ABSTRACT
Henry VIII. came to the throne in 1509. He succeeded to a full treasury 1 left by his thrifty but grasping father, who had replenished it by exactions from the general prosperity of the country at the close of the fifteenth century. But he soon dissipated the whole of these accumulations. He spent a great deal of money in subsidising the Emperor Maximilian, 2 and in interfering in foreign affairs, in which he was not very successful, in the hope of winning for himself a military reputation and a leading place in the ranks of European powers. 3 His continental wars and alliances cost him dear, or rather they cost the English people dear, for he not only exhausted the patience of Parliament by his requests, but had recourse to other exactions in the shape of benevolences and fines. 4 His apologists have endeavoured to prove that personally Henry VIII. was not extravagant, and that his personal expenses did not greatly exceed those of his somewhat penurious parent. 5 But the fact remains that he managed to spend all his father’s accumulations, over a million and three-quarters sterling, before he had been on the throne many years, 1 that he had to repudiate his debts, 2 that he was addicted to gambling in private 3 as well as to spending the nation’s money recklessly in public, and that he left to his unfortunate young son Edward VI. a treasury not only exhausted of cash but burdened with unpaid debts. 4 Nor can it be denied that he roused open revolt by his attempts to obtain funds by ordinary methods; 5 and it was probably the difficulties which he found in raising money by taxation that formed a very strong incentive for his spoliation of the monasteries and debasement of the currency. No doubt some excuse is to be found for Henry’s enormous expenditure in the necessities of foreign politics and the wars with France and Scotland, but even in time of peace his expenditure seems to have been extravagant. The cost of his household establishments, and those of his children, was simply enormous; for the establishments of Mary, Edward, and even Elizabeth were each more costly than the whole annual charge of his father’s household. 6 His extravagance was monumental, though where his money went he could not himself discover. Wolsey said of him, “Rather than miss any part of his will, he will endanger one half of his kingdom.” 1 As a matter of fact he succeeded in impoverishing the whole of it. 2
