Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 5.djvu/122

102 began to inquire into the daily transactions of the council. He required notice beforehand of the business with which the council was to be occupied, and an account was given in to him each Saturday of the proceedings of the week: while in a rough draft of his will which he dictated to Sir William Petre in the year which preceded his death, he showed the silent thought with which he had marked the events of his boyhood. Should his successor, like himself, be a minor, his executors, unlike his father's, should meddle with no wars unless the country was invaded. They should alter no part of 'religion;' they should observe his 'device' for the payment of his debts, and use all means for their early settlement; and there should be no return of extravagance in the household. More remarkable is an imperfect fragment on the condition of England.

Following, boylike, the Platonic analogy between the body of the individual and the body politic, Edward saw in all men the members of a common organization, where each was to work, and each ought to be contented with the moderate gratification of his own desires. The country required an order of gentlemen; but gentlemen should not have so much as they had in France, where the peasantry was of no value. In a well-ordered commonwealth no one should have more than the proportion of the general stock would bear. In the body no member had too much or too little; in the commonwealth every man should have enough for healthy support, not