That his memory should be traduced by court sycophants and an those who live on the spoil of a public is not to be wondered at.

He was, however, the means of checking the rage and injustice of taxation in his time, and the nation owed much to his valour.

The history is concisely this:--In the time of Richard Ii.

a poll tax was levied of one shilling per head upon every person in the nation of whatever estate or condition, on poor as well as rich, above the age of fifteen years.

If any favour was shown in the law it was to the rich rather than to the poor, as no person could be charged more than twenty shillings for himself, family and servants, though ever so numerous; while all other families, under the number of twenty were charged per head.