So egregious indeed has been our folly, that we have even lost all title to compassion in the numberless calamities that are awaiting us.
They valued nothing in comparison of their money: the members had no connection with the court; and the very idea which they conceived of the trust committed to them, was, to reduce the demands of the crown, and to grant as few supplies as possible.

The crown, on the other hand, conceived the parliament in no other light than as a means of supply.
Queen Elizabeth made a merit to her people of seldom summoning parliaments.[*] No redress of grievances was expected from these assemblies: they were supposed to meet for no other purpose than to impose taxes.
Before the reign of Elizabeth, the English princes had usually recourse to the city of Antwerp for voluntary loans; and their credit was so low, that, besides paying the high interest of ten or twelve per cent., they were obliged to make the city of London join in the security.

Sir Thomas Gresham, that great and enterprising merchant, one of the chief ornaments of this reign, engaged the company of merchant-adventurers to grant a loan to the queen; and as the money was regularly repaid, her credit by degrees established itself in the city, and she shook off this dependence on foreigners.[**] In the year 1559, however, the queen employed Gresham to borrow for her two hundred thousand pounds at Antwerp, in order to enable her to reform the coin, which was at that time extremely debased.[***] She was so impolitic as to make, herself, an innovation in the coin; by dividing a pound of silver into sixty-two shillings, instead of sixty, the former standard.

This is the last time that the coin has been tampered with in England.
* Strype, vol.iv.p.

124.
** Stowe's Survey of London, book i.p.