teenth
(which was always thought a high grant) were, in the eighth year of this
reign, fixed at about twenty-nine thousand pounds; there were said to be
near thirty thousand sacks of wool exported every year. A sack of wool
was at a medium sold for five pounds. Upon these suppositions it would
be easy to compute all the parliamentary grants, taking the list as they
stand in Tyrrel, vol. iii. p. 780; though somewhat must still be left to
conjecture. This king levied more money on his subjects than any of his
predecessors; and the parliament frequently complain of the poverty of
the people, and the oppressions under which they labored. But it is to
be remarked, that a third of the French king's ransom was yet unpaid
when war broke out anew between the two crowns. His son chose rather to
employ his money in combating the English, than in enriching them. See
Rymer, vol. viii. p. 315.]

[Footnote 11: NOTE K, p. 281. In the fifth year of the king, the commons
complained of the government about the king's person, his court, the
excessive number of his servants, of the abuses in the chancery, king's
bench, common pleas, exchequer, and of grievous oppressions in the
country, by the great multitudes of maintainers of quarrels, (men linked
in confederacies together,) who behaved themselves like kings in the
country, so as there was very little law or right, and of other things
which they said were the cause of the late commotions under Wat Tyler.
Parl. Hist. vol. i. p. 365. This irregular government, which no king
and no house of commons had been able to remedy, was the source of the
licentiousness of the great, and turbulency of the people, as well
as tyranny of the princes. If subjects would enjoy liberty, and kings
security, the laws must be executed.

In the ninth of this reign, also the commons discovered an accuracy
and a jealousy of liberty, which we should little expect in those rude
times. "It was agreed by parliament," says Cotton, (p.309), "that the
subsidy of wools, woolfels, and skins, granted to the king until the
time of midsummer then ensuing, should cease from the same time unto
the feast of St. Peter 'ad vincula' for that thereby the king should be
interrupted for claiming such grant as due." See also Cotton, p. 198.]

[Footnote 12: NOTE L, p. 290. Knyghton, p. 2715, etc. The same author
(p. 2680) tells us, that the king, in return to the message, said,
that he would not for their desire remove the meanest