taxation was imposed for the French war in addition to a forced loan, from repayment of which he was absolved by the legislature in the year of Wolsey's fall. Then in a few years followed the pillage of the monasteries, while throughout the reign there were numerous attainders involving large confiscations. In addition to this immense booty came further subsidies, a further forced loan for a new war with France, and a new release by Parliament from the duty of repayment. Finally, to relieve an exhausted exchequer, the King was driven to the expedient of debasing the currency. In 1542 a gold coinage was issued of 23 carats fine and 1 carat of alloy, with a silver coinage of 10 oz. pure silver to 2 oz. of alloy. In 1544 the gold was still 23 carats fine, but the silver was only 9 oz. to 3 oz. of alloy. In 1545 the gold was 22 carats and the silver 6 oz. to 6 oz. of alloy. In 1546 the gold was only 20 carats and the silver 4 oz. to 8 oz. of alloy. This rapid deterioration of the money, though it brought a profit to the King in the last year of £5. 2*. in the coinage of every pound weight of gold, and of £4>. 4<s. on every pound weight of silver, produced, of course, the most serious consequences to the public. Apart from this, no doubt, prices must soon have been affected by the quantity of silver and gold poured into Europe from Mexican and Peruvian mines. But the great issue of base money in this and the following reign produced a complete derangement of commerce and untold inconvenience, not only by the sudden alteration of values but by the want of confidence which it everywhere inspired. Not till the reign of Queen Elizabeth could a remedy be effectually applied to so great an evil.
The King's high-handed proceedings, alike as regards the Church, the monasteries, and the coinage, lowered the moral tone of the whole community. Men lost faith in their religion. Greedy courtiers sprang up eager for grants of abbey lands. A new nobility was raised out of the money-getting middle classes, and a host of placemen enriched themselves by continual peculation. Covetousness and fraud reigned in the highest places.
Yet "there is some soul of goodness in things evil," and the same policy that under Henry VIII destroyed the autonomy of the Church and suppressed the monasteries made him seek not only to unify his kingdom but to bring together the British Islands under one single rule. England itself, no doubt, was a united country at his accession, but its cohesion was not perfect. Wales and the north country beyond Trent each required somewhat special government; and Ireland, of course, was a problem by itself. Yet no serious perplexities had grown up when in 1525 the King sent his bastard son, the Duke of Richmond, into Yorkshire, with a Council to govern the north, and his daughter Mary, with another Council, to hold a Court on the borders of Wales for the settlement of disputes in that country without reference to the Courts at Westminster. This arrangement was soon set aside when
