Henry IV (The English Monarchs Series) by Chris Given-Wilson

Author:Chris Given-Wilson [Given-Wilson, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780300154191
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2016-02-01T16:00:00+00:00

Nor was there any doubt about what Arundel placed at the top of that agenda; the outstanding achievement of his administration was the restoration of solvency to crown finance. Insofar as this was done, it was principally by orthodox means such as restricting expenditure, improving cash flow to the exchequer, establishing priorities and appointing competent officers subject to conciliar supervision. The experiments of 1404–6 were mostly jettisoned. In certain respects Arundel was fortunate, for improved security in the Channel and the North Sea led to a surge in wool exports, to 13,000 sacks in 1406–7, 15,000 in 1407–8, and 17,000 (the highest total of the reign) in 1408–9.21 Yet the policy also bore its maker's hallmark, for Arundel's instincts were conservative and he had made it clear during his terms as chancellor in the 1380s and 1390s that his understanding of the idea of reform was not innovation but a return to first principles.22 This began straight after Christmas 1406 with a moratorium on payments from the exchequer. The first two months of 1407 witnessed no issues of either cash or assignments, despite the fact that the exchequer was open on eight days between 19 January and 4 March. Meanwhile, the proceeds of the lay subsidy granted in December were allowed to accumulate, and by 23 April, when the last substantial payment arrived, more than £30,000 had been amassed.23 The moratorium on assignments meant that this was almost entirely in cash, a deliberate policy of channelling revenues through the exchequer rather than allowing them to be anticipated at source through the issue of tallies. The collection and disbursement of revenues was to be controlled from the centre, thereby enabling effective planning and prioritized allocations. The sum of £40,025 received in cash at the exchequer during the Michaelmas 1406–7 term – nearly all of it in February and March – was twice as much as it had received in cash in any term of the reign hitherto.24

It was soon needed, for around Christmas time a crisis developed at Calais when the garrison, despairing of being paid, seized the wool in the town's warehouses in the hope of selling it to recoup their arrears. Finding the £18,000 a year which the garrison cost in time of war was never easy, but following the dismissal of the war-treasurers in the 1406 parliament the system of reserving a portion of the wool subsidy for Calais more or less broke down, and by 1407 the town's treasurer, Robert Thorley, was £30,000 in arrears.25 The government's initial reaction was to offer the mutineers just £5,000 in assignments, but in early March a more realistic agreement was drafted, perhaps as a consequence of a new threat to the town (real or imagined) from Burgundy.26 The London merchant and former war-treasurer Richard Merlawe became treasurer of Calais, the stapler merchants upon whom its prosperity depended were given a greater say in running its finances, reservations on the wool subsidy were renewed, and in April the great council arranged for £19,500 to be sent across the Channel during the next two months.

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