y shillings at the present day.

To Richard III. on whom history has cast innumerable stains, England has
considerable obligations as a legislator. Barrington thus speaks of him:
"Not to mention his causing each act of parliament to be written in
English and to be printed, he was the first prince on the English throne
who enabled the justices of the peace to take bail; and he caused to be
enacted a law against raising money by 'benevolence' which when pleaded
by the citizens of London against Cardinal Wolsey, could only be
answered by an averment, that Richard being a usurper and a murderer of
his nephews, the laws of so wicked a man ought not to be forced." And a
noble biographer, (Bacon's Henry VII.) says, "He was a good lawgiver for
the ease and solace of the common people." Cardinal Wolsey to terrify
the citizens of London into the general loan exacted in 1525, told them
plainly, _that it were better that some should suffer indigence than
that the king at this time should lack, and therefore beware and
resist not, nor ruffle not in the case, for it may fortune to cost some
people their heads_. And says Hume, when Henry VIII. heard that the
commons made a great difficulty of granting the required supply, he was
so provoked that he sent for Edward Montague, one of the members who had
a considerable influence on the house; and he being introduced to his
majesty, had the mortification to hear him speak in these words: _Ho!
man! will they not suffer my bill to pass?_ And laying his hand on
Montague's head, who was then on his knees before him, _get my bill
passed by to-morrow, or else to-morrow this head of yours shall be off_.
This cavalier manner of Henry's succeeded; for next day the bill passed.
Another instance of arbitrary power is worth relating. In Strype's life
of Stow we find, a garden house belonging to an honest citizen of
London, (which chanced to obstruct the improvement of a powerful
favourite. Thomas Cromwell,) "loosed from the foundation, borne on
rollers, and replaced two and twenty feet within the garden," without
the owner's leave being required; nay without his knowledge. The persons
employed, being asked their authority for this extraordinary proceeding,
made only this reply, "That Sir Thomas Cromwell had commanded them to do
it," _and none durst argue the matter_. The father of the antiquary,
Stow, (for it was he that was thus trampled upon,) "was fain to continue
to pay his old rent, without any ab