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cil have sat thrice at Guildhall about the subsidies." The lord keeper, in his endeavours to persuade the citizens to loosen their purse-strings, went so far as to declare that anyone disguising his wealth was committing the sin against the Holy Ghost, and was as Ananias and Saphira! So great was the general decay, both in the city and the country, that there was some talk of putting in force the penal laws against recusants, notwithstanding the negotiations that were going on for a French marriage, in order to make up the expected deficit.(267) The civic authorities were again pressing the king for the repayment of the loan (L100,000) made in 1617. Time had wrought alterations in the condition of the lenders; some were dead and their widows and orphans were crying out for repayment; some were decayed and imprisoned, and others likely to undergo the same calamity if steps were not taken for their speedy relief. They complained that the city's seal, which had by his majesty's command been given as security to the tenders, suffered as never it had done before, and several suits had been commenced against the Chamber of London in the courts at Westminster, to which they knew not how to give satisfactory answer. They therefore prayed him to give order for such payment to be made to them as might give relief to the distressed and comfort to them all. The result was that the king directed (July, 1624) his two principal secretaries and the chancellor of the exchequer to devise means for satisfying the debt.(268) (M110) In September Mansfield was again in England asking for men and money for the recovery of the Palatinate, in which he had been assured of the co-operation of France. This assurance, however, was only a verbal one, and nothing would induce Louis to reduce it to writing. James on his part was willing to make every concession, provided that the matrimonial alliance on which he had set his heart could be brought to a happy conclusion. But as these concessions involved broken pledges, he feared to face the Commons, and thus the parliament, which should have re-assembled this autumn, was further prorogued and never met again until James was no more. (M111) It was to James's last parliament that the City was indebted for a statute,(269) which at length insured it quiet enjoyment of its lands free from that inquisitorial system which had prevailed since 1547, under pretext that it had concealed lands charged with
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