heading “Debts to the Crown,” a letter was sent from the Privy Council “to the lord treasurer to cause speedy certificate to be made to the Queen’s Majesty of all manner of debts due in the exchequer to the extent [that] the same being known, [so that] order may be given by such as her Highness hath appointed in Commission to see the same answered with all expedition.” In December a letter went out to the Court of Wards [Court of Awards] to a Mr. Damsell requesting him to “certify all manner of debts due in the Court.” 4
No individual, dead or alive, was exempt from the quest for cash. Queen Mary’s archbishop, Cardinal Pole, who died the same day as his mistress, was a particular target for Elizabeth’s men. Within twelve days of taking power, the Privy Council had issued orders to Sir Nicholas Throckmorton “to suffer certain parcels of the late Cardinal’s plate which are thought meet by the officers of the Jewel House for the service of the Queen to be brought hither by some of his own folks to the end that, the same being viewed, he may receive the value thereof or of so much of it as shall be thought meet for her Highness’ use, and the rest to be safely returned back again unto him, and that they may be bold in her Majesty’s name to assure him.” 5
Then the queen and her ministers instructed the sheriffs to put pressure upon such of the “Collectors of the Subsidy” in each county “as were behindhand in their payments. Letters to the sheriffs of the counties of Buckinghamshire, Yorkshire, Gloucestershire, Nottinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Staffordshire, and Warwickshire and [to] the mayors of the towns of Northampton, Derby, King’s Lynn and Southampton, [were expedited] to apprehend the collectors of the fifteenth and [the] tenth[taxes]in the said shires and towns behind of [sic] their collections, and to bind them in good bands in treble the sums to make payment of all that is by them due into the exchequer within fifteen days next after the bands taken, &c., according to the minute in the Council Chest.” 6
Before the end of December, the Privy Council reminded Sir Anthony St. Leger, the Irish treasurer, in the name of the queen—andnot for the first time—that the crown must insist on the repayment of the large sums for which he had failed to account during his tenure of office in the treasury in Ireland. 7 Lord Paget received notice that his licence to deal in wine might be reconsidered, and that the Queen reserved the right in the meantime to reasonably demand a share of his profits. Paget was also required to send in an exact statement of the debts due to the late Queen Mary. 8 This was tantamount to an official rebuke, and would have made both St. Leger and Paget unhappy in the extreme. From Berwick in the north to Land’s End at the tip of Cornwall, Elizabeth and her privy councillors scoured the country for cash and a true picture of her assets and liabilities. No member of the church or aristocracy, no merchant or yeoman was spared. And most important in this audit of the crown’s assets was the queen’s navy.
Before March 1559, The Book of Sea Causes , the first such register of naval assets and liabilities of its kind, had been compiled by the officers of the queen’s navy, giving the names of all the ships, their tonnage, and number of men. It assessed the state of readiness of the queen’s navy from the detail of her ships; their state of repair, type and quantity of artillery, the victuals in store, and what would be required at what cost to bring Her Majesty’s navy into a fit fighting fleet. The bad-tempered and extremely gifted mariner William Winter, master of the queen’s ordnance for the seas and probable main author of The Book , also reported on the state of all the ordnance and munitions both aboard ship as well as in the queen’s storehouses. 9
To make matters worse, Scotland’s pirates began to make serious inroads into English imports,
No individual, dead or alive, was exempt from the quest for cash. Queen Mary’s archbishop, Cardinal Pole, who died the same day as his mistress, was a particular target for Elizabeth’s men. Within twelve days of taking power, the Privy Council had issued orders to Sir Nicholas Throckmorton “to suffer certain parcels of the late Cardinal’s plate which are thought meet by the officers of the Jewel House for the service of the Queen to be brought hither by some of his own folks to the end that, the same being viewed, he may receive the value thereof or of so much of it as shall be thought meet for her Highness’ use, and the rest to be safely returned back again unto him, and that they may be bold in her Majesty’s name to assure him.” 5
Then the queen and her ministers instructed the sheriffs to put pressure upon such of the “Collectors of the Subsidy” in each county “as were behindhand in their payments. Letters to the sheriffs of the counties of Buckinghamshire, Yorkshire, Gloucestershire, Nottinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Staffordshire, and Warwickshire and [to] the mayors of the towns of Northampton, Derby, King’s Lynn and Southampton, [were expedited] to apprehend the collectors of the fifteenth and [the] tenth[taxes]in the said shires and towns behind of [sic] their collections, and to bind them in good bands in treble the sums to make payment of all that is by them due into the exchequer within fifteen days next after the bands taken, &c., according to the minute in the Council Chest.” 6
Before the end of December, the Privy Council reminded Sir Anthony St. Leger, the Irish treasurer, in the name of the queen—andnot for the first time—that the crown must insist on the repayment of the large sums for which he had failed to account during his tenure of office in the treasury in Ireland. 7 Lord Paget received notice that his licence to deal in wine might be reconsidered, and that the Queen reserved the right in the meantime to reasonably demand a share of his profits. Paget was also required to send in an exact statement of the debts due to the late Queen Mary. 8 This was tantamount to an official rebuke, and would have made both St. Leger and Paget unhappy in the extreme. From Berwick in the north to Land’s End at the tip of Cornwall, Elizabeth and her privy councillors scoured the country for cash and a true picture of her assets and liabilities. No member of the church or aristocracy, no merchant or yeoman was spared. And most important in this audit of the crown’s assets was the queen’s navy.
Before March 1559, The Book of Sea Causes , the first such register of naval assets and liabilities of its kind, had been compiled by the officers of the queen’s navy, giving the names of all the ships, their tonnage, and number of men. It assessed the state of readiness of the queen’s navy from the detail of her ships; their state of repair, type and quantity of artillery, the victuals in store, and what would be required at what cost to bring Her Majesty’s navy into a fit fighting fleet. The bad-tempered and extremely gifted mariner William Winter, master of the queen’s ordnance for the seas and probable main author of The Book , also reported on the state of all the ordnance and munitions both aboard ship as well as in the queen’s storehouses. 9
To make matters worse, Scotland’s pirates began to make serious inroads into English imports,
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