their dioceses;
and they agreed not to pay the fifth, which would have been an act of
disobedience to Boniface's bull, but to deposit a sum equivalent in some
church appointed them, whence it was taken by the king's officers.[*]
Many particular convents and clergymen made payment of a like sum,
and received the king's protection.[**] Those who had not ready money,
entered into recognizances for the payment. And there was scarcely found
one ecclesiastic in the kingdom who seemed willing to suffer, for the
sake of religious privileges, this new species of martyrdom, the most
tedious and languishing of any, the most mortifying to spiritual pride,
and not rewarded by that crown of glory which the church holds up with
such ostentation to her devoted adherents.

But as the money granted by parliament, though considerable, was
not sufficient to supply the king's necessities, and that levied by
compositions with the clergy came in slowly, Edward was obliged, for the
obtaining of further supply, to exert his arbitrary power, and to lay
an oppressive hand on all orders of men in the kingdom. He limited the
merchants in the quantity of wool allowed to be exported; and at the
same time forced them to pay him a duty of forty shillings a sack, which
was computed to be above the third of the value.[***] He seized all the
rest of the wool, as well as all the leather of the kingdom, into his
hands, and disposed of these commodities for his own benefit;[****] he
required the sheriffs of each county to supply him with two thousand
quarters of wheat, and as many of oats, which he permitted them to
seize wherever they could find them: the cattle and other commodities
necessary for supplying his army, were laid hold of without the consent
of the owners;[*****] and though he promised to pay afterwards the
equivalent of all these goods, men saw but little probability that a
prince, who submitted so little to the limitations of law, could ever,
amidst his multiplied necessities, be reduced to a strict observance of
his engagements.

* Heming. vol. i. p. 108, 109. Chron. Dunst. p. 653.

** Chron. Dunst. vol. ii. p. 654.

*** Walsing. p. 69. Trivet, p. 296.

**** Heming, vol. i. p. 52, 110.

***** Heming. vol. i. p. 111.

He showed at the same time an equal disregard to the principles of the
feudal law, by which all the lands of his kingdom were held: in order to
increase his army, and enable him to support that