as assented to and granted. The
government spoke this time in a more authoritative tone. "As to this
point," the answer runs, "the prelates and others, seeing in what need
the king stood of an aid before his passage beyond sea, to recover his
rights and defend his kingdom of England, consented, with the
concurrence of the merchants, that he should have in aid of his said
war, and in defence of his said kingdom, forty shillings of subsidy for
each sack of wool that should be exported beyond sea for two years to
come. And upon this grant divers merchants have made many advances to
our lord the king in aid of his war; for which cause this subsidy cannot
be repealed without assent of the king and his lords."[104]

It is probable that Edward's counsellors wished to establish a
distinction, long afterwards revived by those of James I., between
customs levied on merchandise at the ports and internal taxes. The
statute entitled Confirmatio Chartarum had manifestly taken away the
prerogative of imposing the latter, which, indeed, had never extended
beyond the tenants of the royal demesne. But its language was not quite
so explicit as to the former, although no reasonable doubt could be
entertained that the intention of the legislature was to abrogate every
species of imposition unauthorized by parliament. The thirtieth section
of Magna Charta had provided that foreign merchants should be free from
all tributes, except the ancient customs; and it was strange to suppose
that natives were excluded from the benefit of that enactment. Yet,
owing to the ambiguous and elliptical style so frequent in our older
laws, this was open to dispute, and could, perhaps, only be explained by
usage. Edward I., in despite of both these statutes, had set a duty of
threepence in the pound upon goods imported by merchant strangers. This
imposition was noticed as a grievance in the third year of his
successor, and repealed by the Lords Ordainers. It was revived, however,
by Edward III., and continued to be levied ever afterwards.[105]

Edward was led by the necessities of his unjust and expensive war into
another arbitrary encroachment, of which we find as many complaints as
of his pecuniary extortions. The commons pray, in the same parliament of
20 E. III., that commissions should not issue for the future out of
chancery to charge the people with providing men-at-arms, hobelers (or
light cavalry), archers, victuals, or in any other manner, without
co