_Taxes demanded by Henry VIII._--The demands made by Henry VIII. on parliament were considerable both in frequency and amount. Notwithstanding the servility of those times, they sometimes attempted to make a stand against these inroads upon the public purse. Wolsey came into the House of Commons in 1523, and asked for £800,000, to be raised by a tax of one-fifth upon lands and goods, in order to prosecute the war just commenced against France. Sir Thomas More, then speaker, is said to have urged the House to acquiesce.[19] But the sum demanded was so much beyond any precedent, that all the independent members opposed a vigorous resistance. A committee was appointed to remonstrate with the cardinal, and to set forth the impossibility of raising such a subsidy. It was alleged that it exceeded all the current coin of the kingdom. Wolsey, after giving an uncivil answer to the committee, came down again to the House, on pretence of reasoning with them, but probably with a hope of carrying his end by intimidation. They received him, at More's suggestion, with all the train of attendants that usually encircled the haughtiest subject who had ever been known in England. But they made no other answer to his harangue than that it was their usage to debate only among themselves. These debates lasted fifteen or sixteen days. A considerable part of the Commons appears to have consisted of the king's household officers, whose influence, with the utmost difficulty, obtained a grant much inferior to the cardinal's requisition, and payable by instalments in four years. But Wolsey, greatly dissatisfied with this imperfect obedience, compelled the people to pay up the whole subsidy at once.[20]