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The Fiscal Constitution of Later Medieval England: the Reign of Henry Vi

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The Fiscal Constitution of Later Medieval England: the Reign of Henry Vi THE FISCAL CONSTITUTION OF LATER MEDIEVAL ENGLAND: THE REIGN OF HENRY VI ALEX BRAYSON PhD University of York Department of History October 2013 THE FISCAL CONSTITUTION OF LATER MEDIEVAL ENGLAND: THE REIGN OF HENRY VI 1 ABSTRACT This thesis is an examination of the constitutional framework of public finance during the reign of Henry VI, prior to the ‘Wars of the Roses’. Its central theme is that the governments of Henry VI’s minority and majority rule could not transcend the parameters of scholastic fiscal theory and negotiate generous lay tax grants as a means of effectively financing the Hundred Years’ War after the Treaty of Troyes and expansive permanent charges. Parliament preferred to grant low levels of lay taxation, the payment of which was spread out over lengthy time periods, and attempt to increase public revenue by alternative means, namely the granting of novel indirect taxes on aliens and alien poll taxes, and the underwriting of large– scale loans. In financial terms this strategy failed, and led to increasing problems at the exchequer. Despite notable efforts to efficiently bring in lay tax revenue and manage creditors, a rising tide of government debt characterised the 1430s and 1440s. The only means of effectively resolving this fiscal crisis was through parliament’s granting of a higher level of lay taxation, which the Commons resolutely opposed. Henry VI’s apparent absence from the politics of his majority regime during the mid–to–late 1440s made it more difficult for the government to secure the necessary level of lay taxation, though this was not, as most mid–to–late twentieth century historians believed, the root cause of the unprecedented royal debt of £372,000, declared at the parliament of November 1449. This lay in the long– term failure of the later medieval fiscal constitution to adapt to changing fiscal circumstances and provide the late Lancastrian government with the level of supply necessary to prevent a protracted financial crisis. 2 CONTENTS Acknowledgements 4 Declaration of Authenticity 5 Chapter One: Approaching the fiscal history of Henry VI’s reign 6 Chapter Two: The fiscal constitution of later medieval England, c. 1272–1420 25 Chapter Three: The negotiation of a novel parliamentary response to the 49 government’s plea of ‘necessity’: credit, indirect taxation and the decline of exchequer credibility, 1420–1429 Chapter Four: The negotiation of a fiscal policy centred upon a low level of lay 71 taxation and the exchequer’s drive for fiscal administrative stability, 1429–1437 Chapter Five: In search of a revised fiscal constitutional consensus: political 102 tensions and exchequer crisis, 1437–1444 Chapter Six: The failure of the fiscal constitution: domainal fiscal politics and 140 the exchequer crisis of Henry VI’s late majority, 1445–c. 1453 Conclusion: The crisis of the later medieval fiscal constitution during the 184 reign of Henry VI Appendix One: Tabular information regarding the exchequer’s management of 194 parliamentary–controlled revenue, all revenue employed in the financing of loans and loan income, 1429–1453 Appendix Two: Tabular information regarding gross and net lay tax revenue, 209 1429–53 Appendix Three: Tabular information regarding gross indirect tax revenue, 211 1422–53 Abbreviations 214 Bibliography 215 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS As ever in projects of this kind, debts of gratitude are owed to a number of people. The staff of the J. B. Morrell Library and the Borthwick Institute for Archives at the University of York, The National Archives and the Literary and Philosophical Society, Newcastle upon Tyne, have provided me with invaluable assistance at key points of my research. Particular thanks must go to the two members of my Thesis Advisory Panel, Drs P. Dryburgh and C. D. Taylor, who have been a constant source of academic advice and guidance. Drs J. S. Mackman and M. Jurkowski have assisted me in a number of documentary matters and provided invaluable guidance regarding a range of issues relating to the record of fifteenth–century government finance. I must also thank Professor Jim Bolton for having advised me on material relating to the fifteenth–century customs administration, and Professor Michael Hicks for having shared with me a number of thoughts regarding Yorkist public finance. By far the greatest debt of gratitude, however, is owed to my supervisor, Professor Mark Ormrod. Mark’s enthusiasm for fifteenth–century fiscal history gave me the confidence to embark upon this project, and his constant encouragement and constructive criticism helped me to develop as a scholar and saw me through to the finish. I would also like to thank my family, who have supported me a great deal, and must be fed up with hearing about the fifteenth century! My partner, Margarida, has lived with Henry VI and later medieval public finance for three years now. As have my mother, my father and even my grandmother! Particular thanks go to my mother and Margarida, who accompanied me on a number of trips to Kew. I can’t thank them enough for keeping me company on these occasions after day–long stints in the Archives! I dedicate this thesis to the memory of my grandfather, George, who is often in my thoughts. 4 DECLARATION OF AUTHENTICITY I, the undersigned, Alex Brayson, declare that this dissertation is my original work, gathered and utilised especially to fulfil the purposes and objectives of this study, and has not been previously submitted to any other university for a higher degree. I also declare that the publications cited in this work have been personally consulted. _________________________________ (Alex Brayson) 5 CHAPTER ONE: APPROACHING THE FISCAL HISTORY OF HENRY VI’s REIGN The aim of this thesis is to examine trends in the parliamentary negotiation of fiscal policy and their financial context during the reign of Henry VI, prior to the ‘Wars of the Roses’. This requires a close engagement with two principal classes of source: the parliament rolls and the record of exchequer finance. An examination of the chancellor’s opening parliamentary addresses allows us to comment on the late Lancastrian government’s public framing of its financial needs. An examination of the Commons’ grants of lay and indirect taxation and the parliamentary underwriting of credit, viewed in the context of related material such as parliamentary petitions from local communities seeking exemptions or remissions from lay tax payment, provides us with a means of gauging the impact which the government’s public approach towards supply had upon parliamentary fiscal political relations. A quantitative examination of the record of exchequer finance enables us to assess the relative financial viability of royal fiscal policies negotiated in parliament. In this context, the enrolled lay and customs accounts provide us with the gross and net yields, respectively, of the lay and indirect taxes granted by parliament. And the receipt rolls provide us with the sum total of loans raised in response to parliamentary acts underwriting credit. An integrated examination of the receipt and issue rolls allows us to estimate the efficiency with which the exchequer administered parliamentary–controlled tax revenue and credit, and the role played by these revenue sources in the royal budget. These issues are viewed in the context of an examination of government debt, derived from the receipt rolls, as a means of assessing the relative extent to which the level of supply conceded by parliament was failing to meet the financial needs of the state. The methodological approach to the fiscal history of Henry VI’s reign sketched above is necessary for two, inter–related, reasons. One relates to the inadequacies of existing research on public finance during the reign of Henry VI, and recent moves towards new ways of approaching the history of public finance during this period. The other relates to the need to integrate a more developed, revisionist approach to 6 the fiscal history of the late Lancastrian period with recent trends in the historiography of pre–modern public finance, and important research on fiscal politics and exchequer finance during the period of the ‘long’ fourteenth century, c. 1272–1420. What follows is split into three sections, the first two of which consider these issues in turn. The third section considers in greater detail the methodology employed by this thesis in approaching the fiscal documentation discussed in the previous paragraph. This is necessary owing to the complexities of the fiscal documentation under examination. 1.1 The historiography of late Lancastrian public finance Since the late nineteenth century, at least, historians have been aware of the development of serious fiscal problems during the reign of Henry VI. W. Stubbs, writing in the 1870s, drew attention to financial statements brought before parliament in 1433 and 1450 which demonstrated the existence of a deficit between public revenue and expenditure.1 Stubbs viewed these statements in the context of what he believed to be a long-term constitutional struggle between the parliamentary Commons and the baronage.2 He believed that Henry V’s militarism and the long minority of Henry VI (1422–c.1437) had led to a baronial takeover of government, which during the course of the fourteenth and earlier fifteenth centuries had come to be a progressive joint endeavour between the Commons and the crown. The Commons, representing the interests of property owners throughout the realm, demonstrated their dissatisfaction with this development by failing to grant a sufficient level of lay taxation in order to adequately finance the state. This led the late Lancastrian government to draw attention to the existence of a deficit between available revenue and the government’s expenditure commitments in 1433. From the beginning of Henry VI’s personal rule in c. 1437, a dominant clique at court, led by the Marquis, later Duke, of Suffolk governed in its own interests.
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