which were submitted, eventually, to a subsequent Parliament,[1] and it explains the Duke's anxiety.
The total value of the lands which had passed from the Crown, in the reign of Edward VI., by gift, sale, or exchange, had been something over a million and a half.[2] Four hundred and thirty-five thousand pounds had professedly been paid into the treasury as purchase-money. The lands exchanged were worth 350,000l. The value of the lands given away was 730,000l. Of these given lands, estates to the extent of 1200l. a year, worth perhaps, 25,000l., went to endowments of schools and hospitals; 3600l. a year was reserved to the Crown upon the rents of the rest; and 9000l. had been paid in money to the Crown by the recipients of the royal bounty. On the exchanged land there was a reservation also of 1900l. a year.
After liberal deductions on these and all other imaginable grounds, after reasonable allowances for grants legitimately made as a reward for services, there will remain, on a computation most favourable to the council, estates worth half a million—in the modern currency about five millions—which the ministers of the Minority with their friends had appropriated—I suppose I must not say stolen—and divided among themselves. In the different lists the names of the council
- ↑ MS. Domestic, Edward VI. vol. xix.
- ↑ The annual proceeds of the land sold were 21,304l. 14s. 4d.; the money paid for them, 435,277l. 12s. 1d The average value, therefore, was a fraction over twenty years' purchase. The annual proceeds of the lands given were 36,746l. 15s. 8d. which, on the same calculation, would give something over 730,000l.
