Translation.—O God, king of majesty, for the sake of the Trinity,—do not permit our king and his household to perish;—great hurt and great ruin he caused him to have,—who made him pass over the sea.—In order that the king may prosper, may his false advisers be accursed.
A king ought not to go out of his kingdom to make war,—unless the commons of his land will consent:—by treason we often see very many perish;—no one can tell in whom to trust with certainty.—Let not the king go out of his kingdom without counsel.
Now goes in England from year to year—the fifteenth penny, to do thus a common harm.—And it makes them go down, who used to sit upon a bench;—and it obliges the common people to sell both cows, vessels, and clothes.—It does not please thus to pay the fifteenth to the last penny.
One thing is against faith, whereby the people is aggrieved,—that the half of what is raised in the kingdom does not come to the king.—Since he has not the whole, as it is given to him,—the people is obliged to give the more, and thus they are cut short.—For the taxes which are raised are not all given to the king.
The collecting of the wool grieves the common people still more,—which drives them commonly to sell their property.—Such counsel cannot be acceptable to God,—thus to destroy the poor people by a bitter burthen.—It is not sound law, which gives my wool to the king.
What is still more contrary to peace, as people witness,—they retain two or three parts in the sack.—To whom shall remain this wool? Some answer,—that neither king nor queen shall have it, but only the collectors.—Such a false weight of wool is manifestly a bitter thing.
Since the king is determined to take so much,—he may find enough among the rich and he would get more and do better, as it appears to me,—to have taken a part from the great, and to have spared the little.—He sins who takes the money of the needy without cause.
We ought not to lay such wickedness to the charge of the king,—but to the bad counsellor, by his rapacity. The king is a young bachelor, and is not of an age—to compass any malice, but to do all probity.—Such counsel does general harm.
It is no trouble to the great thus to grant to the king a tax; the simple must pay it all, which is contrary to God’s will.—This counsel is not at all good, but polluted with vice;—it is ill ordained, that those who grant should pay nothing.—For those who make the grant give nothing to the king, it is the needy only who give.
How will they perform good deeds out of the sweat of the poor,—whom the rich ought to spare, by gift or favour?—they ought to tax the great, for the fear of God;—and spare more the people, who live in pain.—Thou who art rich enough, live not thus upon the poor.