If the father had chastised the men of Coventry with whips, the son was to chastise them with scorpions. Loans and subsidies were the order of the day, for the great treasure gathered together by Henry VII. was quickly dissipated by his successor. In 1524 a hundred and ninety-four persons advanced to Henry a hundred and fifty pounds eleven shillings by way of loan,[339] and this is only a single example of what was then a very common arrangement. But the citizens could ill bear the pressure of increased taxation. For some time their prosperity had been waning, for foreign competition had begun to tell upon the English cloth manufacture.[340] Discontent and divisions were rife among them as in the preceding century. During years of dearth the common lands had been ploughed up, and when the dearth was over--when, "thanks be now to almighty God," as the _Leet Book_ says, "corn is comen to good plente and to easy and reasonable price," the ploughing was still continued, and the cattle of the common folk deprived of pasture. In 1525 the citizens rose, after their old practice, to resist the enclosure of the common lands. On "Ill Lammas Day," say the annals, "... the commons of Coventre rose and pulled down the gates and hedges of the grounds inclosed, and they that were in the cittie shutt the Newgate against the chamberlain and their company. The mayor was almost smothered in the throng; he held with the commons, for which he was carried as prisoner to London; he was put out of his office and Mr. John Humphrey served out his year." A special commission under the Marquis of Dorset was appointed to try the rioters. Thirty-seven prisoners were sent to Warwick and Kenilworth Castles, and seven to the Marshalsea.[341] Some suffered at the pillory, others after long imprisonment were pardoned by the King on the occasion of the Pope's jubilee.[342] But the rulers of the city were highly unpopular, and frequent "slanders" were proclaimed against them.[343] The annals record the discovery of the wildest schemes, which sprang, no doubt, from the misery of the people. In 1523 two men, Pratt and Sloth, were arrested in Coventry on the charge of treason. They confessed that their purpose was to kill the mayor and his brethren, rob S. Mary's Hall, where the common chest was kept, and take Kenilworth Castle. They were taken to London for judgment, but executed at Coventry, and their remains figured on the city gates.[344] The next year a further scheme came to light. This time the King's subsidy was the object at which the plunderers aimed; it was to be stolen from the collectors on the highway to London; the conspirators proposed to seize Kenilworth Castle and to fight there for their lives. These men, Phillips, a schoolmaster, Pickering, clerk of the King's larder, and Anthony Manville, gentleman, were hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn.[345]