rome, for eu_er_y hed or house a certayne small thyng for and toward_es_ the defense of thys Realme, whiche may be ymployed in makyng of forteresses throughout the Realme[283].’ Another significant paragraph, from a letter of Chapuys to Charles V., of Dec. 19, 1534, reads as follows: ‘The King, besides the 30,000 pounds which he newly obtained from the clergy, and an ordinary fifteenth from the laity, which was granted him last year, and which may amount to 28,000 pounds, has just imposed a tax by authority of Parliament, of the twentieth penny of all the goods of his subjects, and that foreigners shall pay double, which will amount to a great sum. These are devices of Cromwell, who boasts that he will make his master more wealthy than all the other princes of Christendom: and he does not consider that by this means he alienates the hearts of the subjects, who are enraged and in despair, but they are so oppressed and cast down, that without foreign assistance it is no use their complaining, and it will not be Cromwell’s fault, if they are not oppressed further[284].’ The King’s minister also appears to have been much occupied with the coinage. He was constantly present at ‘assayes’ of gold and silver, and further took active steps to stamp out the counterfeiters, of whom there appear to have been a great number[285]. He caused a proclamation to be issued ‘for the false and clipped Coyne going in this Realme with a greate punyshment to euery person that is founde with any false or counterfeit moneye.’ The systematic debasement of the currency that disgraced the reign of Henry VIII. had begun under Wolsey, but appears to have ceased entirely during Cromwell’s ministry: it began again after Cromwell’s death, assuming far greater proportions than before, and continued till the end[286]. That the King did not need to resort to such costly methods of replenishing his treasury while Cromwell was in power, bears eloquent testimony to the wisdom and success of his minister’s finance. The latter’s efforts to prevent the ‘conveying of coyne out of the realme’ shows that he saw the importance of securing plenty of good coin for English trade, and that he did not want to create an artificial cheapness. The statutes of Henry VII. forbidding the export of precious metals had been renewed by his son in an Act passed in 1511, but this law had run out in 1523, and from that time onward there was no legal hindrance to the practice, though the statutes enacted previous to Tudor times were still considered in force[287]. The result was that the earlier laws began to be transgressed, and Cromwell, in devising methods to prevent further infringements of them, hit upon the expedient of a royal proclamation, as we have already had occasion to notice.