ked up in his native county of Devon), and after him a Grenfell.
These are a few names taken at random to show what humble sort of
"Commons" it was that Henry had to consider. They are significant
names; and the "Constitution" had little to do then, and has little to
do now, with their domination. Wealth was and is their instrument of
power.

That such men could ultimately force the Government is evident, but
what is remarkable, perhaps, is the extraordinary rapidity with which
the Crown was stripped of its new wealth by the gentry, and this can
only be explained in two ways:

First, there was the rapid change in prices which rose from the
Spanish importation of precious metals from America, the effect of
which was now reaching England; and, secondly, the Tudor character.

As to the first, it put the National Government, dependent as it still
largely was upon the customary and fixed payments, into a perpetual
embarrassment. Where it still received nothing but the customary
shilling, it had to pay out three for material and wages, whose price
had risen and was rising. In this embarrassment, in spite of every
subterfuge and shift, the Crown was in perpetual, urgent, and
increasing need. Rigid and novel taxes were imposed, loans were raised
and not repaid, but something far more was needed to save the
situation, with prices still rising as the years advanced. Ready money
from those already in possession of perhaps half the arable land of
England was an obvious source, and into their pockets flowed, as by
the force of gravitation, the funded wealth which had once supported
the old religion. Hardly ever at more than ten years' purchase,
sometimes at far less, the Crown turned its new rentals into ready
money, and spent that capital as though it had been income.

The Tudor character was a second cause.

It is a pleasing speculation to conceive that, if some character other
than a Tudor had been upon the throne, not all at least of this
national inheritance would have been dissipated. One can imagine a
character--tenacious, pure, narrow and subtle, intent upon dignity,
and with a natural suspicion of rivals--which might have saved some
part of the estates for posterity. Charles I., for example, had he
been born 100 years earlier, might very well have done the thing.

But the Tudors, for all their violence, were fundamentally weak. There
was always some vice or passion to interrupt the continuity of their
policy--even Ma