The whole of English society was organized in such a way that the King was at the centre of all political, social and legal activity. If there were times in the past when English kingship seemed weak it was because weak men sat on the throne; men who were incapable of managing the powers that were attached to the position, and who were unable to control subjects who tried to usurp various powers which belonged to it. Every strong ruler tried to regain control over the patronage which weak predecessors had lost. Thus Henry VII spent time and energy on work which strong monarchs before him had already done for the Crown, but which was lost by weak Kings. The particular significance of the way the Tudors again extended royal authority to new heights lay in the fact that after them it never had to be done again. The Crown thereafter was involved in different struggles and problems. It never again had to tight for powers with the great barons of the realm.
Sources of Henry's revenues.
Once settled, however precariously, on the throne Henry set about securing his position. His first acts showed the political realism and soundness that was to typify not only his own reign but that of most of his Tudor successors. He was careful to reimburse the farmers whose lands had been ruined by the warring armies, and he warned his army on its march from Bosworth to London to avoid all cultivated land. As soon as he was able to raise some capital from his newly won kingdom he paid back the debts, which he had contracted with continental bankers to finance his invasion. He clearly realized the value of sound credit, in case he should ever want to borrow more money.
Throughout this period the government was seen as the King's government, and people expected the King to pay for it out of the ordinary sources of revenue available to him. Today people expect to pay taxes if they want the government to do things in the country, but in Tudor times the ordinary citizen, somewhat illogically we may feel, expected the King to "live of his own" and govern "of his own" as well. Occasionally Parliament would be willing to make grants to the Kings for extraordinary events - such as to equip and pay an army to put down rebels - but normally the Tudor subjects did not expect to pay direct taxes to the King at all.
Henry accumulated his vast wealth in a number of ways, often not overscrupulously, and frequently with more care for law than justice. By law the kingship of England had a claim on many and various sources of income, most of which, on Henry's accession, were yielding nothing like as much as he was to prove they could. This was again largely due to the ruinous civil wars of the previous centuries, during which the machinery of government had run down to such an extent that it was unable to enforce its legal rights. Much of the money disappeared into baronial pockets, or those of supposed royal servants.
Land.
At this time land was the surest source of wealth, and Henry was by far the greatest landowner in the country. Income from rents and leases was continually dwindling because, while rents remained relatively static, the gradual price rise made their value less. Also there had been inefficiency and dishonesty. He also continued the work done by the Yorkists in restoring crown lands which had been that one way. or another, and by gathering more land at. every opportunity Henry- was particularly good at annexing the lands of all those involved in acts of treason against his throne. After a small reduction on the income from land. when he came to the throne, he managed as time went by to increase their yield continually. In 1491 he got about £3,700 from land and about £25,000 by the end of his reign.
Much of the land regained by the King, and much of the money which reached his treasuries, came from doubtful sources. 8omeof his servants were a little too zealous in their master's cause., not that Henry ever seemed to discourage them, and many became wealthy themselves on what they made on the side. Empson and Dudley were two of the most notorious and generally hated. They screwed the last penny out of their chosen victims by stretching the law to its Limits, and occasionally beyond. While they remained under the protection of Henry they were untouchable, but paid for their overzealous services under his son, who won easy popularity at the opening of his reign by having- them- executed for extortion.
"Feudal incidents".
Another group of revenues which Kings of England could claim was that collection of right which came under the heading of "feudal incidents". Some of these dated back to the early years of the Norman Conquest and to Magna Carta, In certain cases the reasons for their existence had long since disappeared though such an objection wasno deterrent to Henry. For example, he vigorously claimed and collected the ancient tax which fell due on the knighting of the King's eldest son, even though his son Arthur was already dead when he collected the money.
During the Middle Ages the Kings as feudal overlord was owed various duties by his tenants-in-chief in return for their lands. On the death of a subject who held land as a knight, the heir who wished to inherit the land had to pay a sum of money to the king, his overlord. This was known as 'relief', If there was no heir the land would revert to the King by the process of 'escheat'. Henry drew a constant revenue from relief payments, though he rarely benefited much from escheats.
If a tenant-in-chief died leaving a son or daughter the King took over responsibility for the child, or children, as well as legal authority over them. A more urgent reason for Henry's interest in these 'wards' was due to the fact that revenues from the dead parents' lands also went to the King. Furthermore if the ward was a girl, when she married her husband would get control of the land. So suitors, who might be more interested in the dead parent's lands than the girl, applied to the King as her guardian for permission to marry her, hoping to get the royal favour by bribes of various sorts. At its worst this meant that children were virtually auctioned off to the highest bidder. Henry's cultivation of this source of revenue was such that the income-of £200 which he received in 1487 was increased to £6,000 by 1507.
Another example of an ancient right attached to the Crown which Henry exploited was his granting of Town Charters. All those communities which claimed to be towns but which could not show their charters to his agents were forced to buy new ones. Knighthood too had lost much of the meaning it had held in earlier times, but as the act of knighting could only be done by the King - and at a price - Henry insisted that all wealthy men should pay out £40 and be knighted; an expensive honour which many of them would have been only too happy to do without.
Trade.
Revenues from the customs provided a further, steadily increased, income to Henrys He was able to draw on two separate resources. Parliament granted a subsidy drawn from certain goods passing through the customs. The first Parliament of each reign granted this regular subsidy, called 'Tonnage and Poundage', to each of the Tudors. Henry also collected taxes on certain other goods passing through the customs. Seeing that this was a fruitful source of revenue, and also realizing that trade enriched many of his subjects, thus helping to commit them to his rule, Henry worked for various treaties to increase the volume of trade. He also revised the 'Book of Rates', which specified just what taxes the King could levy on goods entering and leaving the country. Because of gradual inflation the price of the goods had risen, but the Crown was still, when Henry came to the throne, drawing old rates which had thus decreased in value,
Perhaps the most famous of his trade treaties was the 'Intercursus Magnus' with Flanders in 1496; and perhaps the most notorious was that which he tried (but failed) to force on Archduke Philip of Burgundy in 1506 when the Archduke was shipwreaked in England, Henry politely offered to let him go in exchange for a favourable trade treaty.
Yet despite Henry's labours to increase the volume of trade, and his share of it, a considerable proportion of taxable goods managed to avoid his customs officials. Smuggling was rife during this period and there was just no way of controlling it; and even what must have been a substantial portion of goods which in fact passed through the customs was never taxed because the exporters or importers could often afford to pay the official a bigger bribe than the King could afford as wages.
Justice.
The King was the principal provider of justice in his realm, which was dispensed in his courts of law. The courts were also profitable business, through fines on lawbreakers and the fees charged for the issue of writs. Henry increased enormously the profits of law and justice by instituting, as we have seen in Study Unit 1, new, more speedy and cheaper courts, alongside the older common law courts For administration of his laws around the country Henry wisely, and economically, chose to extend the powers of the Justices of the Peace - who performed their office for virtually no payment.
During Henry's reign an increasingly common punishment for crimes was a fine. In other times rebellions were usually followed - if unsuccessful - with the execution of the rebels. Under Henry rebellions were more often followed by his agents assessing how much the rebels could afford, and then fining them the maximum.- All manner of of fences against the King's laws resulted in money passing through the King's courts to the King's treasury. 5
The Church.
Further income came from ecclesiastical sees which had no bishop. In the 'vacancy' after one bishop died and before another was elected all money from the diocese passed to the King. Thus, once a bishop died, Henry tried to keep the position vacant as long as possible. This practice, as we shall see in Study Unit 4, certainly offered no benefits to the Church. To make matters worse from the Church's point of view, Henry, like so many of his predecessors, used his power and influence to nominate his servants to positions of authority and wealth in the Church. This proved a convenient way of paying his ecclesiastical servants for their services without having to part with any money of his own. Indeed he frequently managed to get the servant to pay heavily for the honour of being appointed to a Church office. The-trouble with this system from the Church's point of view was that these powerful servants of the King continued to remain in the King's service, and rarely carried out the duties attached to the office to which they had been appointed. A lesser cleric was normally paid a small amount for carrying out his duties, compared to the amount of money the office brought in.
Exchequer V. Chamber.
Like any strong King, Henry wanted to keep full control over his revenues. The royal Exchequer, through which nearly all the King's business passed at first, was run by a deeply entrenched bureaucracy, who wanted to keep control over the royal revenues, and also wanted to continue operating according to their ancient methods. Moreover, the Exchequer had never had to handle the massive business and administration involved in the great increase in royal lands during the Yorkist period and early in Henry's reign. Henry wanted a more efficient system to be able to manipulate his finances more quickly and effectively, so, like other strong Kings before him, he built up another- financial office, called the Chamber. During his reign, by a variety of methods, he channelled more and more business through this Chamber and away from the Exchequer. The Chamber used more modern bookkeeping techniques and Henry kept it under close control; so close in fact that his detailed personal supervision can still be seen from the constant stamp of his personal cypher on nearly every page of the account books. By the end of his reign more than four-fifths of all royal revenues passed through the Chamber.
Parliament.
For particular threats to the country or throne Henry could always turn to Parliament for "extraordinary" grants of money. Parliament met to give authority to the policy of the government and - because the Commons represented the groups who would be responsible for implementing whatever laws were made - they offered some sort of guarantee that the government policy would in fact be put into effect around the country. Parliament also authorized the collection of taxes around the country. Henry VII asked for only five grants in the twenty-four years of his reign. As he grew richer he hardly called Parliament at all: during the second half of his reign only once, in 1504, to get money for his expedition against France,
War.
Henry was reluctant to become involved in war - that great eater of money - unless he felt confident it would bring profit. His entry into France with an army in 1496 was so calculated that the king of France was immediately ready to buy him off, and at Etapies agreed to a large immediate payment and a 'pension' of £5,000 per annum. So by avoiding war and cultivating as completely as possible all the sources of revenue available to him, Henry built the English throne up from something battered and cheapened by Internal struggle to the firmest and wealthiest in Europe.
