The King and people, saw how inefficiently Pope Nicholas’s taxation represented the value of church property in the sixteenth century, for if it had not progressed in value in the same proportion as other property, still the difference between the values in Edward and Henry’s time, was very considerable; and it required no conjuror to tell that the clergy had ceased to pay their fair quota towards the national expenditure. Yet the difference between the Pope’s valuation and the reforming King’s, is far less than the actual value of church property in Queen Victoria’s reign and that which is entered on “the King’s books.” It is true that the clergy are now taxed differently from what they were before the Reformation; and that “the first fruits and tenths” no longer go into the national exchequer. But “the Queen’s bounty” would find the benefit of a valuation taken in our Queen’s reign; and if this payment of first fruits and tenths was anything like what it pretended to be, the whole of the first year’s income, and the tenth of all future years, those who dispense that bounty would not have to be so parsimonious in their assistance to the poorer clergy. To the Record Commission we owe the publication of that valuation which was taken by King Henry the eighth, as well as that taken by Pope Nicholas the fourth. In addition to the quotation I have already given from the former valuation, the following entries are to be found in it relative to Paddington:— Officium Saccristi Westm’ MIDD’. _£_ _s._ _d._ Rector’ de Padington ,, 46 8 Officium Elemosinar’ Westm’ MIDD’. Valet in bosc’ apud Padington coibus annis „ 20 „ Officium Custod’ Capelle Beate Marie MIDD’. Vendic’ bosc’ apud Padington coibs annis ,, 20 ,, Novum Opus Westm’ Maneriu de Padington „ 19 „ The year after this survey was taken, all monasteries, priories, and other religious houses, whose possessions did not amount to two hundred pounds per annum, were given by the twenty-seventh of Henry the eighth, chap. 28, with all their manors, lands, &c. to the King and his heirs for ever.