two vacancies at Worcester (_ibid._, vii., 56).]

[Footnote 719: _Ibid._, iv., App. 238.]

[Footnote 720: _Official Return of Members of
Parliament_, i., 370.]

[Footnote 721: Occasionally there were divisions,
_e.g._, in 1523 when the court party voted a
subsidy of 2_s._ in the pound; but this was only
half the sum demanded by Wolsey (Hall, pp. 656,
657, Ellis, _Orig. Letters_, I., i., 220, 221).]

The creation of boroughs was also unnecessary. Parliaments packed
themselves quite well enough to suit Henry's purpose, without (p. 256)
any interference on his part. The limiting of the county franchise to
forty-shilling (_i.e._, thirty pounds in modern currency) freeholders,
and the dying away of democratic feeling in the towns, left
parliamentary representation mainly in the hands of the landed gentry
and of the prosperous commercial classes; and from them the Tudors
derived their most effective support. There was discontent in
abundance during Tudor times, but it was social and economic, and not
as a rule political. It was directed against the enclosers of common
lands; against the agricultural capitalists, who bought up farms,
evicted the tenants, and converted their holdings to pasture; against
the large traders in towns who monopolised commerce at the expense of
their poorer competitors. It was concerned, not with the one tyrant on
the throne, but with the thousand petty tyrants of the villages and
towns, against whom the poorer commons looked to their King for
protection. Of this discontent Parliament could not be the focus, for
members of Parliament were themselves the offenders. "It is hard,"
wrote a contemporary radical, "to have these ills redressed by
Parliament, because it pricketh them chiefly which be chosen to be
burgesses.... Would to God they would leave their old accustomed
choosing of burgesses! For whom do they choose but such as be rich or
bear some office in the country, many times such as be boasters and
braggers? Such have they ever hitherto chosen; be he never so very a
fool, drunkard, extortioner, adulterer, never so covetous and crafty a
person, yet, if he be rich, bear any office, if he be a jolly cracker
and bragger in the country, he must be a burgess of Parliament. Alas,
how can any such study, or give any godly counsel for