For defense of the nation, especially the safeguard of the seas, Parliament allotted the King for life, 3s. for every tun of wine imported and an additional 3s. for every tun of sweet wine imported.
The most common ailments were eye problems, aching teeth, festering ears, joint swelling and sudden paralysis of the bowels. Epidemics broke out occasionally in the towns in the summers. Leprosy disappeared.
Hospitals were supported by a tax of the King levied on nearby counties. The walls, ditches, gutters, sewers, and bridges on waterways and the coast were kept in repair by laborers hired by commissions appointed by the Chancellor. Those who benefited from these waterways were taxed for the repairs in proportion to their use thereof.
Alabaster was sculptured into tombs surmounted with a recumbent effigy of the deceased, and effigies of mourners on the sides. Few townsmen choose to face death alone and planned memorial masses to be sung to lift his soul beyond Purgatory. Chantries were built by wealthy men for this purpose.
Gold was minted into coins: noble, half noble, and farthing.
The commons gained much power in Parliament under Henry IV because he needed so much taxes that the commons had a hold over him. Also, as a usurper King, he did not carry the natural authority of a King. The lords who helped his usurpation felt they should share the natural power of the kingship. Also, the commons gained power compared to the nobility because many nobles had died in war. Shakespeare's histories deal with this era. The Commons now has a speaker.
The Commons established an exclusive right to originate all money grants to the King in 1407. The commons announced its money grant only on the last day of the parliamentary session, after the answers to its petitions had been declared. It tied its grants by rule rather than just practice to certain appropriations. For instance, tonnage and poundage were appropriated for naval defenses. Wool customs went to the maintenance of Calais, a port on the continent, and defense of the nation. It also put the petitions in statutory form, called "bills", to be enacted without alteration. It forced the King's council appointees to be approved by Parliament, and auditors to be appointed to audit the King's account to ensure past grants had been spent according to their purpose.
This was the first encroachment on the King's right to summon, prorogue, or dismiss a Parliament at his pleasure, determine an agenda of Parliament, veto or amend its bills, exercise his discretion as to which lords he summoned to Parliament, and create new peers by letters patent [official public letters].
The King lost Parliamentary power. The magnates asserted that their attendance at one Parliament established a hereditary right to attend the others. The consent of the Commons to legislation became so usual that the judges declared that it was necessary. In 1426, the retainers of the barons in Parliament were forbidden to bear arms, so they appeared with clubs on their shoulders. The clubs were forbidden and they brought in stones concealed in their clothing.
The authority of the King's privy seal had become a great office of state which transmitted the King's wishes to the Chancery and Exchequer, rather than the King's personal instrument for sealing documents. Now the King used a signet kept by his secretary as his personal seal. The position of secretary rose in power under Edward IV.