[84] Blomfield, iii. 160. 33 H. VI. cap. vii.
[85] Piers Ploughman, Introduction to Text C, xxxi.
[87] Italian Relation, 42-3 (Camden Soc.); Schanz, i. 513; Heralds’ Debate, 65.
[88] Plummer’s Fortescue, 114-5, 132. Compare Bacon’s Henry the Seventh, 71-72.
[90] Richard the Redeless, passus iii. 172.
[91] Brinklow’s Tracts, published in the first half of the sixteenth century, afford interesting illustrations of the type of radical politician formed in the towns. His proposal for a single chamber and the list of reforms sketched out are not more significant than his criticism of parliamentary despotism and inefficiency, “This is the thirteenth article of our creed added of late, that whatsoever the Parliament doth must needs be well done. and the Parliament, or any proclamation out of the parliament time cannot err ... then have ye brought Rome home to your own doors and given the authority to the King and Parliament that the cardinal bishops gave unto the Pope ... if this be so, it is all vain to look for any amendment of anything.” Brinklow’s Complaynt, E. E. Text Society, 35. See also pp. 8, 12.
[92] Libel of English Policy (Political Poems and Songs, ii. 157-205. Roll’s series, ed. Wright). The Libel was probably written after 1436. The Bishop was murdered in 1450. (Agric. and Prices, iv. 533.)
[93] Wright’s Pol. Poems, ii. 282-7. Schanz, i. 446.
[94] Compare the very similar expression of faith in a modern labour paper. “To this island, small as it is, has been given the work of leading the industrial organization of the world; that is to say, of governing and ordering the affairs of the world.” Trade Unionist, Dec. 26, 1891.
[95] Compare Paston Letters, i. 531; Brinklow’s Complaynt 11.
[96] Pauli, Drei volkswirtschaftliche Denkschriften, s. 61, 75.
[97] In 1447 exactions in England were so heavy “as that the minds of men were not set upon foreign war, but vexed above measure how to repel private and domestical injuries, and that therefore neither pay for the soldier nor supply for the army were as need required put in readiness.” (Polydore Vergil, 77 Camden Soc.) For interruption of trade by the war, Paston, i. 425-6. Davies’ Southampton, 252-3. The Staplers complain that before the war the French bought yearly 2,000 sacks of wool, now only 400 (Schanz, ii. 568). For effect of the war on the salt trade, Rogers’ Econ. Interpretation of History, 100. For the wine trade, &c., Schanz, i. 299-300, 643-50. “It cannot be brought to pass by any mean that a French man born will much love an English man, or, contrary, that an English will love a French man; such is the hatred that hath sprung of contention for honour and empire.” (Pol. Vergil, 82.)