these qualities, he was no less, if not more exposed to the
usurpations of the aristocracy, than even during the vigor of the feudal
system.

The greatest novelty introduced into the civil government during this
reign was the creation of peers by patent. Lord Beauchamp, of Holt, was
the first peer that was advanced to the house of lords in this manner.
The practice of levying benevolences is also first mentioned in the
present reign. This prince lived in a more magnificent manner than
perhaps any of his predecessors or successors. His household consisted
of ten thousand persons: he had three hundred in his kitchen; and all
the other offices were furnished in proportion.[*] It must be remarked,
that this enormous train had tables supplied them at the king's expense,
according to the mode of that age. Such prodigality was probably the
source of many exactions by purveyors, and was one chief reason of the
public discontents.

* Harding: this poet says, that he speaks from the authority
of a clerk of the green cloth.

CHAPTER XVIII.

[Illustration: 1_250_henry4.jpg HENRY IV]

HENRY IV

{1399.} The English had so long been familiarized to the hereditary
succession of their monarchs, the instances of departure from it had
always borne such strong symptoms of injustice and violence, and so
little of a national choice or election, and the returns to the true
line had ever been deemed such fortunate incidents in their history,
that Henry was afraid, lest, in resting his title on the consent of the
people, he should build on a foundation to which the people themselves
were not accustomed, and whose solidity they would with difficulty be
brought to recognize. The idea too of choice seemed always to imply that
of conditions, and a right of recalling the consent upon any supposed
violation of them; an idea which was not naturally agreeable to a
sovereign, and might in England be dangerous to the subjects, who, lying
so much under the influence of turbulent nobles, had ever paid but an
imperfect obedience even to their hereditary princes. For these reasons
Henry was determined never to have recourse to this claim; the only
one on which his authority could consistently stand: he rather chose to
patch up his title, in the best manner he could, from other pretensions:
and in the end, he left himself, in the eyes of men of sense, no ground
of right but his present possession; a very precarious foundation