Toward the close of the reign of Elizabeth there was another evidence of the growing realization on the part of the commons that their powers were not to be tampered with. In this instance, the vindication was not against the prerogative of the sovereign, but against an arrogation of power on the part of the House of Lords. The incident was based upon the decreasing liberality of the commons in the years after the Armada. They had risen nobly to the defense of the nation against the peril, but, with the passing of it, their generosity had faded. In 1593, it was represented that, though the queen had spent upon the war some £1,030,000 of her own, the grants of the commons persisted in being inadequate. A message was sent down from the lords which remarked upon the need for a supply and requested the appointment of a committee of conference. Sir Robert Cecil, reporting from the committee, stated that the lords would assent to no smaller grant than three entire subsidies.[291] The commons, on the other hand, had shown a disposition to grant no more than two. Francis Bacon stated the issue. He yielded to the subsidy, “but disliked,” he said, “that this house should join with the upper house in granting it. For the custom and privilege of this house hath always been, first to make offer of the subsidies from hence, then to the upper house; except it were that they present a bill unto this house, with desire of our assent thereto, and then to send it up again.”[292] The commons refused to have further conference with the lords, so determined were they to vindicate their right to originate money bills, by the vote 217 to 128. Notwithstanding this scrupulous adherence to principle, they accepted the suggestion and came forward with a grant of three subsidies, six tenths and six fifteenths. The death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603, brought to an end the Tudor period and cleared the throne for James Stuart. The Tudor era was one which can be passed lightly over in a strict account of progress toward parliamentary supremacy in taxation. In such a study the period of the Tudors is a bywater. Yet the fact that the principles enunciated in the years prior to their accession stayed alive despite the attacks of Tudor subtlety, points to a vitality sufficient to down the Stuarts, and to establish permanent parliamentary control over the laying of taxes. VII THE STUARTS: 1603-1689 [Divine right as against Parliamentary supremacy]