12.
** 35 Henry VII c.

1.
The most commendable law to which the parliament gave their sanction, was that by which they mitigated the law of the six articles, and enacted, that no person should be put to his trial upon an accusation concerning any of the offences comprised in that sanguinary statute, except on the oath of twelve persons before commissioners authorized for the purpose; and that no person should be arrested or committed to ward for any such offence before he was indicted.

Any preacher accused of speaking in his sermon contrary to these articles, must be indicted within forty days.
The king always experienced the limits of his authority whenever he demanded subsidies, however moderate, from the parliament; and therefore, not to hazard a refusal, he made no mention this session of a supply: but as his wars both in France and Scotland, as well as his usual prodigality, had involved him in great expense, he had resource to other methods of filling his exchequer.

Notwithstanding the former abolition of his debts, he yet required new loans from his subjects; and he enhanced gold from forty-five shillings to forty-eight an ounce, and silver from three shillings and nine-pence to four shillings.
His pretence for this innovation was, to prevent the money from being exported; as if that expedient could anywise serve the purpose.

He even coined some base money, and ordered it to be current by proclamation.
He named commissioners for levying a benevolence, and he extorted about seventy thousand pounds by this expedient.