1404-09-04, Hereford

Commission to Thomas Brokhull, William Makenade, John Colepepir and the sheriff of Kent, jointly and severally, at their discretion to cause to come before them certain of the richest and most sufficient of the lay persons of the hundreds, cities and towns of the county who will be able immediately to pay the sums at which the moiety of a tenth and fifteenth, granted in the last Parliament and payable at Martinmas next, is assessed in such hundreds, cities and towns; by all due means to induce them for the salvation of the realm to lend such sums to the king and pay them to the commissioners without delay ; duly to induce the collectors of the said moiety in the hundreds, cities and towns, in which the persons live who shall thus lend the said sums to the king, to become bound to these same persons for the prompt payment of the said sums from the moiety aforesaid at Martinmas ; to deliver tallies, levied at the Receipt of the Exchequer for the said sums, to the said collectors for their discharge at the Exchequer ; and to deliver to the treasurers of the wars, at London, on 26 September next, without any excuse, all the sums of money thus to be lent to the king, there, for the undermentioned purposes of defence and for the king's wars and for the conquest of his rebels in Wales, according to the form of the grants, to be paid to the men at arms and archers, and to be put to no other uses : for the king's enemies of France have lately landed in Wales to strengthen the rebels of those parts and to do what harm they can to his faithful lieges of England, and the king, marching to those parts in person and being now at Hereford with many lords, magnates, knights, esquires, and other his lieges, has received there letters of the clergy, barons and commonalty of his duchy of Aquitaine, informing him that many others of his enemies of France and rebels of his said duchy have laid siege to divers of his castles there, so that the duchy is in great peril and certain faithful lieges of the same, unless speedy provision be made for their remedy and succour, are like to withdraw from their allegiance, to the manifest disinherison of the crown; so that the king wishes to make provision to save and defend his realm and duchy, to oppose his said enemies and rebels, and, with God's favour, to punish them ; but since all the moneys forthcoming both from the tenths and fifteenths granted by the laity in the last Parliament and from the tenths granted by the clergy in their convocations subsequently held, levyable at terms now past, together with many other sums from the king's own moneys, have been wholly expended to meet the unwonted pressure of the divers wars, he has at present no noteworthy sums wherewith to pay the wages of the men at arms and archers, both those who are to remain in Wales after the king has left those parts and those who are to set out for Aquitaine, nor will he be able to levy money quickly enough for the payment of such sums from the revenues of the realm, or from the moiety of the lay tenth and fifteenth payable at Martinmas next, or from the moiety of the clerical tenth, and so in his present necessity must borrow from his richest and most sufficient liege men the amount at which the said moiety of such tenth and fifteenth is assessed. By K. [Rymer.]