310. 



