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which we find of this is in 7 Rich. II. (Rot. Par. iii. 167). In 6 Ed. III. we find 1-14th de mobilibus and 1-9th de redditibus granted (Rot. Par. ii. 446); but next year, 7 Ed. III., it is 1-10th on cities and 1-15th on counties, and in both it is on the "biens" (Rot. Par. ii. 447).

The assessment made, 8 Ed. III. 1334, was afterwards the rule for these levies, a general survey having been made, and the whole put into a more regular form; so that when afterwards a 10th or a 15th was granted by the Parliament, each town was to pay the sum paid in 8 Ed. III., and collect that sum among its inhabitants by apportioning it.

The clergy appear to have given 1-10th with very few exceptions, of which Rot. Par. iii. 176 would seem to furnish one in Rich. II.'s time, as it looks like the grant of 1-15th. In 11 Hen. IV. the city of Oxford complained that the religious persons there had purchased since 20 Ed. I. lands and tenements, and refused to pay any of the late or future levies granted to the revenue of the city; but they are ordered to pay their 15th on all such purchases (Rot. Par. iii. 645).

NOTE XLI. p. 135.

There has been considerable inaccuracy in the writers who have made mention of Provisors and Provisions, an important head of our old ecclesiastical and constitutional law. All of them, so far as I know, have represented the claims of the Roman See to presentation as general. Even Blackstone (4 Com. 107) only restricts it apparently to the case of incumbents or patrons dying on their way to Rome or during their residence there. So Hume (ch. xvi.). Dr. Lingard, who might be supposed better informed than others on such a subject, gives no distinct account of it (iii. 151). It might from these authorities be inferred that the Papal claim extended to all benefices; though Dr. Lingard (ii. 310, and also iii. 387) seems to have had some suspicion that this

generality did not belong to it. The truth is, that Provisions were confined exclusively to those dignities and benefices the conferring of which was in the hands of spiritual patrons, as prelates, abbots, chapters. Hence it included bishoprics and other ecclesiastical dignities; but it had no relation to lay patronage, although the vague language in some parts of the Statute of Carlisle (35 Ed. I.) and of the Statute of Provisors (25 Ed. III. St. 4) might seem to countenance such an error. It is possible that the encroaching spirit of Rome might have secretly favoured a design of its legates to extend the claim; but when complaints of the abuse of the right were urged in the reign of Henry III., the Pope (Innocent IV.) explicitly disclaimed all but the restricted claim now stated. Rym. i. 426, 495. See too the preamble to the statutes 35 Ed. IV. and 25 Ed. III. St. 4. The statute of Henry IV. extends the former acts to all Provisions which give dispensations, as well as to interference with advowsons.

NOTE XLII. p. 143.

It is remarkable that while Hol. (iii. 89), and after him Stow (353), to say nothing of Goodwyn and Hume, have given the whole force as above 25,000, and Juv. des Urs. (337) at 50,000 "combattans," T. Liv. 32, and T. Elm. 92, both state it at 16,400, and the former gives the number brought by each baron, amounting to 2361 horsemen and 6862 archers, adding that the residue, 7177, to make up 16,400, were the King's own retainers and the men he had hired. It is to be noted, however, that this author (T. Liv. 33) expressly says he omits to mention how many attendants came with each of the barons and knights, so that the irregular forces may have been considerable. The whole army was by much the greatest that had ever been sent out of England. At Crécy Edward III. had only 2300 horsemen, 5200 archers, and 1000 Welsh infantry with him; at Poictiers the Black Prince had not above 8000 men, of

whom 2000 were Gascons; and John of Gaunt's army, which went across France, from Calais to Bordeaux, in 1373, was composed of 3000 horse and 10,000 archers. See Note LI., infra.

NOTE XLIII.—p. 149.

Dr. Lingard (iii. 362) falls into a great error respecting this negotiation, concerning which we have but little information. He says that Henry demanded the crown in reversion, and the Regency during Charles's life, with the hand of Catherine. He is misled by a protocol of 1419 being misplaced in Rymer ix. 521. The date and the place, Mantes, should have kept him right. Henry never reached Mantes till after the fall of Rouen, July 1419. The demand in that protocol was never made till the negotiation with Duke Philip after Jean-sans-Peur's death. It is equally clear, from the whole state of the facts, that Henry never could have brought forward such a demand at that time, before he had made any considerable progress in the country. Another proof of this being a mistake is derived from the names of the envoys mentioned in the proposition of the 24th of October, really 1419, but supposed by Lingard to be 1417, and erroneously classed by Rymer under the protocols of that year. It mentions the names only of Gilbert Umfraville and John Boteler, and neither of these persons is among the number of those set forth as the envoys in the introductory part stating the powers; but Gilbert Umfraville and a Boteler (James, not John) are employed in the negotiation connected with the Treaty of Arras, 1419 (Rym. ix. 517). Lastly, though it is certain that Henry could not be at Mantes on the 24th of October, 1417, it is equally clear that he was there on the 17th and 27th of October, 1419, for we have two instruments of these dates at Mantes (Rym. ix. 806, 808).

NOTE XLIV. p. 150.

Dr. Lingard (iii. 362) states as an undoubted fact that the expedition was undertaken in consequence of an understanding between the Scotch Cabinet and the Lollards, and he cites as his authority T. Wals., Fordun, and T. Elm. The two latter are wholly silent on the subject of any such understanding. T. Wals. (446) alone asserts that Cobham addressed the Scots with promises of large sums of money, and that he met Douglas at Pontefract. We have already shown the absurdity of this story. T. Liv. is wholly silent on any such charge against the Lollards, much as he hated what he terms their "nefarious superstition" (7). It must be observed, too, that Henry himself had some time before received intimation of an attempt from Scotland, against which he warned those whom he left in charge before he sailed in August 1417. He expressly states that this attempt had been set on foot by the Duke of Orleans, who was then a prisoner of war, and whom he therefore desires to be kept in close custody at Pontefract (Let. of Henry V. apud T. Liv., ed. Hearne, p. 99). It is indeed by no means certain that the Scotch expedition took place before Cobham's death. Fordun's inaccuracy, as well as his contempt of dates, is proverbial. He confounds together the campaigns of 1415 and 1417 (ii. 448). T. Liv. (56) mentions Exeter's return so as to make the Scotch inroad appear later. Lingard (iii. 362), from being unacquainted with Scotch antiquities, says of the inroad, "It proved a foul raid," which tells nothing. The fact is, it was called ever after the foul raid," meaning, the disgraceful incursion. In Hearne's edition of the Scotichronicon,' it is in a note called "folle raid," and Harl. MS. (iv. 1186) is cited.

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NOTE XLV. p. 153.

The Statute Roll is certainly the highest evidence of a statute, except where the actual statute remains in the repositories of Parliament, in which case any question arising on the accuracy of the enrolment must be settled by appeal to the original. Now the Statute Roll exists from 1278 (1 Ed. I.) to 1468 (8 Ed. IV.), with the exception of the statutes from 9 to 24 Henry VI., both inclusive; and it contains the statutes made during those two centuries. The Statute Roll from 8 Ed. IV. to 4 Henry VII. was made up, but it is not extant. After 4 Henry VII. it ceased, and from that time the enrolment in Chancery supplies its place-this enrolment having been begun 1 Ric. III. and continued to the present time.

But that statutes were made in early times which do not appear on the Statute Roll seems undeniable, although it is admitted that the Royal assent given to a petition does not certainly show a statute to have been made. The learned Introduction to the Statutes printed by the Record Commissioners 1810-11 lays this down, and perhaps not too broadly (p. xxxvii.). Nevertheless the Commissioners apply to the Rolls of Parliament as one source from which to find statutes not entered on the Statute Roll (p. xxxix.). It would in any case be a strong thing to reject as a statute a prayer of the Commons formally assented to by the King and the Lords, especially when it is admitted that there hangs great obscurity over the distinction between an Ordinance and a Statute. "Whatever has at any time been written on this subject," say the Commissioners, "is contradictory and indistinct" (p. xxxii.).

The Rot. Par., extending from Ed. I. to Henry VII., 1278 to 1503, were first printed by the House of Lords, 1767, in six folio vols., but without any index. A copious index, printed in 1832, has now made more accessible that most important repository of our constitutional history, though neither the book nor the index are as correct as might be desired, and the book cer

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