'the greater would draw the less.'

20. =Maritime Enterprise.=--Henry's chief merit was that he had
re-established order. Commercial prosperity followed, though the
commerce was as yet on a small scale. It is probable that the
population of England was no more than 2,500,000. London contained but
130,000 inhabitants, whilst Paris contained 400,000. There was no
royal navy, as there was no royal army, but merchant vessels were
armed to protect themselves. The company of Merchant Adventurers made
voyages to the Baltic, and the men of Bristol sent out fleets to the
Iceland fishery. Henry did what he could to encourage maritime
enterprise. He had offered to take Columbus into his service before
the great navigator closed with Spain, and in =1497= he sent the
Venetian, John Cabot, and his sons across the Atlantic, where they
landed in Labrador before any Spaniards had set foot on the American
continent. England however, was as yet too poor to push these
discoveries farther, and the lands beyond the sea were for the present
left to Spain.

21. =Growth of the Royal Power.=--The improvement in the general
well-being of the country had been rendered possible by the extension
of the royal power, and the price paid for order was the falling into
abeyance of the constitutional authority of Parliaments. The loss
indeed was greater in appearance than in reality. In the fifteenth
century the election of members of the House of Commons depended more
upon the will of the great lords than upon the political sentiments of
the community. In the first half of the sixteenth century they
depended on the will of the king. The peculiarity of the Tudor rule
was that its growing despotism was exercised without the support of
the army. It rested on the goodwill of the middle classes. Treading
cautiously in the steps of Edward IV., Henry VII. recognised that in
order to have a full treasury it was less dangerous to exact payments
illegally from the few than to exact them legally from the many. Hence
his recourse in times of trouble to benevolences. Hence, too, the
eagerness with which he gathered in fines. The Cornish rebels were
fined individually. The great lords who persisted in keeping retainers
were fined. On one occasion the king visited the Earl of Oxford, and
found, when he went away, a band of retainers drawn up to do him
honour. "My lord," he said, "I thank you for your entertainment, but
my attorney must speak with you." If there was a