288 ESTIMATES OF EXPENDITURE. [XI. sanctioned them: but, as the impost invariably fell short of the amount expected from it, we must conclude that, like the old tenths and fifteenths, it was assessed on fancy valuations and produced no very pressing hardships ; judging from the existing returns, it pressed very lightly upon individual payers, from the highest class to the lowest. Besides these legal taxes from the laity, the king had votes from convocation following those of parliament in due proportion, the clergy paying a tenth whenever the parliament voted a tenth and fifteenth, adding a subsidy when the parliament granted a subsidy; and, after the parliament of 1534, paying to the king a whole tenth annually, which had been previously paid, almost if not quite regularly, as a contribution to the funds of the papacy. These were the regular and constitutional sources of income. Besides these, we have to include in the list of the king's resources, first the heavy loans which were exacted by a regular process, not very far removed from compulsion, in the years 1522-8 and 1542, and which were so fully remitted by the parliaments of 1529 and 1543, that even those unlucky creditors whom the king had paid were obliged to refund the money; secondly, the exactions from the clergy under the threat of praemunire in 1531, amounting to about £ 120,000 ; thirdly, the very large payments of tribute from France under the treaties of Edward IV and Henry VII ; and, fourthly, the enormous revenue, enormous at the lowest estimate, which accrued during the last years of the reign from the spoils of the shrines and the plunder of the monasteries. Besides these, there was an occasional devotion money, like that collected in 1544 nominally for war against the Turks; a benevolence, or amicable contribution, such as in 1525 produced considerable disaffection in the country; and lastly, enormous sums raised under occasional forfeitures. I shall not attempt a summary of these taxes, but may mention a few data that