Resistance to Taxation: The Amicable Grant

• The imposition of taxes to pay for foreign wars

  Brought instability and disorder
• Complaints about the subsidy to raise money for Henry's campaigns in 1513

  • In Yorkshire, particularly in upland areas
• Many refused to pay the Amicable Grant in 1525


  • Opposition was geographically widespread, but the strongest resistance occurred in north Essex and south Suffolk
• The dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk also faced about 4000 taxation resisters


  • In particular, unemployed cloth workers who found it impossible to pay the levy
• The whole business demonstrated very clearly that Henry could not operate in defiance of the taxpaying classes
• When Henry next opted to invade France


  He supplemented his extraordinary revenue with cash from the sale of monastic lands