FORE:"But what is it," asked Black Jack, "that I shall add to the parchment?"We have as yet confined our observations to the bondmen; but in 1381, an act of ill-judged policy of the nine nobles and prelates who formed the council of young Richard gave rise to a sort of coalition among the lower classes. This act was the famous tax of three groats upon every individual who had attained the age of fifteen. The hearth-money, which had been enforced by the Black Prince upon the inhabitants of Guienne, and which had probably formed the precedent for this tax, had not worked well, and there appeared little chance that the present exaction, framed as it was by those who directed the royal councils, would work better. Certain wealthy individuals contracted with the government for the collection of the tax, and private rapacity thus rendered the imposition more obnoxious than it otherwise might have been.
FORE:Nature had given the galleyman a good and a kind heart, but evil associates had done much, and dissipation still more, to demoralize his soul; yet his natural good qualities were not entirely uprooted: the good fruit would sometimes spring up, but it sprung up only to shew what the soil might have producedit bloomed for an hour in beauty, and then was trodden underfoot, and defiled in the dust.
FORE:"You hold a court to-day, my Lord de Boteler," said Richard, as the baron hurried forward between the ranks of the shrinking vassals to welcome the monarch.
THREE:It indeed seemed evident that some bold measure was contemplated, and Richard's suggestion respecting the monk was about to be acted upon, with only a prudent hint from Sir Robert Hales not to provoke the Commons to desperation, when De Boteler's page approached his master.
THREE:"Let me t?ake him on, f?ather. I'll show him a thing or two."
