The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken
away, the will of the Lord be done; blessed be the name of the Lord!"
so our sovereign Lord the King, when he first heard of the death of
the noble prince, the Duke of Clarence, his own dear brother, and of
the gallant knights and others slain with him, praised and blessed God
for the visitation of that calamity, as he had before had cause to
praise Him for all his prosperity. In declaring the cause of summoning
this Parliament, he mentions the desire the King had of rectifying,
according to right and justice, all abuses and wrongs which had
prevailed through the realm since his last passage to foreign lands,
especially to the injury of those who had been with him there; and
also his wish that all the laws of the realm should be maintained and
enforced, and that further provision should be made for the
[226]better governance, and peace, and universal good of the realm.
The Parliament, it is said, cheerfully voted him a fifteenth,[227] (p. 298)
though many persons petitioned against further taxation, and gave
utterance to sad complaints of their poverty. The Convocation also met
on May 5th, and on the 12th; they voted him a tenth from the revenues
of the clergy: and his uncle, the Bishop of Winchester, advanced to
him by way of loan twenty thousand pounds. The Parliament guaranteed
payment of the loans to all who should advance money to the King for
this expedition.

[Footnote 226: In this Parliament a statute was
passed, the enactment, but more especially the
preamble of which presents a very formidable view
of the drain which Henry's continental campaigns
had made upon the English gentry.

"Whereas by the statute made at Westminster, the
14th year of King Edward III, it was ordained and
established, that no Sheriff should abide in his
bailiwick above one year, and that then another
convenient should be set in his place, which should
have lands sufficient within his bailiwick, and
that no Escheator should tarry in his office above
a year; and whereas also, at the time of making the
said statute, divers valiant and sufficient persons
were in every county of England, to occupy and
go