f these lands had been
restored, and others lavished away in grants, but the surplus revenue
must still have been considerable.

Edward IV. was the first who practised a new method of taking his
subjects' money without consent of parliament, under the plausible name
of benevolences. These came in place of the still more plausible loans
of former monarchs, and were principally levied on the wealthy traders.
Though no complaint appears in the parliamentary records of his reign,
which, as has been observed, complain of nothing, the illegality was
undoubtedly felt and resented. In the remarkable address to Richard by
that tumultuary meeting which invited him to assume the crown, we find,
among general assertions of the state's decay through misgovernment, the
following strong passage:--"For certainly we be determined rather to
aventure and committe us to the perill of owre lyfs and jopardie of
deth, than to lyve in such thraldome and bondage as we have lyved long
tyme heretofore, oppressed and injured by extortions and newe
impositions ayenst the lawes of God and man, and the libertie, old
policie, and lawes of this realme, whereyn every Englishman is
inherited."[457] Accordingly, in Richard III.'s only parliament an act
was passed which, after reciting in the strongest terms the grievances
lately endured, abrogates and annuls for ever all exactions under the
name of benevolence.[458] The liberties of this country were at least
not directly impaired by the usurpation of Richard. But from an act so
deeply tainted with moral guilt, as well as so violent in all its
circumstances, no substantial benefit was likely to spring. Whatever
difficulty there may be in deciding upon the fate of Richard's nephews
after they were immured in the Tower, the more public parts of the
transaction bear unequivocal testimony to his ambitious usurpation.[459]
It would therefore be foreign to the purpose of this chapter to dwell
upon his assumption of the regency, or upon the sort of election,
however curious and remarkable, which gave a pretended authority to his
usurpation of the throne. Neither of these has ever been alleged by any
party in the way of constitutional precedent.

[Sidenote: Conclusion.]

At this epoch I terminate these inquiries into the English constitution;
a sketch very imperfect, I fear, and unsatisfactory, but which may at
least answer the purpose of fixing the reader's attention on the
principal objects, and of guiding h