Henry VII - Finance

What Henry's financial policy?

- He doesn't change or innovate anything about the country's finances considerably.

- His Yorkist predecessors, showed that existing revenues could be expaneded sufficiently to have financial strength

What was Ordinary Revenue?

The regular income on which the Crown could rely to finance the costs of the monarchy

What was extraordinary revenue?

Money raised by the king from additional sources as one off payments when faced with an emergency.

What was the importance of money to the King?

- Financial stability was essential if he was to raise an army to defeat enemies.

- He did not feel secure unless he was rich.

- He made collection of revenue more efficient if he encountered opposition from people excepted to pay,

- He had a full treasury in the vent, he needed it to defeat revolts or foreign invasions.

What was the Financial administration like?

It had 2 factors:

- receive, store and pay out money.

- audit the accounts.

The system was slow & cumbersome. Sums took years to collect and audits were behind time.

What was the Exchequer like?

- It had a complex hierarchy of officials to prevents fraud and embezzlement.

What was the Chamber like?

- It had a more inflexible and informal system.

- It was used to handle the finances of his estates to exert more personal control.

- Edward IV had, Henry neglected to take care of his estates in 1487.

What were Crown Lands?

- A form of ordinary revenue.

- All land inherited by Houses of Lancaster & York, Earldoms of Richmond, March and Warwick, the Duchy of Lancaster and the Principality of Wales.

- Annual income rose from £29,000 to 1485 to £42,000 in 1509.

- The Act of Resumption recovered the land given away from 1455.

What were Custom Duties?

- Paid on Tunnage (Exports) or Poundage (Imports).

- By 1509, it overtook by the revenue from Crown Lands, but still provide a third of revenue.

- Book of rates updated twice.

- Revenue in first 10 years £33,000-£40,000 there after.

- Smuggling still continued against the tax.

What were feudal dues?

Traditional rights held by the Crown to demand money

Master of King's Wards was created in 1503.

Revenue was £350 in 1487 and was £6000 in 1507.

Relief - paid by an heir to receive inheritance.

Warship - control of the estates of minors before they come of age.

Livery - payment made by a ward on reaching adulthood and taking control of his lands.

Marriage - the King's right to arrange marriages of the daughters of tenants at a profit. - Katherine, Dowager Duchess of Buckingham fined around £7,000 in 1496 for marrying out a license.

What were profits of justice?

- Fees paid for royal writs and letters and fines levied by courts, which Henry VII favoured over executions.

- More profit was received with the treatment of rebels after the Cornish rebellion in 1497.

- Henry exploited the due for his financial gain.

- For example, the Earl of Northumberland was ordered to pay £10,000 for ravishing a royal ward. It was compensation for the income that Henry had lost with the ending of the Earl's minority.

What were parliamentary grants?

these were grants provided to help the king when the national interest was threatened.

- Henry was reluctant to tax unless absolutely necessary.

- Lancasterian Kings found parliament had a bargining position to limit their power for money.

- Henry was cautious in his demands from Parliament.

- He only called for extraordinary revenue thrice in 1487, 1489 and 1496.

What were loans and benevolences?

The Kings right to ask for financial help in emergencies

- In 1496, Henry was desperate for extra cash to defeat Warbeck & the Scots. He appealed to the land-holding subjects for financial support.

- Benevolence was a bit of a forced loan. It was introduced by Edward IV in 1475, when preparing to invade France. It was a a general tax more far-reaching than the fifteenth and tenth. In 1491, Henry raised £48,000 for War to protect Brittany, of which £9,000 was contributed by London.

What were clerical taxes?

- Special taxes which the King could levy on the Church.

- Henry received quite substantial sums from the Church.

- When Parliament usually made a grant, convocations gave their own contributions.

- In 1489, they voted towards £25,000 towards the coast of the French War.

- He also made money from simony, charging £300 for the Archdeaconry of Buckingham on one occasion.

- Like his predecessors the King kept the Bishoprics vacant for many months to have the most money possible.

- In the rash of deaths among bishops in the last years of his reign, Henry received over £6000 per annum in this way.

What were Feudal Obligations?

- The right to levy such obligations as distraint of knighthood or to demand payment for special occasions such as the marriage of his eldest daughter.

- Henry received £30,000 in 1504 for the Knighting of Prince Arthur 15 years earlier and marriage of Princess Margaret to the King of Scotland.

What was the French Pension?

- (one off payment) In the Treaty of Etaples (1491) Charles V pays a pension to England.

- In practice, the pensions were a bribe offered by their French counterparts so that the English armies would be removed from French soil.

- French agree to pay £159,000 (750,000 crowns) in £5,000 annual sum.

What are bonds and recognisances?

- Bond were written obligations in which people promised to perform some specific action on pain of paying money if they failed to carry out their promise.

- Recongnisances were formal acknowledgements of actual debts or other obligations that already existed.

- In the 1st decade of the reign 191 bonds were collected.

- The receipts from bonds rose from £3000 in 1493 to £35,000 in 1505.

- 46 out of 62 noble families were bound by recognisances or obligation.