These final passages of the book, which so urgently recommend a voluntary contribution in aid of the intended war, were certainly written in the year 1475, with which date the whole composition concludes: for it is recorded by the historians of the day that it was on this occasion that king Edward the Fourth, after he had already raised all the supplies he could obtain by the ordinary methods of taxation, adopted the new device of a contribution nominally voluntary and its amount optional, and therefore termed a Benevolence,[22] but which eventually, when repeated, was regarded with peculiar repugnance and discontent. After this review of the contents of the Work, we will proceed to notice the circumstances of the occasion for which it was professedly composed. The English invasion of France in the year 1475 originated in the events of 1470 and 1471. The temporary deposition of Edward the Fourth from his throne had been abetted by the aid which the King-making earl of Warwick derived from that forger of all mischief Louis the Eleventh of France. At that time Edward took refuge with his brother-in-law the duke of Burgundy, a man as ambitious of aggrandisement as king Louis, but whose disposition instigated him to pursue it by the more ordinary path of martial enterprise. His enmity to the king of France was bitter and inveterate; and it doubtless formed the topic of much of his discourse with the exiled English monarch. Edward, on his part, vowed an ample revenge when the forces of England should be again at his command: and the result was a mutual understanding between these princes to prosecute their common quarrel at the earliest opportunity. Having this object in view, Edward summoned a parliament[23] in the autumn {xviii} of 1472, in order to obtain the requisite supplies; and on the last day of November an act was passed whereby the commons granted to the king a force of 13,000 archers (the like number which had been granted to his predecessor in the 31st year of his reign[24]), assigning as their motives for so doing, that "for the wele and suerte of this your reame inward, and the defence of the same outeward, to assiste youre roiall astate, ye verraily entendyng, in youre princely and knightly corage, with all diligence to youre highnes possible, all your bodely ease leyde apart, to resiste the seid confedered malice of youre and oure seide ennemyes, in setting outeward a myghty armee, able by the helpe of God to resiste the seid ennemyes." The archers were to abide in the king's service by the space of a year, each receiving the pay of six pence a day; and the commons granted for their support a disme, or tenth part of the income from lands, tenements, and possessions of every temporal person, not being a lord of parliament: but, if the said army held not before the feast of Saint Michael in 1473, the grant was to be void, and the money repaid. [25]