Note 22 — Chapter I

Hall, 645. This chronicler says the laity were assessed at a tenth part. But this was only so of the smaller estates, namely, from £20 to £300; for from £300 to £1000 the contribution demanded was twenty marks for each £100, and for an estate of £1000, two hundred marks, and so in proportion upwards. MS. Instructions to Commissioners, penes auctorem. This was, "upon sufficient promise and assurance, to be repaid unto them upon such grants and contributions as shall be given and granted to his grace at his next parliament."—Ib. "And they shall practise by all the means to them possible that such sums as shall be so granted by the way of loan, be forthwith levied and paid, or the most part, or at the least the moiety thereof, the same to be paid in as brief time after as they can possibly persuade and induce them unto; showing unto them that, for the sure payment thereof, they shall have writings delivered unto them under the king's privy seal by such person or persons as shall be deputed by the king to receive the said loan, after the form of a minute to be shown unto them by the said commissioners, the tenor whereof is thus: We, Henry VIII., by the grace of God, King of England and of France, Defender of Faith, and Lord of Ireland, promise by these presents truly to content and repay unto our trusty and well-beloved subject A. B. the sum of ——, which he hath lovingly advanced unto us by way of loan, for defence of our realm, and maintenance of our wars against France and Scotland; In witness whereof we have caused our privy seal hereunto to be set and annexed the —— day of ——, the fourteenth year of our reign."—Ib. The rate fixed on the clergy I collect by analogy, from that imposed in 1525, which I find in another manuscript letter.