Historic%20Yorkshire

CHAPTER XVIII.
THE STORY OF A TAX
OR, THE
DEATH OF THE FOURTH EARL OF NORTHUMBERLAND
ENRY VII.of Englandwasever readyto seize
a pretext for taxation. His desultory war in
Bretagne was going on, so a tax was laid
throughout the wholeof thecountry,amounting,
in fact, to the confiscation of a tenth
part of the propertyof the inhabitants. The mali-
■X cious and distrustful character of the Kingled him
to look upon the house of York and its adherents with
great aversion, and the tax was ordered to be extorted
from them with the utmost severity. The great seats of
the disaffected Yorkists were Yorkshire and Durham, and
in thesecounties the Lord-LieutenantofYorkshire,Henry
Percy, the fourth Earl of Northumberland, met with so
many evidences of dissatisfaction that he made application
to the King that the tax should be levied at a lower
sum. The King, however, whosechief characteristic was
avarice, whichin this case was assisted byhatred,refused
to make any abatement. The Earl, upon receiving the
reply, summonedthe leadingpersonages of the county at
the Toll-boothofTopcliffe, and announced the decision of
the Crown, telling them plainly that he should carry out
his orders to the full, and to every remonstrance from the
land-owners he still declaredthe fixityof his resolve. The