Chapter V: Expenditure of Edward IV

Only three of this King's Issue Rolls are extant for the period covered by the story--for the Easter and Michaelmas terms of 1469, and for the Easter term of 1471. They are unpublished, and a few of the more remarkable items can scarcely fail to be interesting.

For the Easter term (March to September) of 1469, the personal expenses of the King were--for wardrobe (purchase of silk, cloth, &c.), L1231 16s. 3-1/2d.: and for jewels, L744 13s. 4d.: those of the Queen, L209 7s.: of the "Lady Princess" (though her "diet" and that of the chaplains is reckoned together,) L100. The expenses, board, and safekeeping of Henry VI. are set down at L146 13s. 4d. The keep of four lions, two in Spain, and two in the Tower, costs L10. L33 6s. 8d., divided among three Orders of Friars, suffices for the royal alms.

The account for the Michaelmas term contains less worth noting. We are, however, there told that the annual allowance to the Queen, "considering the great expense of Elizabeth and Mary our daughters," was L400. There are entries of L33 6s. 8d. for "the diet and custody of Henry Beauford in the Tower"--namely, the Duke of Somerset--and of L13 3s. 6d. for the clothing of Henry Percy, also a prisoner in the Tower.

But never was a state paper penned of deeper interest than the one Roll extant for 1471--for those six months which included the battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury, the murders of King Henry and his son, the massacre (for it can be called by no lighter term) of the Lancastrian nobles, and the imprisonment of Queen Marguerite and the young Princess of Wales. The business-like entry on May 16th,--"To the Lord King, in his chamber, at Tewkesbury, fifty shillings"--strikes the reader with something like a shudder, from the fearful contrast between the scenes that were passing at Tewkesbury and that fifty shillings squandered on some frivolous pleasure. The items of expenditure run as follows:--

Expenses of the Queen (one item
including "the victualling of
the Tower") . . . . . . . . . . . . . . L177 18s. 3 1/2d.
Plate, gold and silver . . . . . . . . . 223 15s. 4d.
Jewellery and goldsmiths' work . . . . . 55 1s. 9d.
Wardrobe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1905 14s. 6d.
Armour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 3s. 4d.
Horse, a Spanish jennet . . . . . . . . 10 0s. 0d.
Travelling expenses . . . . . . . . . . 9 19s. 0d.
Wine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 13s. 0d.
Paid to Florentine merchants . . . . . . 6266 13s. 4d.
Household expenses . . . . . . . . . . . 26,536 9s. 0d.
Expenses of the King's chamber
(gifts, trinkets, bets, and all
sundries) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9456 10s.
Divine service . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Alms and oblations . . . . . . . . . . . 4 6s. 8d.

Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44,885 14s. 6 1/2d.

There is a further entry of L135, paid for various articles, of which jewels and medicine are alone indicated; and also of L180 paid to Henry Lord Grey, to discharge all the King's debts to him.

These are simply the private expenses, no military nor state charges being quoted, except in the one instance where the victualling of the Tower and the Queen's expenses are entered together at L124 10s., and it is impossible to say what proportion of the sum referred to either. The list speaks for itself.