POVERTY OF KINGS, AND THE BRITISH CROWN PAWNED.
As to increasing wealth by war, that has never yet happened to this nation; and, I believe, rarely to any country. Our former kings most engaged in war were always poor, and sometimes excessively so. Edward III. pawned his jewels to pay foreign forces; and magnam coronam Angliae, his imperial crown, three several times—once abroad, and twice to Sir John Wosenham, his banker, in whose custody the crown remained no less than eight years. The Black Prince, as Walsingham informs us, was constrained to pledge his plate. Henry V., with all his conquests, pawned his crown, and the table and stools of silver which he had from Spain. Queen Elizabeth is known to have sold her very jewels.