CHAPTER XII.
I. MORE IMMERSED IN PUBLIC BUSINESS (1515).
More’s practice at the Bar.
His second marriage.
While the work of Erasmus had for some years past lain chiefly in the direction of laborious literary study, it had been far otherwise with More. His lines had fallen among the busy scenes and cares of practical life. His capacity for public business, and the diligence and impartiality with which he had now for some years discharged his judicial duties as under-sheriff, had given him a position of great popularity and influence in the city. He had been appointed by the Parliament of 1515 a Commissioner of Sewers—a recognition at least of his practical ability. In his private practice at the Bar he had risen to such eminence, that Roper tells us ‘there was at that time in none of the prince’s courts of the laws of this realm any matter of importance in controversy wherein he was not with the one party of counsel.’[535] Roper further reports that ‘by his office and his learning (as I have heard him say) he gained without grief not so little as 400l. by the year’ (equal to 4,000l. a year in present money). He had in the meantime married a second wife, Alice Middleton, and taken her daughter also into his household; and thus tried, for the sake of his little orphans, to roll away the cloud of domestic sorrow from his home.
Becoming himself more and more of a public man, he had anxiously watched the course of political events.
Social results of the wars.
Complaint in Parliament.
The long continuance of war is almost sure to bring up to the surface social evils which in happier times smoulder on unobserved. It was especially so with these wars of Henry VIII. Each successive Parliament, called for the purpose of supplying the King with the necessary ways and means, found itself obliged reluctantly to deal with domestic questions of increasing difficulty. In previous years it had been easy for the flattering courtiers of a popular king, by talking of victories, to charm the ear of the Commons so wisely, that subsidies and poll-taxes had been voted without much, if any, opposition. But the Parliament which had met in February 1515, had no victories to talk about. Whether right or wrong in regarding ‘the realm of France his very true patrimony and inheritance,’ Henry VIII. had not yet been able ‘to reduce the same to his obedience.’ Meanwhile the long continuance of war expenditure had drained the national exchequer. It is perfectly true that under Wolsey’s able management the expenditure had already been cut down to an enormous extent, but during the three years of active warfare—1512, 1513, and 1514—the revenues of more than twelve ordinary years[536] had been spent, the immense hoards of wealth inherited by the young king from Henry VII. had been squandered away, and even the genius of Wolsey was unable to devise means to collect the taxes which former Parliaments had already voted. The temper of the Commons was in the meantime beginning to change. They now, in 1515, for the first time entered their complaint upon the rolls of Parliament, that whereas the King’s noble progenitors had maintained their estate and the defences of the realm out of the ordinary revenues of the kingdom, he now, by reason of the improvident grants made by him since he came to the throne, had not sufficient revenues left to meet his increasing expenses. The result was that all unusual grants of annuities, &c., were declared to be void.[537] The Commons then proceeded to deal with the large deficiency which previous subsidies had done little to remove. Of the 160,000l. granted by the previous Parliament only 50,000l. had been gathered, and all they now attempted to achieve was the collection, under new arrangements, of the remaining 110,000l.[538]
Taxes on labourers’ wages.
It was evident that the temper of the people would not bear further trial; and no wonder, for the tax which in the previous year had raised a total of 50,000l. was practically an income-tax of sixpence in the pound, descending even to the wages of the farm-labourer. In the coming year this income-tax of sixpence was to be twice repeated simply to recover arrears of taxation. What should we think of a government which should propose to exact from the day-labourer, by direct taxation, a tax equal to between two and three weeks’ wages!
The selfishness of Tudor legislation—or, perhaps it might be more just to say of Wolsey’s legislation, for he was the presiding spirit of this Parliament—was shown no less clearly in its manner of dealing with the social evils which came under its notice.