This policy is contrary to that which has ever been practised by all
princes who studied the increase of their authority. To allure the
nobility to court; to engage them in expensive pleasures or employments
which dissipate their fortune; to increase their subjection to ministers
by attendance; to weaken their authority in the provinces by absence:
these have been the common arts of arbitrary government. But James,
besides that he had certainly laid no plan for extending his power, had
no money to support a splendid court, or bestow on a numerous retinue of
gentry and nobility. He thought too, that by their living together, they
became more sensible of their own strength, and were apt to indulge too
curious researches into matters of government. To remedy the present
evil, he was desirous of dispersing them into their country seats;
where, he hoped, they would bear a more submissive reverence to his
authority, and receive less support from each other. But the contrary
effect soon followed. The riches amassed during their residence at home
rendered them independent. The influence acquired by hospitality made
them formidable. They would not be led by the court: they could not be
driven: and thus the system of the English government received a total
and a sudden alteration in the course of less than forty years.

The first rise of commerce and the arts had contributed, in preceding
reigns, to scatter those immense fortunes of the barons which rendered
them so formidable both to king and people. The further progress of
these advantages began, during this reign, to ruin the small proprietors
of land;[*] and, by both events, the gentry, or that rank which composed
the house of commons, enlarged their power and authority. The early
improvements in luxury were seized by the greater nobles, whose
fortunes, placing them above frugality, or even calculation, were soon
dissipated in expensive pleasures. These improvements reached at last
all men of property; and those of slender fortunes, who at that time
were often men of family, imitating those of a rank immediately above
them, reduced themselves to poverty. Their lands, coming to sale,
swelled the estates of those who possessed itches sufficient for the
fashionable expenses, but who were not exempted from some care and
attention to their domestic economy.

The gentry also of that age were engaged in no expense, except that of
country hospitality. No taxes were levied, no wars