Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/417



OTWITHSTANDING the new service-book, Somerset could scarcely have been satisfied with the condition of the country or with the results of his own administration. Parliament had granted a subsidy; but a subsidy threefold greater would not have extricated the treasury from its difficulties. The expenses of the war could be measured and allowed for; but the expenses of universal peculation were infinite, and from the royal palace to the police stations on the Tweed all classes of persons in public employment were contending with each other in the race of plunder and extravagance. The chantry lands, which, if alienated from religious purposes, should have been sold for the public debts, were disappearing into private hands, with small advantage to the public exchequer. The expenses of the household, which in 1532 were nineteen thousand pounds, in 1549 were more than a hundred thousand. Something was due to the rise of prices, and much to the currency; but the first preponderating cause was in the waste and luxury of the