Note 23 — Chapter I

A letter in my possession from the Duke of Norfolk to Wolsey, without the date of the year, relates, I believe, to this commission of 1525, rather than that of 1522; it being dated on the 10th April, which appears from the contents to have been before Easter; whereas Easter did not fall beyond that day in 1523 or 1524, but did so in 1525; and the first commission, being of the 14th year of the king's reign, must have sat later than Easter 1522. He informs the cardinal, that from twenty pounds upward there were not twenty in the county of Norfolk who had not consented. "So that I see great likelihood that this grant shall be much more than the loan was." It was done, however, very reluctantly, as he confesses; "assuring your grace that they have not granted the same without shedding of many salt tears, only for doubt how to find money to content the king's highness." The resistance went further than the duke thought fit to suppose; for in a very short time the insurrection of the common people took place in Suffolk. In another letter from him and the Duke of Suffolk to the cardinal they treat this rather lightly, and seem to object to the remission of the contribution.

This commission issued soon after the news of the battle of Pavia arrived. The pretext was the king's intention to lead an army into France. Warham wrote more freely than the Duke of Norfolk as to the popular discontent, in a letter to Wolsey, dated April 5. "It hath been showed me in a secret manner of my friends, the people sore grudgeth and murmureth, and speaketh cursedly among themselves, as far as they dare, saying that they shall never have rest of payments as long as some liveth, and that they had better die than to be thus continually handled, reckoning themselves, their children, and wives, as despoulit, and not greatly caring what they do, or what becomes of them.... Further I am informed, that there is a grudge newly now resuscitate, and revived in the minds of the people; for the loan is not repaid to them upon the first receipt of the grant of parliament, as it was promised them by the commissioners, showing them the king's grace's instructions, containing the same, signed with his grace's own hand in summer, that they fear not to speak, that they be continually beguiled, and no promise is kept unto them; and thereupon some of them suppose that if this gift and grant be once levied, albeit the king's grace go not beyond the sea, yet nothing shall be restored again, albeit they be showed the contrary. And generally it is reported unto me, that for the most part every man saith he will be contented if the king's grace have as much as he can spare, but verily many say they be not able to do as they be required. And many denieth not but they will give the king's grace according to their power, but they will not anywise give at other men's appointments, which knoweth not their needs.... I have heard say, moreover, that when the people be commanded to make fires and tokens of joy for the taking of the French king, divers of them have spoken that they have more cause to weep than to rejoice thereat. And divers, as it hath been showed me secretly, have wished openly that the French king were at his liberty again, so as there were a good peace, and the king should not attempt to win France; the winning whereof should be more chargeful to England than profitable, and the keeping thereof much more chargeful than the winning. Also it hath been told me secretly that divers have recounted and repeated what infinite sums of money the king's grace hath spent already in invading France, once in his own royal person, and two other sundry times by his several noble captains, and little or nothing in comparison of his costs hath prevailed; insomuch that the king's grace at this hour hath not one foot of land more in France than his most noble father had, which lacked no riches or wisdom to win the kingdom of France, if he had thought it expedient." The archbishop goes on to observe, rather oddly, that "he would that the time had suffered that this practising with the people for so great sums might have been spared till the cuckow time and the hot weather (at which time mad brains be wont to be most busy) had been overpassed."

Warham dwells, in another letter, on the great difficulty the clergy had in making so large a payment as was required of them, and their unwillingness to be sworn as to the value of their goods. The archbishop seems to have thought it passing strange that people would be so wrongheaded about their money. "I have been," he says, "in this shire twenty years and above, and as yet I have not seen men but would be conformable to reason, and would be induced to good order, till this time; and what shall cause them now to fall into these wilful and indiscreet ways, I cannot tell, except poverty and decay of substance be the cause of it.