rievances we should not have failed to have heard of them
when the religious rebellions furnished so fair an opportunity to press
those grievances forward. Complaint was loud enough when complaint was
just, under the Somerset protectorate. [40]

The incomes of the great nobles cannot be determined, for they varied
probably as much as they vary now. Under Henry IV. the average income of an
earl was estimated at L2000 a year.[41] Under Henry VIII. the great Duke of
Buckingham, the wealthiest English peer, had L6000.[42] And the income of
the Archbishop of Canterbury was rated at the same amount.[43] But the
establishments of such men were enormous; their ordinary retinues in time
of peace consisting of many hundred persons; and in war, when the duties of
a nobleman called him to the field, although in theory his followers were
paid by the crown, yet the grants of parliament were on so small a scale
that the theory was seldom converted into fact, and a large share of the
expenses was paid often out of private purses. The Duke of Norfolk, in the
Scotch war of 1523, declared (not complaining of it, but merely as a reason
why he should receive support) that he had spent all his private means upon
the army; and in the sequel of this history we shall find repeated
instances of knights and gentlemen voluntarily ruining themselves in the
service of their country. The people, not universally, but generally, were
animated by a true spirit of sacrifice; by a true conviction that they were
bound to think first of England, and only next of themselves; and unless we
can bring ourselves to understand this, we shall never understand what
England was under the reigns of the Plantagenets and Tudors. The expenses
of the court under Henry VII. were a little over L14,000 a year, out of
which were defrayed the whole cost of the king's establishment, the
expenses of entertaining foreign ambassadors, the wages and maintenance of
the yeomen of the guard, the retinues of servants, and all necessary outlay
not incurred for public business. Under Henry VIII., of whose extravagance
we have heard so much, and whose court was the most magnificent in the
world, these expenses were L19,894 16s. 8d.,[44] a small sum when compared
with the present cost of the royal establishment, even if we adopt the
relative estimate of twelve to one, and suppose it equal to L240,000 a year
of our money. But indeed it was not equal to L240,000; for, although the
proportion