to the begging friars at £45,333 annually, from 520,000 households. This would be expended on hospitals, infirmaries, etc., as well as for relief of poor travellers, and of the indigent poor. But now that the laity were enriched with these enormous spoils, the sick poor were lying untended in the streets of London, to the positive "inconvenience" of the citizens.
Where did the money go ? Not to the poor—they had never been so miserable ; not to the State—it was nearly bankrupt. Edward's Government twice again debased the coin. The teston[1] and all coins below it—groats, twopenny pieces, pennies, and halfpennies—were "cried down" to half their value, so that the teston was now worth but sixpence and the halfpenny but a farthing. Superfluous Church-plate was called in to be melted for bullion. The rebellions cost the King £27,000, and he was, besides, overwhelmed with the debts of his father. By Bacon's calculation, Henry VIII. had inherited from his father about £30,000,000 of our money. It was all gone—the subsidies, the fifteenths, the tenths, the subsidies of the clergy, tonnage and poundage, the abbey lands, the enormous riches of the great shrines, the vast sums for the chantry lands, the gilds—all had been cast into that bottomless pit of waste and greed. Even in the Wars of the Roses, even in the shameful reign of John, the currency was never tampered with—the gold and silver coins remained the same. But now the pound of gold, which used to make 20 sovereigns, was alloyed till it made 28, then till it made 30. The first coins of Edward VI. bear King Henry's image because Somerset would not let the boy-king's face appear on this base coin! Base money had now been issued five times within seven years—in 1543, 1545. and 1546 by Henry, and in 1549 and 1551 by the Guardians of Edward.[2] There were to have been no more taxes, and instead of this, even the halfpenny was cried down! By 1552 Edward owed £300,000, or £6,000,000 of our money. He had borrowed everywhere—of the Fuggars, of Jasper Schetz, Van Hall, and Rentleger, Lazarus Tucker,
