Henry VIII succeeded to the crown in 1509. With his hand always on the pulse of the nation, he knew when he could carry his designs into execution and when he must wait for a fever to subside. His attitude toward taxation was not characterized by the same uniform regard for constitutional formalities that distinguished his other acts, nor was Parliament on the other hand quite as subservient to his will as in matters farther from their purses. His first Parliament showed its trust in him by granting tunnage and poundage for life, but with the distinct provision that it be not taken into precedent. Beside this, the Parliaments of 1513 and 1514 made generous grants of a poll-tax, of a fifteenth and tenth and of two subsidies of six pence in the pound.[271] Despite the magnitude of the grant, no opposition seems to have been provoked, an unfailing sign of increasing wealth. [Cardinal Wolsey’s breach of privilege, 1523] At the Parliament of 1523, the first since 1515, Cardinal Wolsey committed a distinct breach of Parliamentary privilege. Under Henry IV it had been admitted by the king that both houses of Parliament were to commune apart, and that the king should have no knowledge of the progress of a grant until the two houses be of one accord.[272] Wolsey, as representative of the royal power, reversed the usual process. Going into the House of Commons with all his following, “with his maces, his pillars, his pole-axes, his cross, his hatte, and the great seale too,”--in the words of the speaker, Sir Thomas More,--he asked for no less than £800,000 and required that it be paid in four years; he suggested that it “be raised out of the fifth part of every man’s goods and lands.” To the demand of the cardinal the commons maintained perfect silence. The speaker “with many probable arguments endeavoured to shew the cardinal that his manner of coming thither was neither expedient nor agreeable to the ancient liberties of that House.”[273] Wolsey thereupon departed in a rage. The next day the matter was argued by the commons and the contention was made that “though some men were well-monied, yet in general it was known that the fifth of men’s goods was not in plate or money, but in stock and cattle. And that to pay away all their coin would alter the whole frame and intercourse of things.”[274] For fifteen days the commons debated the question and at the end of that time granted to the king a graduated property tax, much smaller in amount and covering four years in the payment. Wolsey’s displeasure was very great and he made a second journey to the commons in the hope that he might induce them to be more generous. He told them that he “desired to reason with those who opposed his demands.” He was answered that “it was the order of that House to hear, and not to reason but amongst themselves.”[275] Thus rebuffed, the cardinal went away. [Henry’s commissions and benevolences]