This sum was nowise sufficient: he was therefore obliged to have frequent recourse to parliamentary supplies, and was thus, even in time of peace, not altogether independent of his people.

But wars were attended with a great expense, which neither the prince's ordinary revenue, nor the extraordinary supplies, were able to bear; and the sovereign was always reduced to many miserable shifts, in order to make any tolerable figure in them.

He commonly borrowed money from all quarters; he pawned his jewels, and sometimes the crown itself;[**] he ran in arrears to his army; and he was often obliged, notwithstanding all these expedients, to stop in the midst of his career of victory, and to grant truces to the enemy.

The high pay which was given to soldiers agreed very ill with this low income.

All the extraordinary supplies, granted by parliament to Henry during the course of his reign, were only seven tenths and fifteenths, about two hundred and three thousand pounds.[***] It is easy to compute how soon this money must be exhausted by armies of twenty-four thousand archers and six thousand horse; when each archer had sixpence a day,[****] and each horseman two shillings.