that of commercial calculation. All
that immense section, almost a majority of the people, who had been
persecuted by the Lancastrian kings as Lollards, revenged on Henry the
aggrieved rights of religious toleration. On the other hand, though
Henry IV., who was immeasurably superior to his warlike son in intellect
and statesmanship, had favoured the growing commercial spirit, it had
received nothing but injury under Henry V., and little better than
contempt under Henry VI. The accession of the Yorkists was, then, on
two grounds a great popular movement; and it was followed by a third
advantage to the popular cause,--namely, in the determined desire both
of Edward and Richard III. to destroy the dangerous influence of the
old feudal aristocracy. To this end Edward laboured in the creation of
a court noblesse; and Richard, with the more dogged resolution that
belonged to him, went at once to the root of the feudal power, in
forbidding the nobles to give badges and liveries (this also was
forbidden, it is true, by the edict of Edward IV. as well as by his
predecessors from the reign of Richard II.; but no king seems to have
had the courage to enforce the prohibition before Richard III.),--in
other words, to appropriate armies under the name of retainers.
Henry VII., in short, did not originate the policy for which he has
monopolized the credit; he did but steadily follow out the theory of
raising the middle class and humbling the baronial, which the House of
York first put into practice.] shown itself on this point more liberal
in its policy, more free from feudal prejudices, than that of the
Plantagenets. Even Edward II. was tenacious of the commerce with Genoa,
and an intercourse with the merchant princes of that republic probably
served to associate the pursuits of commerce with the notion of rank and
power. Edward III. is still called the Father of English Commerce; but
Edward IV. carried the theories of his ancestors into far more extensive
practice, for his own personal profit. This king, so indolent in the
palace, was literally the most active merchant in the mart. He traded
largely in ships of his own, freighted with his own goods; and though,
according to sound modern economics, this was anything but an aid to
commerce, seeing that no private merchant could compete with a royal
trader who went out and came in duty-free, yet certainly the mere
companionship and association in risk and gain, and the common
conversat